When we moved in, the living and dining areas felt very small and dark and outdated. There was a funny half wall between the dining area and living room that was really unnecessary. We wanted to take down that wall to make it all move open. Before we could do that though, Tony had to remove all the wiring and re-route the ductwork that was underneath this wall. He moved all the light switches that were in this small wall over to the wall by the kitchen. At the same time, he added a light to the living room because there was no overhead light.
Once all that prep work was completed I started taking down the drywall. It was actually pretty fun to rip out this wall.
Once the drywall was out Tony helped me take down the studs. We decided to replace all the flooring instead of refinishing the existing hardwood because once we took the wall down there were these holes in the floor. It would have been too hard to try and patch the floor and make it look seamless, so ripping it all out seemed like a better idea.
It took me about two days to rip out all the old hardwood. My mother-in-law watched the kids while I went to town on the hardwood. I kinda liked ripping the floor up, though it was a huge mess for a few days. At some point in there Tony patched the wall and the ceiling where the half wall was taken out.
We left all the furniture in the space, we just moved it back and forth wherever we weren’t working at the time.
And this is how it looked with all the old flooring gone.
Then we started working on installing the hardwood. My mother-in-law took the kids again, and my father-in-law helped install the new hardwood. It took about two days to finish. Installing hardwood is one of my favourite renovations to do. It’s not too messy, and within a short time the floors go from rough subfloor, to shiny and new floors!
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