Fliperati

I unexpectedly was able to take the day off last Friday and spend several hours poking around my new house.  It was a mostly a reconnaissance mission since I was somewhat short on time.  However, it was still a valuable trip since I was finally able to peel away the layers of crap (wood paneling, cheap linoleum, rotting carpet, acoustic tiles, etc) that were hiding the true bones of the property.  The results were mixed.  Well, no, that’s not true at all.  Now that I think about it, the results were all bad.  Here’s a quick summary:

• Pulling down some of the ceiling tiles in the kitchen revealed an apocalyptic mess of water damage, wires, pipes and other junk hidden just above the T-bar framework supporting the current drop ceiling.  The way I see it, I have two options here: clean everything up and frame-out a new ceiling –OR- be lazy/cheap and simply put some new, nicer looking ceiling tiles in.  There are a range of nice options for new ceiling tiles, but a real, drywalled ceiling would definitely make the kitchen shine like new.  Not sure where I’ll end up on this question.
• 95% of the walls appear to be covered with the original plasterwork.  This is salvageable in a few rooms, such as the dining room and master bedroom, but the rest of the house will need new drywall – especially in areas where prior owners had glued wood paneling directly to the wall.  My dilemma here is whether I should rip out all the plaster and lathe before I drywall or just slap new sheetrock over the existing plaster.  It seems like I may be able to simply slap up some new drywall since the existing plaster is quite even, but I want to consult with a drywaller before I decide.
• The kitchen floor is covered with 3 layers of vinyl tile and a rotten sub-floor that pretty much disintegrates upon exposure to the open air.  The original wood flooring underneath all this seems to be in decent shape where I was able to peel back the upper layers, but there’s no telling how it looks in the rest of the kitchen.  The vinyl comes up pretty easily and I had planned on putting ceramic tile in the kitchen anyway, so the floor here actually wasn’t such a terrible surprise.
• Although I’m trying to leave a lot of the carpet on until the very end of the demolition process (to protect the wood floors), I couldn’t resist tearing out a really nasty rug that that was tacked to the floor upstairs in the smallest bedroom.  This revealed a large (2 foot square?) patch of wood flooring that appears to have been burnt by a space heater or small fire of some sort.  I may be able to sand it out when they refinish the floors, but the burn may have gone too deep.
• Peeling back the carpeting on the staircase revealed attractive woodwork in very good condition.  The problem is that the carpet installers used about 40 staples per stair to affix the rug and padding to the steps (no exaggeration), which makes for a very nice finish until you rip it all up and expose a ton of ragged staples and carpet nails.  I figure the stairs can be preserved if I spend a little time each day carefully prying staples and nails out of the wood, or I could just buy, cut and install new stairs.  Not sure which would be less work.

I snapped a few pictures of the demolition progress.  Check out the gallery for some terrifying shots of the destruction required to flip this house.