[On to Phase 4] [Seen Enough]

After the thrill of all for one and one for all -- lets destroy this house! Every one left at the end of the day. What I was left with was mounds upon mounds of STUFF! I'm talking about huge piles of rubble from all corners of the upstairs of my house. The clean up took me -- yes ME (well thank God for my neighbor Peter) and my Dad who also pitched in, but a majority of it was done by myself... It took for ever. In fact, I was so disgusted with my progress on this that I failed to take much of any footage of it.

Tools Used:

	Shovel: Used for cleaning up remains of destruction phase. Other yard tools are also helpful such as the rake, pitchfork, spade, etc.		Shop-Vac: Important to have one of these with 4-6HP motor and 10-15 gallon capacity. Do not settle for smaller ones or you will be sorry.		Claw Hammer: Any old hammer will not do. You might think that it takes more energy/effort to swing a heavier hammer. However it does many times the amount of work as the smaller ones. More bang for your buck.
	Wonderbar: Called a wonderbar, and it actually works as advertised. Its unique design gives you just the right kind of leverage in the right situations.		Caulking Gun: Used to apply liquid nail compound to floor joists before laying down sub-floor. This prevents the new floor from creaking over time as the house settles.		Nail Set: You can't leave nails sticking out of sub-floor so use these counter sink punches to push nails below floor level. Nail sets allow you to strike a smaller area with your hammer.
	Power/Air Nailer: Great tool that speeds progress of overall project but comes at a steep price.		Sledge Hammer: Don't even try to push sheets of sub-floor together without a serious sledge hammer - its not going to happen.

The Actual Work:

If you ever watch HomeTime or This Old House, this is the stuff that no one (and I mean no-one) ever shows you because if you see it it makes you wonder why the heck you ever thought you could do this yourself or why the heck you should even do this. In the end one always looks back and says, it was worth it. I'm hear to tell you that as great as it all looked afterwards, it wasn't worth the pain, effort. That is why the likes of HomeTime and This Old House doesn't show you these details. Because they are so ugly they discourage home improvement. They are provided to you out of concern for your well being!

In all the destruction and clean up used three dumpsters.

2 x 30 cubic yard dumpsters, and 1 x 20 cubic yard dumpster.

This also shows two of the present elevation changes. One was from the old hallway that connected Abigail's old room to bathroom and master bedroom (shown bottom center as a type of ramp). The other is a step into the guest room (shown off to the right of center of the picture). In all there was about 6-7 inches of elevation change from the highest point to the lowest point.

First the old floor was completed lifted, floor joists cleaned, and then liquid nails was applied over the joists and then new floor material placed over them. Ideally you should use tongue and grove 3/4" sheets. Note these sheets must be placed a certain way (up/down -- each piece tells you which side goes down and parallel to joists). You'll need a good sledge hammer to push the tongue into the grove. Once seated, secure with ring-shank nails. Make sure the seams are staggered.

Powered nails can replace the hammer, countersink as they can automatically countersink but there is a price for this convenience.

[On to Phase 4] [Seen Enough]

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