Abracadabra and Its Gone!

I've been working hard removing materials from the new studio. It has been a lot of work, but I break it up into manageable parts.  When I work in the studio I bring a timer. I only allow myself 45 minutes to work each weekday, 2 hours on Saturdays and Sundays.  And I don't work there every day. I pace myself to make sure that the entire project doesn't consume my life and to make sure I don't hurt myself.  I am getting older and can't haul and demo like I used to.  So I limit myself. If my knee, or any other body part, is feeling funny I don't work. No point in building a studio to teach in if I'm hobbling around while teaching.

The only incident so far was twisting my knee in a hole in the yard. The yard was full of ruts and divets when I purchased it. I filled in most of them early on, but there was one I missed and it was full of leaves, so I didn't notice it.  I was a bit concerned at first when I stepped in it because I have a friend who had just had knee surgery. But I rested my knee and it hasn't bothered me for more than a month.

Here are the latest pictures:

Here, half of the flooring has been removed (closest to us). Why am I removing the flooring, you might ask? The floor had been cut up with several trap doors and temporary covers.  One large opening is to a stairway that goes to the basement (not in the picture, to the right). The other was the former chimney hole (seen in the photo). And I found another in the living room near the bathtub. The interior walls had also been installed at subfloor level and when I removed those there were gaps in the flooring where the walls had been.To patch all these holes would have been difficult and look shoddy.

Here is an image with all the flooring missing. You can now see the trap door by the tub along the far wall. Another reason to replace the flooring is that I will be installing in-floor heating. For that to happen, I need a good smooth surface.  The existing flooring was not adequate.

No need for a tub in an art studio - so it has to go. This was the hardest work so far. The tile walls were very stubborn and a sledgehammer was used repeatedly with traumatic force. Eventually, they succumbed. Originally, I was thinking of putting in a shower stall to replace the tub, but now I am going to put a closet there, instead. 

This image shows the tub completely gone, along with the bathroom door gone and some of the walls missing. The finished bathroom will consist of a toilet and a sink. I am trying to keep most of the existing tile work and will then match the tiles for the rest of the bathroom walls. We'll see how that goes.

I am happy because I have hit rock bottom when it comes to demoing the house. At this point I start to build up the different parts of the studio. It is definitely a corner turned when, at the end of the day, the studio is actually looking better and closer to finished instead of more of a mess. More to come...