Following the construction on 34th Ave: dem·o·li·tion (d m -l sh n, d m -). n. The act or process of wrecking or destroying

Demo-day ... April 4th 2011

A large fraction of your time in your own home is spent cleaning it, fixing it, improving it. Therefore, when you are getting ready to crush it, mash it, and drive on it with an excavator, it is a little hard to emotionally handle.

"I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I wanted was a club sandwich."

--Matt Groenig

The entire demolition was handled by one man, Jim, in his excavator that he drove out with a semi all by himself. Very economical from my perspective. The original audience included myself, Brook, our daughter, our contractor, Brian Howson, and a handful of neighbors.

Initially, the excavator rolled up the driveway to the back of the house. In order to take the house apart, he planned to munch it from the back and move forward, slowly making himself a pile large enough to reach the top of the roof in order to manually dismantle the huge 30+ foot tall brick chimney that stood to the north.

Jim executed this plan perfectly.

The excavator was an artist. It was so impressive to watch him maneuver this massive metal machine around picking up specific posts and portions of the floor or roof and place them in an elegant pile of rubble. If you were a giant watching him from above, you would think he had delicate hands that allowed him to manipulate small objects. He was able to move these lego-like pieces around and destruct the whole 3 story house in a total of 7 hours (including a lunch break!).

It looked so harmless at the beginning. In fact, one neighbor heard the commotion and had a small peak of what was going on from her window. She thought we were getting a new roof!

starting at the back and moving forward

Crunching the parts, once they were down. The fence you see to the left always leaned!...well...at least for the 4 years we were here.

Master bedroom, kitchen, and workout room are GONE.

Jim slowly chewed on the side of the house like a large yellow Cookie Monster.

As this portion was taking place, I got word that this is where everyone, including the contractor and excavator, were most worried. That brick chimney stood 30 feet above ground and was about 20 feet from the newly renovated house next door. Jim's plan of attack was to build a hole around the interior of our house in order to provide a place for him to put the top of the chimney in case it snapped off (instead of crunched up).

Jim managed some light taps and tried to crush it while still standing.

A crack...that's it. This thing is SOLID

After the Nisqually earthquake, this chimney was seriously reinforced with rebar wrappings. There was no way it was going to crumble.

This wasn't quite the plan, but very little damage was done. One small panel of the fence between us and the neighbors was knocked out. All along, however, the plan has been to replace this decrepit and decaying fence....so, it saved us time....right?

Jim was disappointed, but after attempting to smash the chimney once it was on the ground, he realized there was no way it was going to break. That chimney's fate was already set in rebar back in 2000. Apparently he isn't like a giant with huge delicate hands.

Next, we got to head to the back of the house and get a better view of the damage.