Whew! That unplanned demo day was a whirlwind, but so much fun! I recommend doing it to your house. 😉
After all that, we scraped away the plaster to uncover all the brick on the chimney because #exposedbrick.
FUN FACT: Animal hair used to be used to add stability to plaster (which is what we have on our walls); fiberglass is what is used for this purpose today.
We have horse hair all over our walls!
Goodbye Plaster
There’s something oddly satisfying chiseling away plaster from a brick wall (or chimney) if you’ve never done this I recommend finding the opportunity and taking it.
But Pete eventually stepped in with the power tools and got the job done faster.
While we love this chimney, it’s made the design of the master bedroom seem like a puzzle with it being inconveniently placed in the center of the room. But that beautiful piece of original architecture is non-negotiably staying. Someday we’ll get it cleaned up and looking amazing. In the meantime, we’re deciding on all the “puzzle pieces” taking all the master suite design suggestions below!
Demo Day Round 2 – Goodbye tiny bathroom
I can’t remember if this was the next day or a few days later…either way, the next thing that happened after the unplanned demo day was that Pete’s cousin came over to help tear out what was left of the tiny upstairs bathroom.
I’d never seen the innards of a bathroom before so this was pretty interesting. One by one, out came the bathtub, the shower walls, the pedestal sink and the toilet. All of which are still to this day stored out in our barn, apparently for Pete’s future bathroom in his future shop…
But before they made it to the barn, Pete thought it’d be a good idea to leave the toilet and sink on the front porch for a whole week. It’s probably a good thing we don’t have neighbors. Oy!
Next up (or down) came the bathroom walls.
FYI if you ever rip out your toilet, be prepared for the sewage odor. I never would’ve thought about this, but I guess its sort of common sense. I mean if you’re ripping out your toilet and exposing the hole where all the waste goes into, there’s bound to be a stench, right?..ew. Pete had to plug the toilet hole with a super classy Busch Light box because holy cow it smelled so bad!
More Exposed Brick
And in the process of tearing down the bathroom walls, some plaster went along with it to find…what …more BRICK!! If I had it my way, we’d leave all the brick exposed. Too bad most of the brick is on the exterior walls, though, which have zero insulation. And insulation is pretty important. I can personally vouch for this after having gone through the process of removing all the insulation our house did have, and then proceeding to live through a polar vortex in a house with zero insulation. Check out my insta story highlights to see all about our insane insulation situation. Sorry exterior wall brick, you’re gonna have to be covered. And don’t worry – that story will be on the blog at a later date. 🙂
