Yesterday we (and by we, I mean he) got the rest of the ceiling down. The attic, which didn’t have any access from the house before we cut into the ceiling, actually looks pretty good; which is encouraging. The floor boards in there are non-weight-bearing, so we can’t walk up there, but it looks like there is no major damage or anything. After the ceiling was down, the floor came up. There were hardwoods down there which are not really ideal for a laundry room or a bathroom, so we decided just to take them out. So with no walls, no ceiling, and no floor, Demo is DONE! And I couldn’t be more thankful.

Last night we also took a trip to Home Depot (So far we have been averaging two trips a day – no joke). We got plywood for the new subfloors, 2×4s for the new wall to separate bathroom & laundry, all the electrical boxes for switches and plugs, a new bathroom fan, recessed lighting cans for the ceiling, a new drill, and some other random tools. $500 later I am hoping that the room will begin to look like a room again. Surprisingly it’s already looking better. No more mexican fiesta/neon puke on the walls (or black mold). I’ll get some pictures up soon, I just need to find the camera cable to get the pictures. It’s in a box somewhere…

Yesterday I also headed down to Seattle and grabbed another load of stuff. Comcast came yesterday as well, so now there is internet at the new place! Only thing is that I forgot to bring the computer speakers, so no Glee finale…

The cat seems to be acclimating to the house finally. I had her shut in the bedroom for a few days so that she could get comfortable with the change. Then after waking up every ten minutes to her jumping, playing, scratching, digging, meowing, I decided that she was comfortable enough to go in the rest of the house. She had mostly been sleeping under the covers for the few days before, so it was a big difference. She had taken a few field trips to the rest of the house, but they were “supervised”. I decided that sleep was much more important than trying to control her eating something random, so I moved all of her stuff into our “Master Bathroom” (aka salmon colored tile room with partial plumbing and no fittings). She seemed to do fine last night. This morning when I got up for work she was pawing at the bathroom door just like she used to do at the apartment.

Justin got a call yesterday to go back to work. Monday he is headed for Nevada to help set up a hyperbaric system for a tunnel under Lake Mead. It looks like it will only be about 10 days of work, but that means ten more days til I get my new bathroom. And he’s going to miss my birthday. At least some money coming in will be worth it!

The bathroom shares a wall with the “laundry room” which is about 13′ by 8′ (HUGE for a laundry room). It has blindingly bright mexican colored walls (bright red, bright yellow, bright orange, and lime green) all with black mold growing on them. We decided that the room could easily be split into two – a new bathroom and a smaller laundry room.

Thus begins the demo. Sounds like fun right? No. It’s hot, sweaty, gross, dirty, and lots of airborne particles that can give you lung infections. Yeah! At least we got all the walls out thought. No major problems with that. There was no insulation in the walls which made it easy. And the wiring is all aluminum (the oldest most dangerous kind) so that will be disconnected and updated. Now for today we just have to take out the ceiling and floor then demo will be complete!

So far we have filled about 25 large industrial trash bags with drywall…and many more to come. Whew.

We headed back to Seattle to pick up some more stuff. Among them, we got Gracie to take her up there. She was not happy to leave, but seems to be doing alright. She slept under the covers next to me the whole night. Every time I left the room she would hide but then come out to explore while someone was in there. Hopefully she will acclimate soon.

During lunch, we discovered a dripping noise coming from the dishwasher. We discovered that the sink drain (where the dishwasher connects) had a crack in it, so when water shot out of the dishwasher, it overflowed out of the top and dripped into the cabinet below the sink. Luckily, it wasn’t the actual dishwasher that was leaking.

So I headed back to Seattle for a shower and then came back for another restful night. I’m starting to realize how great indoor plumbing is, and how much we take advantage of it…

I also decided to get the bed out of the garage and put sheets on it so that we could spend our first night there. While opening up the garage, we discovered that the track/wheels/springs are broken, so it’s quite difficult to lift. But I got the bed out, put on some sheets, and after a Hornsby’s crawled in for a good night’s sleep. I think this makes it official now.

Today we officially closed on the house. We went up to Marysville and got the keys and headed over. We turned on the water and headed upstairs to check if there were any leaks…There were. The kitchen sink was leaking, so we did a quick fix on it and then turned the water back on. The other pipes just had large chunks of rust coming out of them, so we did our best to get clear water coming out. Justin kept thinking he heard a leak, but there were no other visible leaks, so we unloaded the one load we had brought up. When we were done and closing up the house to head back to the apartment in Seattle, Justin headed downstairs to lock up and found a giant puddle in the basement. Evidently the company that “winterized” the house had disconnected the pipe that goes into the water heater, so it drained straight onto the floor. We turned off the water, prayed that when the electricity got turned on that the sump pump would activate and drain out the water.

So it begins…