What Wall?

Ever since we've moved into this house, Doug has wanted to do something with the separation wall between the front room and the kitchen. He eventually narrowed it down to cutting the top half off, with me angling for him to construct bookcases on the top half.

Remember the mockup from a while ago?

So Friday night, Doug looks at that wall, and says, "I could have that gone in 15 minutes." Apparently, he's been waiting for his truck to be done so he could cart away the debris. I agreed...I mean, what's one more project?

He marked his chalk line. This was a little more difficult than you might think, since the floors aren't level (seriously?) and they are even different heights on the two sides of the wall, due to the many faces of tile we deplore. But we put a cute little level on the chalk line, snapped it into place, and viola!

Then Doug started cutting. This is him, looking inside the wall before just cutting willy-nilly.

And, many minutes later (many more than just 15), we could see the framing. The first view is from the front room, looking into the dining room.

This next view is from the kitchen, looking at the front room and front door.

And then, the framing was also gone. Doug did a great job of not cutting electrical wires or even nicking the drywall for the bottom of the wall.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up. I spent this morning also cleaning up the residual mess. So, of course, Doug pulled out his tools again this evening. Luckily, he was just putting in insulation (since the kids spent the weekend throwing things into the empty wall cavities. The loose fill he had was a zen-like project...crumbling paper-like material into the wall. My job. When it ran out, he was in charge of the fiberglass insulation.

So, this is where we are today. A half wall with insulation poking out. The front room looks so much more open...and I am really enjoying it. I'm also really enjoying the reaction I've gotten this weekend when friends dropped by: "There was a wall there!", "Wow, that is amazing!", "That makes such a difference!" The shock on their faces is priceless.

Now for the bookcases. I'm guessing that will be the loooooong part of this project.