Guest Room Demo Prep

Instead of taking it easy this Labor Day weekend, Jim and I were laboriously working on the guest room.  We pulled up all the carpeting tack and started to pull off baseboards yesterday.  Today, we finished with the baseboards, tore out the window and door trim, and dismantled the closet.  

We discovered a few interesting things while working on the guest room.  

The first discovery was that the orange flower wallpaper used to be an even more vivid orange.  I tried to take a picture of the contrast.

The picture here doesn't really do it justice.

The orange flowers used to be almost red in color.

The second discovery was that the original wallpaper was a red rose pattern.

At least I think it was the original.  We didn't find anymore layers underneath.

The third discovery was that the closet itself was made from an old piano crate.  To disguise this fact, they had wallpapered the exterior and nailed painted cardboard to the interior.

Here is the proof.

The fourth discovery was that the styrofoam in the closet was glued to the walls, ceiling, and floor.  We had to pry some of it off so that we could get to the baseboards.

This is before we removed any of the styrofoam.

This is after we removed it from the floor.

That will be fun to deal with when we refinish the floors. Seriously, did you have to glue it to the floor?

The fifth and final discovery was that the wiring for the light fixture was done wrong (Big surprise!...NOT!).  We decided to take it completely out for now since someone could get electrocuted just changing a bulb.  This of course means we don't have a light source in that room for now.

This is what it looks like now...a hole in the ceiling with some capped off wires.

And yes, that is the load center (aka: secondary breaker box) in the background that we will be moving out of this room and into the hallway.  We aren't too comfortable with it being in a bedroom...especially the bedroom of any future child.

After all our hard work today, this is what the guest room now looks like.

And

Here is a sneak peak of what our floorboards look like under the sad green carpet.

The padding is so brittle, it just crumbles in your hands.

I've measured some of the floorboards, and their width varies between 7-9 inches.  I'm looking forward to removing all the carpet.  This room would look totally different.  

Even though we were hard at work in the guest room, I did manage to sneak away for a little bit to take some  pictures of the outdoors.

First up is my Chinese Lantern Plant

I'm still waiting for it to turn orange.  You can see one yellow blossom in the second pic.

Next up are my mums...at least I think they are mums...

I apologize for the pic quality.  My digital camera screen is damaged, and I can't see what I'm taking pics of anymore.  I just have to point, shoot, and hope I got a good pic.  I overcompensate by taking many pics in hopes one will be good enough.

I managed to solve a mystery today.  The Mystery of the Missing Volleyball.  Way back at our first housewarming, we had a volleyball net set up.  After the party, we noticed that the volleyball was missing.  We figured that it must have blown away.  Well, low-and-behold, I found it today in our grapevine!  It is currently surrounded by blackberry thorns and vegetation, so we decided to leave it there until the plants go dormant.

That is the volleyball in the second pic.

The first pic is some of our grapes guarded by the evil blackberry bushes.

We've noticed that some berry bushes have started to grow alongside our house where we tore out the hedges.  The berries were strange looking to me; they reminded me of very miniature tomatoes.  The berries have now ripened, and I was curious if they were edible.  We have quite a flourishing crop growing.  I finally took the time to research them, and have now identified them.

Can you guess what they are?

They are pokeberries!

Yes folks, Jim and I have a lovely harvest of the very dangerous and deadly pokeberries!  Oh, Joy!  Something else to get rid of.  :(

What's that?  You want to know the side-effects of eating pokeberries?  Well, let me tell you what I've found.

To name a few: severe stomach cramping, nausea with persistent diarrhea and vomiting, slow and difficult breathing, weakness, spasms, hypertension, severe convulsions, and death.

Not only are the berries poisonous, but so are the leaves and roots.

Boo!  More work for Manda.