Nursery Closet Take Down

Jim and I decided to tackle the nursery closet this past weekend.  However, It didn't want to go down without a fight.  Whoever put it up, meant for it to stay there.  We made a royal mess on top of the mess (that we never cleaned up) from the wood paneling removal.

Normally, we would have removed the closet shelving first, but it wouldn't budge.  We essentially had to cut the closet in half and beat it into submission with a hammer.  I was able to have some fun with a reciprocating saw.  :)  Jim has salvaged some of the wood from the closet and old dresser in hopes of making a workbench in the basement.

Here is Jim being a closet creeper.

Here are pics of the mess we made.

Jim looks like he has a guilty look on his face.

Since we will be totally gutting this room, we also removed the closet baseboards.  These were the only original baseboards left in the room.  They were basically just a simple plank of wood...no ornamentation or design.  We plan on putting fancier baseboards in after we put drywall up anyways.  The wood floor in the closet is painted green while the rest of the floorboards in the room are painted a dark brown.  We may look into refinishing them after the demolition and reconstruction of the room.

While removing the baseboards, we discovered that the one on the short wall actually goes behind the wall stud at the corner.  We actually had to cut the baseboard at the corner since it was impossible to take it out at the moment.  After some more investigation, we believe that the nursery and guest room used to be one large room with the chimney in the middle.  At some point, someone separated it into the 2 separate rooms that exist today.  If this is the case, it makes moving this wall easier for us.  I was a little suspicious of this wall anyways when I saw that the studs looked too evenly spaced.  All the old house books I've read told me to expect irregularly spaced studs.

Also, while tearing out the closet and baseboards, we discovered these items.

First Pic: Old flour bag behind the wallpaper.

(My only guess is that they used the flour to make wallpaper paste?)

Second Pic:  Old hand-made nails from the closet baseboards.

Third Pic:  An old Lincoln log and a tube of Sunbeam Shavemaster Self-Sharpening Compound.

Last week, Jim and I paid a visit to our local building and zoning dept to find out about what permits we'll need.  It's been determined that we will need to get an electrical permit, but that is basically it for now.  Since Jim is an electrical engineer, he is allowed to do our electric rewiring.  We will still need to have it inspected before we close up the walls, but that shouldn't be a problem.  We aren't at that point yet anyways.  We need to make an even bigger mess knocking down plaster and lath before we can start on the electric.  If anyone reading this would like to help with plaster demolition, let us know!  You'll have to bring your own PPE (personal protective equipment) though.  :)

I haven't been outside in my yard much recently, but I did manage to take these pictures of more flowers.

Pink Gladiolus

Well, I believe that is all I wrote.

^_^*

*EDIT*  I forgot to mention a funny little fact.  While dismantling the closet, we discovered that the coat hooks in the closet were still wrapped in plastic!  Someone had installed them without taking the wrappers off. lol.