The next crazy thing on my mind - General Contractor!(Or Handyman as wifey puts it)
The thing that we don't at all like in our house - the fireplace. Just feels like an unsafe structure(for a 63 year old house) and never liked the brick surround on the fireplace and the super old looking tile in the living room. Got a contractor to look at it and he quoted close to $7K to take out the entire fireplace and put drywall. We decided it wasn't that painful inconvenience and left it alone :)
Given my free time, my thoughts started off like this:
* why not try to change the old brick surround and put in new tile surround(Prasad had done it all by himself and it looked good).
* While at it, why not take out the raised tile hearth and level it with the carpet and put new tile there?
* Why the heck not take out the entire fireplace and put new drywall and maybe change out the carpet to fill up the hearth place as well?
Lots of options. :) I felt taking out the entire fireplace might be lot of work, but the chances of screwing up is actually low. It might take me a long time to get things into good looking shape, but I don't think I'll end up bringing the house down. And if things do really go south, I'll just pay that contractor the same amount to finish the job that I started.
Challenges:
The top of the fireplace is 15' high. How do I get up there safely?
--> Maybe a super tall ladder?
Where do I place the ladder? On the fireplace that I'm going to smash down?
--> For now, yes. I don't think this is safe :)
How do I carry the bricks down?
--> Maybe throw them down the fireplace instead of going up and down on ladder?
Checked that the fireplace is not part of structure, just sitting at the end of the house structure and no support beams on top of it. Waiting for the sunny days so that I can start demolishing. What will I really gain? To be honest, mostly nothing. Just doing something different in the break time :P
The thing that we don't at all like in our house - the fireplace. Just feels like an unsafe structure(for a 63 year old house) and never liked the brick surround on the fireplace and the super old looking tile in the living room. Got a contractor to look at it and he quoted close to $7K to take out the entire fireplace and put drywall. We decided it wasn't that painful inconvenience and left it alone :)
Given my free time, my thoughts started off like this:
* why not try to change the old brick surround and put in new tile surround(Prasad had done it all by himself and it looked good).
* While at it, why not take out the raised tile hearth and level it with the carpet and put new tile there?
* Why the heck not take out the entire fireplace and put new drywall and maybe change out the carpet to fill up the hearth place as well?
Lots of options. :) I felt taking out the entire fireplace might be lot of work, but the chances of screwing up is actually low. It might take me a long time to get things into good looking shape, but I don't think I'll end up bringing the house down. And if things do really go south, I'll just pay that contractor the same amount to finish the job that I started.
Challenges:
The top of the fireplace is 15' high. How do I get up there safely?
--> Maybe a super tall ladder?
Where do I place the ladder? On the fireplace that I'm going to smash down?
--> For now, yes. I don't think this is safe :)
How do I carry the bricks down?
--> Maybe throw them down the fireplace instead of going up and down on ladder?
Checked that the fireplace is not part of structure, just sitting at the end of the house structure and no support beams on top of it. Waiting for the sunny days so that I can start demolishing. What will I really gain? To be honest, mostly nothing. Just doing something different in the break time :P
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