We thought the pocket door might make a nice piece of monumental wall art or shallow cabinet or something, but once we dug into the wall we realized that the former opening between my office and the dining room could be a great way to open things up a bit. If the door worked, that is.
It works. We cut out the hole from the office side first, took a good look at the overhead joist that the track is built into, and saw that all we had to do was remove the four two-by-fours on each side that had been inserted in 1931 or so when they closed things up. One side was covered with just plaster and lathe, the other had the drywall on top of the plaster, from our dining room/kitchen job three years ago. So fresh it wasn't even painted!
Pam was the driver, pushing us to keep going despite my physical therapist's strict orders to go easy on the shoulder to avoid inflammation. Nothing big, just some work up high on the ladder with the Sawzall.
I babied it pretty well while working on the office side but then we had to do the heavy cleanup and after a rest and some icing time with a bag of frozen peas on my shoulder, Pam said, let's get it done, so the hell with the shoulder, we got down to the heavy work of cutting out the other wall in sections that weighed from 75 to 300 pounds each (we let that big one down on the "hinge" of drywall tape and mud, so it wasn't too bad, then cut it apart on the floor).
You should have seen the dust flying as I cut out the opening from the dining room side with a circular saw, through five-eighths inch of drywall and an inch of plaster and lathe. It was like a whiteout in there, and despite drapes and dropcloths on everything, the dust seeped through and even made it upstairs.
There was one surprise: the dining room side is painted an ugly green.
We spent a few hours bagging up debris and de-dusting last night and a few more hours today, feeling very good about things.
The door pulls right across with a little effort. When open, it allows light to pour in from both sides of the house, and with a five-and-a-half-foot opening between rooms, our dining room-office combo can now seat 20-25 people. Add in the kitchen and we could do 30.
And it makes my office different, too. More open and light, though that means I'll have to keep it a bit neater. Which I plan to do. Absolutely.
4 comments:
oh yeah, you two are awesome. It seems as though you two have a bit of extra time on your hands.
It really gives an open feeling. I'm very impressed by the addition of a video to the blog.
sheila
You know, this blog takes all the surprise away from coming home and discovering the lack of living room, the rain forest bathroom, and now, the added door/lack of a wall.
Don't worry, Carolyn, we still have a few tricks up our sleeve. But I'll try to get the table saw out of your bedroom before you get home.
As someone who recently opened things up, I heartily concur with your choice. And as someone who had to build footers in the crawl space and put beams in the ceiling to open up the space in my house, I'm a bit jealous of how quickly you made the transformation. (And how ad hoc is was.)
Plus you can be telling this story for years.
But did you have to raise the bar on this blog by posting a video. What's next? Real-time podcasts of your sawzall sounds?
We're heading to Rosarito Beach this weekend, with camera, so I hope to have some pictures up here next week of the potential villas...
Post a Comment