Demo weekend - success

So my last post was some before pictures of the kitchen before the major demo begun.  Towards the end of last week the dumpster arrived and Brian couldn't wait to start putting stuff in it.  Before the demo crew arrived he started to open up the walls in hopes of not finding any surprises and luckily we didn't.

The Hicksville Hedge's arrived Friday night and Bob like us was ready to get started - the pocket door was removed that night :)  The rest was left for Saturday.  Everyone pitched in including the kids and Jane came to help as well.  What a packed day of work that including completing the following:
- built a support wall in the family room, removed the rest of the load bearing wall and putting up the support beam to replace it.
- removed the cabinets, counters, and appliances (man that sledgehammer to the cabinets sure did feel good)
- removed the soffits
- removed layer 1 of the flooring and the thin layer of plywood under it - this also meant hammering down the hundreds of staples that were in the floor (someone must have gotten a new toy as they went nuts with the staples) and a few random nails in the floor.

That was it for the night and we are feeling some drafts - some exposure to the attic while the electric gets updated until we get through the inspection process.  But the rest of the house feels great and you will see why below.

Brian and Bob then went on Sunday and picked up some supplies for us that were easier to get with the truck then trying with the pilot.  You can picture it - similar impact as when you see a car driving with a mattress on top and the people inside holding on.  That is what we feel like every time we pick up drywall or plywood and have to drive slowly home to make sure it doesn't break.

To top everything off the windows got installed today and man are they amazing and the bonus surprise the door arrived as well and was installed.  I was thrilled when I got home today and saw them.  Yep showing my age again that I am so excited but even made my parents come over and look at them.  We are just in heaven.

Below are the demo pictures as well as a before/after of the front of the house.  Shari got some pictures of the kids helping out as well.

The front with new windows and front door

The current state