ahh, homeownership

[moominmolly]

Sometimes you just have to drive a sword through the wall. Life is just like that.

David has been wanting to do this since college, when his roommate tried it and startled the people next door. So when zsquirrelboy and ectophylla came over to hang out and we decided to knock out the archway between the livingroom and downstairs kitchen, the first thing he did was break out his sword.



Only one of us had been a fencer.



Me, I wanted to go all berserker on that shit and do it overhand. I wasn't more successful, but I had a lot of fun.



The goal here was to get it through both bits of wall.



Once we'd succeeded at that a few times, we moved on. zsquirrelboy jumped at the chance to disassemble the wood frame in the archway with a POWER TOOL.



There was a little Pyramus and Thisbe moment.



Then we scored the edges of the archway and ripped out the innards. Woo!



It was a little confusing in spots, but basically short work.



And then when we were done, after the cleaning and lugging and sweeping and dusting off our pants, we sat around and stared at it a while. Where'd that wall go? I did not take a picture during this stage, but here's a later one from my phone:


Woo! No wall!

Comments

[minerva42]

Hooray! All kinds of neat stuff happens in that house.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Yay! I happen to agree. :)

[veek.livejournal.com]

SO looking forward to seeing it tonight.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

It's so freaky! Still!

[rosefox]

Oh, if our landlord would let us knock down the wall between the kitchen and the foyer I would TOTALLY go at it with a sword.

[khedron.livejournal.com]

Neat!

Loved the Shakespeare moment. Very cute.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

you guys have so much fun!

[kiya]

It's always a little trippy to me when I see people I know in the photo collections of other people I know, even though I know, rationally, that we all live in the same metro area so being surprised by Pyramus and Thisbe there is kind of silly.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Ha! I went to college with them both, actually. But yeah, I have the same thing.

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking I hadn't seen a photo-essay of the wall disappearing. It was, of course, kind of surreal for the wall not to be there when I was already dizzy and stuff...

Hats! They work!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Hah, yeah, I bet that was disorienting.

Also, yes! Rah! Hats! They SO work!

[coraline]

<3!

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

the wall between the kitchen and your room was taken down part very decorously by elf my elf, and part by me with a pair of steel-toed boots.

then we found out that the supporting top beam (it's a structural wall) was a 2x4.....!

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Must be nice to know what's going on behind all your walls. Not knowing is currently the bane of Cruiser's existence. Where are the ducts? Where are the wires? Why is that one just dangling there? And how, dammit, can we pull the wires for the minimum of three - count them THREE - different alarm systems that have graced that house.

If we had infinite money we'd buy the next house on our street as a knock down, build a properly insulated house with blueprints for wires and walls, and sell our current place.

Nice Bujoldian moment there, even if Thysbe doesn't look like Cordelia.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

This one time? In our old house? My husband and I decided we wanted to put in a light switch to power an overhead light attached to a ceiling nipple, which we presumed had been controlled by a pull-chain, like the other overhead wiring in the house.

My husband cut into the plaster with a saw, only to rapidly hit metal. It was the former switch-box. Plastered over. With the *live wiring* still inside of it.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Gaaaaaaaah.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Nooooo!!

I hope he survived the experience.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

Thank you. He hit the box, not the wiring. So he was fine. But. . . when we say that house was "wired by vandals", we're not entirely kidding.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

You guys just have the coolest lives. Home renovation is often seen as a weary and unpleasant endeavor, but you guys -- you guys just break out the swords! Really, you should give lessons on how to approach life.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

You guys are the COOLEST. And now I'm having a few ideas...

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Wow, it looks amazingly finished on the edges! Very cool!

We ripped down a similar wall but it had *insulation* inside it for some unknown reason.

[cutieperson]

okay, so, i have to ask. why the arch when the table is still (at least from the angle i see in the pics) essentially blocking that space? i mean, aside from the fun of cutting apart the wall :)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Well... we've been meaning to knock out the archway for years, and it only required tools that we had at hand. I don't really have money, time, or spoons to redo or reorganize the kitchen at the moment. Probably not even any time soon. It still dramatically affects the flow of the space and makes it feel larger, and *also* it allows us to use all sides of the table (which we effectively couldn't before).

Trust me, I wish I had the resources to finish the job.

[cutieperson]

*nodnodnod*
i'm sorry if it sounded like i was saying it was a bad idea. the pics just make it hard to tell what it does to flow and i was curious!

fwiw, i loooove organizing kitchens if you ever have the time and spoons and want help :)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's okay! It's not the best picture, and so you can't see that it radically changes flow if only because you can now communicate between those rooms. And the passage is easier than it looks. But I really really really want to live in the world where I can also redo the kitchen...

[liminal-spaces.livejournal.com]

Hey!! That was just *sheetrock*! You haven't had fun until you've had to knock out a plaster and lath wall in a 100+ year-old house. Dust! Heavy! Those aren't 2x4s!

Looks like you had fun, though.

[artricia.livejournal.com]

Pyramus and Thisby! Awesome.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Man! That looks like a ton of fun! (Possibly more fun than it actually was...)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

FUN!