photo by Russell Kaye

It was eye-opening to see how much could be accomplished in 8 hours—including filming!

For our first day of demo, I was expecting an army of contractors to descend upon my home, while Tom and the guys provided direction, perhaps coming out of Tom’s trailer periodically to do some filming.

But much to my surprise, the guys were doing all of the work.

Tom and Kevin attacked our kitchen walls and ceiling, Norm was on
his hands and knees opening up and inspecting the floor, Rich was
digging out the sewer and water lines in the basement and Roger was
excavating with a Bobcat.

Before I knew it, Tom gave me and my friend Mark harnesses that we
used to carry the washer and dryer from the first floor to the
basement. Next, we got some tools ourselves, broke open one of the
walls and tore out wallboard. It was a great feeling to jump into the
demo and see the room start to open up.

Even more fascinating was

the history that we uncovered. We
discovered that there were three different ceilings and floors, each
installed in separate renovations. The third renovation reduced the
ceiling height by nearly one foot—something that I was excited about
reclaiming.

Tom and the guys pieced together the likely configuration of the
original kitchen area: a window in the rear staircase, a pantry with
cabinets, an entrance to an outside entryway and porch.

During the day we additionally did a “perc” tryout to determine the rate of
water percolation, or absorption, in the back yard. We had been working
with Mike Cosmo of Everett M. Brooks, Waltham, for our survey and
topography, and that experiment would be the last piece of info needed
to develop a drainage design for our back yard.

Finally, we took out those yews that were hiding porches. Roger
jumped in the middle and started working his way out with a chainsaw.
Before I knew it we could see how nice the side of the home was and the
expanse of our front porch!

Original post by Paul Friedberg