Ibby & Cathy's Cottage Building Adventure: August 22, 2012

August 22, 2012 – Demo Day!

A few delays in getting machinery out, so our demolition was delayed until Wednesday, August 22. My Dad’s birthday! Wish he could have been here to share it with us.

The weekend prior to demolition Ibby & I had the chance to go up and see the cottage one last time. Bill’s crew had taken out the ductwork and electrical wires, as well as a lot of the insulation and drywall. A few small trees on the side of the house were taken down. The bird’s nest that came out of the soffits was huge!

There were just a few random walls left that Ibby & I took the opportunity to take a few whacks with the sledgehammer. I’ve always wanted to do that! Guess I’ve watched way too many decorating shows over the years…

The big day finally arrived. Had a lousy sleep – kind of a nervous excitement! We arranged for offsite parking for family & friends, and coffee in hand made it up there for 8:00 am. Tyler on the excavator started promptly at 8:30 as promised. He started at the front of the house and first clawed off the deck, then worked his way through the inside of the house from front to back. He was a real artist with that big piece of equipment. All in all it wasn’t completely down until around 2:00 pm, but that also included delays in getting dumpsters delivered to put it all in. Again, guess I’ve been watching Extreme Home Makeover too much, but I expected it to go a lot faster with one real definitive “swing” taking it down. Instead Tyler took his time and was very careful to keep everything contained and not spilling onto our neighbour’s property. They took real caution with an old brick chimney that was no longer used but right on the property line. One foundation wall was kept, and the others taken down since we are expanding the footprint. Because of that remaining wall, we are technically a renovation as opposed to a new build. New build levies are $10,000 so that was key.

We all took a break in the morning for a champagne & orange juice toast with friends, family & neighbours. No celebration would be complete without Timbits either! Later in the morning Jaime and his housemates were able to come up and see the last of it go down, so we ordered pizzas for everyone. Jaime kindly told us he would fix the house for us.

Many thanks to Theresa for use of her bathroom, and to Judy and Helen for snapping pictures along the way. Ibby also took video, so if we figure out how to post on the blog we’ll let you know. But for now we’ll just let the pictures tell the story!