Demolition Day Is Here!

December 8, 2016

The day after our last AirBnB guest checked-out, we began the dirty work. Months of planning, measuring, online searching and hardware store visits led us to this day. We ordered our new blinds, flooring, and other materials needed ahead of time, so that we could knock this out as fast as possible. All I can say is thank god for 5% Cash Back on Home Depot purchases that month!

 

The plan was simple really, remove the smelly carpet and old vinyl flooring, take out the two peninsula counter-top thingies, and remove the old dinette benches and table. With lots of mallet swinging, karate kicking, and wood prying, we loudly demolished the old wood structures, leaving our neighbors and passer-byer’s in a bit of a disarray.

 

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Will did a great job destroying the old built-ins, but let me just say that it’s not as easy as the Property Brothers make it look on HGTV. He did most of the hard stuff, giving me one small demo project to handle myself.

As you can see below, this was the longest, wimpiest portion of the demolition activity, but I managed to overcome the small built-in TV stand with a little coaching on how to swing the mallet. 😆

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Moving on, we tore up the worn out carpet and under padding, which revealed our next project (and my least favorite)… staple removing. Just to be clear, these aren’t your average paper staples, these things had 1/2 inch long teeth, stuck into the subfloor of the boat which had a thick resin coat on top of it! We got good at popping them up with a hammer and small prying wedge – but it still took days to get them all up.
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As for the vinyl flooring, there was not one, but TWO layers we had the pleasure of removing. And the best part was once we finally had every piece scraped off the floor, a thick gummy residue remained that we quickly learned was strong enough to take the shoe right off your foot if you walked across it!

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…But wait there’s more! The linoleum tiles were not only on the galley floor, but also plastered on the galley cabinets! Will spent at least two hours pealing, scraping and praying for the tiles to come off without completely ruining the wood cabinets we had planned to repaint and reuse.

All we could think is, “Why, just why?”… Seriously, who put floor tiling on the cabinets and reinforced it with extra putty?!

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So, after an 8-hour day of hard labor, 12 trips to the dumpster, terribly sore forearms and sticky shoe bottoms, we finally took a second to look at the progress we had made.

As I sat on the only area of the bare floor that didn’t have staples sticking out, I looked at Will and said, “Holy Crap, We Gutted The Place!” Literally, it looked like an empty mobile home with nothing but walls and windows. To be honest, it kind of freaked me out. Ah! What have we done to our new home??

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About

A Southern Maryland girl who traded northern rivers for that Gulf water goodness. Growing up around boats, full time #boatlife was a natural fit for the “iff” of Team Wiff.

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