When we first toured our house we both decided that this weird half wall (aka "pony wall") would have to go eventually. Our ground floor is pretty small, about 275 square feet, so the last thing we need is something taking up precious space and limiting our furniture arrangement options.
Last weekend Leigh and I got to chatting about how we want our house to look in the long term and we started to get really excited about some big ideas: investing in furniture to last a lifetime, installing new kitchen cabinets, and similar big ticket items. One issue that kept coming up was how all of our plans revolved around getting rid of that ugly wall. That same weekend we replaced the lighting in our kitchen with new hardwired light fixtures. With this confidence boost I decided to use my ample time off to demolish the pony wall. How hard could it be?
The wall before:
Not only was it awkward and ugly, but it blocked off our already small living space into two even smaller spaces and made it almost impossible to have a nice dining area.
The first day was pretty straight forward: I beat the crap out of the drywall with a hammer, a crow bar, and my boots. I tore off all the little pieces of drywall and removed any screws I could find and reach.
Then I noticed this:
That's right folks, that is a freaking steel rod reinforcing this stupid, ugly pony wall. As you can see, it extends down into the floor through a hole. At this point I had no clue how far it went and where it ended. Most importantly, I had no idea how I'd remove it. I actually laid awake that night worrying if I could finish what I'd started.
The next morning I went into the crawl space to investigate and saw this:
steel rod coming through floor anchored by two 2x8 boards.
I can only imagine this is to make the pony wall "earthquake proof."
At this point I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The good news was that all I had to do was unscrew the bolt and remove the anchor boards. Then the rod could be lifted up through the floor. The bad news was that I had to brace the boards with my neck and shoulder while unscrewing the bolt lest the boards fall on my hands/head. Guess what hurts like a SOB today? Yep, my neck and shoulder. I can't even turn my head fully to the right or left without tear jerking pain. Awesome.
That day a very kind former coworker lent me an electric hand saw and two sledge hammers. These items were life savers. I sawed big knotches into the sides of each vertical stud, then beat the crap out of them with the sledge until the broke free. I also detached the wall frame from the red wall and, very carefully, lifted the steel rod out through the floor. This was not easy. It was exhausting and at more than one point I wished I had another set of hands to help. But I just kept hitting the wall with the sledge and prying pieces loose with the crowbar until it looked like this:
No wall, just floor braces and a newly constructed outlet in the wall (fait par moi)
Then I did this little dance where I unscrewed any screws I could see, then hammered two crow bars between the floor braces at various points to pop the glue loose. Eventually each board came up to reveal bare plywood underneath....
Oh, shit.
Yep, after all this work we have a bare strip of floor to deal with. So I pulled up a damaged piece and took it to Home Depot, where I learned that most laminate flooring has to be special ordered to Alaska and it takes 6-8 weeks. So I went to Lowes, thinking they might carry different colors or brands. There I learned that, not only do they not have the color I need in stock, but the laminate used in my 1981 house is no longer produced and newer laminates won't "lock in." Thus, the only way to make my house look non-trailer park is to get new flooring. Oh, and this laminate color is used on my stairs and a landing upstairs, plus two utility closets. This is already getting expensive....
So I did what I could by patching the damaged wall and spackling it. I even added a texture so the patch blends in with the wall around it. The next step is to prime the red wall white and take a chip of the white to Home Depot to get a matching white shade for the patched/primed parts.
The floor looks so lovely!
This is what our dining area looks like now. The idea is to invest in a nice dining set that is about 60"x36" and looks like it belongs in an adult's house and replace our bulky love seat with a comfy chair that takes up less space.
BUT, I did manage to tear down the wall and rewire the outlet AND our ground floor has a nice open concept feel. With new flooring the space will feel very nice and new. In the short term we will cover the bare patch with a rug....
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