Monday, April 13, 2009

Knocking holes in the wall

Well, one big hole really. I guess I should explain. The house is a legal duplex. It was split up approximately 60 years ago. The units are side by side and there was no connecting door between the two. What used to be the original entryway was turned into a second kitchen. Since neither Jonathan nor I are interested in being landlords and we want to have all three bedrooms at our disposal we need to turn the house back into a single family home. 
Alameda has all kinds of requirements for the electrical, plumbing and other fun things and of course they made sure to extort their $1000 for the permit out of us in no time flat. Jeez! Now I know why people do work without permits. They really nickel and dime you for everything! But we don't want to have to reconcile it 20 years down the road if we decide to sell so we just have to suck it up and shell out now. One thing we learned from our friends; in the battle between you and the city, the city always wins. 












So, with permit in hand, on Monday & Tuesday Jonathan and Doug opened up the doorway between the two units. Now we don't have to go outside to get to our bedroom, yay! Of course, everyone loves demo work. That's the fun part. Once the doorway was open they continued to tear out the second kitchen stuff. 

The vent for the stove went up into the attic so Jonathan had to climb up there and rip it all out. The cabinet around the vent needed to go too. Then the backsplash needed to 
come off the wall. 












They tried to get the sink out but the pipes are so old that even with a big ass pipe wrench they bought could not get it loose. Guess we need a plumber for that.
 
Uncle Ted is coming by tomorrow to work on the electrical for us. We have 3 meters (since it was a duplex) so he's going to knock it down to one and upgrade all the service to the house. He also needs to take out the big 210 plug that went to the oven in the extra kitchen.

By the end of Tuesday there's a whole lot more space in there and it looks like a real entryway. Doug spent some time taking the molding off the extra doorway to the outside. We'll have to bring someone in to seal that up. 







Here's our list of short term things to do. Mostly the stuff that will bring us back to "single family residence" status. We have 2 water heaters, 2 gas lines, central heat that only goes to half the house... It'll all take a while but I guess when you have a mortgage, all you have is time after that. 

2 comments:

Eliza Linley said...

Love the blog! You are so organized! And it's a great way to keep a record.When's moving day?Looks like you'll me moved in for your first wedding anniversary...
xxoo,

E. & D.

Unknown said...

Looks good! I'm so happy for you guys!