Demolition

 It is finally happening. 

We closed on this house on December 28th, 2003.

We spent last summer here from the early July to late October.

This year we arrived in early May, and will leave in early November.

Throughout all that time we have been working with our architects, our general contractor, our landscape architect, and various skilled craftsmen and trades. All to take a perfectly livable house (well, ALMOST perfectly) and turn it into something that reflects our needs and wants. Mostly wants.

There have been a lot of false starts, and a lot of revisions as we have seen plans and made changes. 

We have need surprised at costs, and worked diligently at "Value Engineering" to address those things we have to have, verses the ones we want to have.

Then, on Sunday morning, the first change happened.

Our cool old stove:

was gone.

Donated to what we hope is a good home.

And then with our demo permit in place, and our asbestos testing coming in negative, the first demolition started in earnest.

The "Ejecto" has been ejected.

The Pink Sink is sunk

My beloved Cherokee Red linoleum has been blocked and reported

The Expulso has been expulsed

This is hard for me to watch.

But I know that while all change is loss, and loss must be mourned, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

So here's to the old Bogk, and on to the new Bogk. Broken eggs and all.

A new perspective

 Adam took our landscape plan an laid it into a perspective of the house.

Makes it look quite nice! (Thanks, Adam)

Next up, some demo photos! 

Moving Out

 Demolition starts next week.

We are moving out of the house tomorrow.

We have the best neighbors in the world, and three of them offered to let us stay in their places while construction is on-going. The folks right to our east, and I mean EXACTLY to our east, have offered  their carriage house for the duration. It is a very nice, and well appointed one bedroom, one bath that looks out onto the Bogk house.

View of the Bogk House from the Carriage House

We have moved clothes, some kitchen goods and supplies, and various miscellanea that we will need while we are still in Milwaukee, as well as the items we will need for the drive back to Houston. But I can tell you this - even if you have been in a place for a relatively short time (under two years) you have a lot of stuff in your kitchen and bathrooms, which are the rooms that are being renovated.

We moved our stuff over the course of two days, and I believe that we made at least 15, maybe 20 trips in the car. We would load up our boxes, drive the 0.2 miles to the carriage house:

then we would walk with the 10 boxes or so we could fit into the car up stairs, unload them, go back down and start all over again.

It was very tiring.