First step to home remodeling: Demolition

The Mod House Project is in full swing.

I must say watching the changes happen right before my eyes is pretty damn exciting!

This past weekend, we were able to completely demo our house. I know! Pat on the back to my hubs and Big Joe who made this all happen so quickly.

The house looks like a construction zone right now with dust flying in all angels, tile shards covering the floor and danger lurking in every corner.  I totally understand now why my hubby, Mike, forced me to buy safety boots.

I will admit, I underestimated the amount of work this job requires (especially when I keep changing my mind day-to-day).  Although we didn’t completely gut the entire house, we are pretty close to it at this point just minus the walls and a couple of bathrooms.

Here’s what we did so far:

√  Removed the old kitchen
√  Widen a doorway between our kitchen and dinning room
√  Removed all the flooring in the house (tile & carpet)
√  Strip the staircase
√  Relocate electrical outlets in the kitchen

The pro of doing this renovation ourselves means we get to save major bucks on labour costs.  The con—it will take us longer to complete since majority of the work is done during the weekends.

The carpet was probably one of the easier things to take out.  Let me tell you 20 year old carpet (as clean as it looks), really isn’t.  The amount of dust, dirt and god knows what that accumulates in the under pad is just plain out nasty.  Not to mention these nail strips were a b*$ch to take out.

The tile floor which I applaud hubs and Big Joe for doing is a messy and labor intensive job. I sort of hung around in the background for this part, cleaning up as much broken tile as I could.  My arm muscles are not quite defined for this type of work yet! Thanks boys 🙂

As for the existing kitchen, I’m so glad I planned ahead of time for this one.  I actually sold the kitchen cabinets and countertops on a Facebook group dedicated to selling used home items such as furniture and accessories in the GTA.

Now incase anyone is wondering or in a similar situation, I ended up selling the kitchen for $300 which stirred up quite an interest.  I even had a few people private message me to

tell me I could have sold the kitchen higher between the $500-700 price range. Crazy eh!?! However, all I needed was a quick sale and somebody to pick it up from the house.  It worked, I was happy.

(Tip: I would totally recommend that you check out your local Facebook groups to sell any unwanted items. Such a great way to clear the house!)

Another great option to remove your kitchen is finding a local charity to pick it up, similar to this one.  There are a ton of organizations that will come directly to your house and dismantle it for you.  In most cases, you can even receive a tax slip for the amount they sold it for.

By the end of the demolition weekend, we completely filled our garbage bin in no time, we’ve got the neighbours all curious about our remodelling plans and I think my safety boots just gave me some new form of  ‘swag’.

A lot of people think we’re crazy for doing all this work.  Some don’t even understand it. . . .

But Mike and I, we love this sh*t!