REO Speedwagon!

(WARNING: This thing isn't letting me edit font or spacing again so just keep scrolling to get to the text) (cripes)

Remember that '80s band REO Speedwagon...well, just keep them in mind. We'll get to that in a bit.




Today's activities:


1) Tearing out the bottom 2feet of walls


2) Washing poowater off pipes and whatnot in the basement

3) Tearing up floors

4) Eating lovely food

...and much much more.



Here are some images of the walls:

















That's the living room. The poowater was 9" deep on the main level and the advice has been to take out the wallboard/plaster 2feet up. That way you cut one drywall sheet in half (they apparently come in 4x8foot sheets) and get the most bang for your labor-buck.

NORMALLY you would NOT see a scoop shovel cavalierly sitting on Sher's lovely 3/4inch oak floor. But...the floor was dead (dead floor lying there) so the rules don't apply.


Here's the wall removal system. First,

















Shelly and Brian, our lovely cousin and cousin-in-law from Minnesota (he's a construction worker, ya), cut the wall at 2 feet with a skill saw set to the right depth to hit wall, but not studs or electrical work. Shelly follows with a shop vac to keep most of the dust under control. This worked pretty well. You can see in both pictures the plastic taped over things to also help with dust control.



THEN, the demolition team goes to work.

Here are Megan (SORRY about the spelling...I have no idea how Megan/Meghan/Meghanne/?? spells her name), Shelly and Brian's daughter, and Pam using small sledge hammers and crowbars to tear out the wall board below the cut.

Then someone takes a scoop shovel, clears up the wall debris and loads it on the truck headed for the dump.

I tried some wallboard but my arm (bad tendon) could take about 10 whacks with the sledge and suddenly I had hook hand. So, back to the basement poowater patrol for me!

Obviously, that is not me in the photo. That is Sher (note the coordinated top and gloves...she was voted best dressed in high school you know...her public counts on her to have a lovely ensemble for every occasion). She's using one of the Red Cross clean-up buckets.
Pam was also on poowater patrol for a while. We have about 75% of the basement pipes and cables washed. Once we're done with those, we need to do the duct work that can't be removed (that house is well built). (Like me...heh heh).


At some point a decision had to be made about the hardwood. The advice from Brian tipped the scales. He's a builder and said the moisture would have to be taken down to 6 or 7% in the wood to know for sure that the mold would not come back. That is pretty tough and would cost thousands. Almost as many thousands as a new floor. And it might not work. Also, the paper between the wood floor and the subfloor could be full of mold. So the floor has to go. We'll see how much of that they get done tomorrow. One a bit of wall left to go out.


We'll get to the food at the end. First, here is the COOL truck they got to use for hauling trash.

And our cousin Sara Jane at the helm (she didn't drive, just pretended).















Look at those guns! The girl has some serious biceps.
















This truck is an ACTUAL REO Speedwagon. The manufacture is REO (people here pronounce it "rio" as in "rio grand" not "r" "e" "o" like the band). They used to make fire trucks. The story is some guy drove this from Pennsylvania...at a top speed of 40miles an hour. Anyway, it's cool and hauls a lot of trash. The wallboard and floor don't sit around to depress anyone. It's gone as soon as it's out. The truck belongs to Al and Jackie Miller. Such a generous loan. Most people with a truck like this wouldn't do actual work with it much less let someone else drive it. We did get a kick out of the box of Decon rodent poison sitting on the floor.

Now for the food report:
Breakfast was on your own.
Lunch: there were two. Brian likes to have a sandwich at 10am so we all had a sandwich at 10am. Shelly and Brian brought fruit, sandwich makings, and fresh veg so that was first lunch.
Second lunch at about 1pm was the same only I brought some cake because I like a bit of cake. (go to time point 2:00 or so to get to the point).

Sara Jane had brought fresh picked strawberries with her so we ate PLENTY of those. Delicious.

At about 5 or 5:30 the boys, Fred and Brian, went fishing. Us girls had some cake and coffee then showered (no...not all together. In fact we showered in 3 different establishments).

For supper we ordered from Pizza Ranch and used Sam and Gary's gift certificate (just a small portion of it actually!). Chicken, pizza, broasted potatoes, coleslaw, and cheese bread. Rob (Pam's squeeze) picked up Dairy Queen treats for dessert. I had some more cake. Can't eat that much dairy.

I'm sure there was more food but I'm coming down off the sugar high so I'm having trouble focusing.
Must be time for me to get back on the Wii Fit and see how much weight I gained today.

Oh! One final note for those following my No 'Poo (that means "no shampoo") adventure...Pam looked at my hair which I did not wash today, just brushed, and said, "your hair looks pretty good considering." But when I did brush it out...I was showered in plaster dust. I'll wash it tomorrow night. No point in doing it today.