So started the avalanche. We began by tearing out the kitchen, the one thing we knew right up front needed a major overhaul. This involved carefully pulling off trim, removing cabinets, and pulling up heinous linoleum flooring. We ended up tossing the cabinets because it will be years before we have a garage to consider putting them in, we're still on the fence with respect to a lot of the trim (hint: we have yet to install our trim), and I really regret spending the time and energy we wasted pulling up any of the kitchen flooring/sub-flooring (sorry Bearcat!) as we ended up putting laminate tile down that honestly would have benefited from a smoother subfloor than what our ancient hardwoods offered.
Demo is the one thing that any diy-er can save money on, regardless of experience or know-how. Just be safe and don't break anything you might want to keep. And as with anything, the better your equipment and plans, the better your outcome. Note: make sure you are aware of where your electric and plumbing run behind walls tagged for demo and always be sure to turn off power and water to affected areas.
You will go through a lot of gloves. Buy comfortable ones that fit well and be ready to buy several pairs. Buy the most comfortable and effective mask you can afford (do your best to try them on) and give up the dream of finding enclosed safety goggles that won't fog up right now. The best pairs we used were some combination of dangerous, uncomfortable, and ineffective...without exception. But they are an absolute necessity. Every minute you "waste" adjusting them or taking them off to clean them could be a minute you won't have to figure how to live without your sight. And you will still get crap in your eyes...just (hopefully) not shrapnel if you use them right. Get sturdy, safety work shoes/boots. I remember one day thinking I had something in my shoe and taking off my sneaker to find the point of a nail poking through the sole. They are worth it as well. Along the same lines, it's better to be hot than to have tetanus so dress for the job...long sleeves, jeans, etc.
So after some grueling summer days of what we thought was grim demo labor (we had no idea), our kitchen looked like this (pic below from opposite end of room as pic above).
This sort of thing ultimately happened to every room of the house aside from the upstairs bathroom (and even that wasn't completely spared, although in retrospect we should have left the toilet in there too).
The walls in the kitchen were taken off and found to be plaster lath, sans most of the plaster which was nice. We sort of hoped to continue that trend but it was not to be. We found out shortly after that under our ceilings were nearly-intact plaster/lath works of pre-sheetrock art.
Generally speaking, our ceilings were in rough shape. They were covered with a sort of crusty, fibrous paneling that was sagging in several spots (due to crumbling plaster we were soon to find out), looked like hell, and generally screamed for replacement. Our walls, we felt at the time, were in good enough shape to leave up...saving us some demo time and drywall dollars. So we set about bringing down the ceilings on the first floor.
Tips for work like this...you'll need something to cover the floor, contractor bags, a wheelbarrow, choice implements of destruction (in our case a wonderbar and a superbar), helmets (seriously...wear a helmet of some sort while pulling heavy slabs of paneling and plaster and boards with rusty nails in them off the ceiling), safety goggles, heavy long sleeved clothing, hair covering, gloves, and safety shoes. Put your floor covering in place, don your safety gear, and start swinging. I tried initially to pull things down in an orderly fashion and for the paneling, this was key. But after all the big chunks of already-sagging plaster had come down and things would only crumble when teased, reaching up and yanking down on the lath with the prybars worked the best. Gathering the lath and bundling it up as well as laying down the floor covering (which also protected our original hardwoods) helped a great deal with cleanup, which was a pain. Contractor bags get very heavy very fast when being filled with plaster so don't get zealous and overfill them. And use that wheelbarrow. Do NOT drag the full bags...fill them only so full as to be able to load them into a wheelbarrow and cart them to your (hopefully) waiting dumpster. However dusty and gross you think work like this might be, it is far far more dusty and gross.
Let's take a moment to get something straight. Some people will describe to you a process of renovation that involves room by room demo and redesign, all while you're living there. If you have to live there, and you have to renovate...then this has to work. If you have any option to not live there and the renovations are widespread and/or involve some combination of complete system replacements (HVAC, plumbing, and electric) DO IT ALL AT ONCE. Suffer terribly for 6 months or a year instead of marginally for 20 years. Because no matter what your schedule, it will stretch out...and you're always going to be doing work to your house. But if you get all of the really painful and serious work out of the way at once without the pressure of having to co-habitate with it, you're better off than saving it and drawing it all out for decade upon decade.
That said, we ultimately opted to tear off all of our walls...which were compsed of heavily painted and wallpapered sheetrock over a combination of lath and plaster/lath. As more and more people advised us to do as much as we could at the time...the further our demo project went. Until we had taken the whole house apart.
I'll talk about our structural woes next...
