renovation, week 1

Hey guys, I have been procrastinating on writing this blog post, but here are some pics from the first week of working on our house.

Week 1: July 9-15

This is the view of our living room from standing at the front door. The original plan was to replace all the wood paneling with drywall.  So Tim, Will, Kevin, and Josh each picked a wall and started pulling it apart.

They quickly realized that the wood paneling was not only nailed to the studs, but glued and stapled as well.  It was extremely difficult to pull apart, and something just didn't seem right.  They consulted our friend, Charlie (who we have hired to help us out a little bit) and he confirmed their suspicions that all the walls in the entire house were prefabricated in a factory somewhere (Fort Wayne, to be exact).

Because of this, it was going to be a nightmare to pull down, so we decided just to hang the drywall on top of the paneling.  However, we still had to finish pulling the paneling off the walls they had started, and also take down all the trim, etc.  Colleen and I were really good at pulling out nails.

This is the BEFORE pic of the kitchen:

As you can see below, we knocked down a wall and built a new half-wall.  And when I say "we" I mean, Charlie.  We also took down the gross patterned paneling that the previous owner had lovingly chosen to cover the water damage above the side door.

 Well, that is all for week 1.  More pics to come!