Kitchen Day 4: Knock out

I actually did some work in the kitchen today.  My first task was to pound in all the staples that had been used to attach the underlayment for the old kitchen floor.  They were impossible to pull out of the soft tile, and it turns out we didn't have anything sharp enough to nip them off.  So, I went to the hardware store to buy myself my own heavy-duty hammer and spent the next 2 1/2 hours pounding them in or bending them over and then sweeping everything up.  I should have taken a picture of the little scooter I used to move around.  It was a homemade thing Austin constructed back in Denver to create mobile filing cabinets.

My second task was to knock out the rest of the plaster wall dividing the kitchen and dining area.  It is nasty stuff to deal with.  It is basically drywall with a 1/2" layer of hard, cement-like plaster smeared over and reinforced with chicken wire.  Plus there is tight-weave diamond mesh on all the corners.  It is heavy, dusty and difficult to deal with.  I spent two hours knocking chunks out with a hammer and snipping off enough wire mesh to clean up most of the debris.  I was certainly dressed for the occasion!  Plaster dust gets to me and makes my lungs ache. 

Meanwhile, Austin removed the original back entry door and filled in the hole. He also got most of the back porch area re-sided. The inside corner was very tricky.  It took well over an hour to figure out how to go around the re-located outlet to the left of the new door.