Demo Wrap Up

After demoing the house in 2.5 hrs (wow), Dave spent the next couple of days on clean up.

We removed the remaining debris and trash, cleaned out the last of the concrete from the basement floor, as well as the stones used for the foundation. We even found the old oil tank buried in the back.

Dave spent the last couple days of demo cleaning out the remaining stone and concrete. Here you can see the back footing and wall of the 1980s extension to the house. This was the wall under the kitchen floor. That pile of glass was the back sliding door.

Throughout the demo, the garage bay served as a convenient collection spot to position debris for loading into the trucks.

Uncle Dennis sure knew how to build a wall. Dave spent a good 5 minutes trying to pull these two pieces apart. Rebar is strong!

Here's a panorama of the site about half way done clearing the stone and concrete.

Look at this big rock! Dave found the oil tank in the SE corner. Luckily, it was empty.

Dave was also a champ salvager. He pulled bricks for a future-Michele project, the fir beams and stones for the future wall.

The rocks in the background were from the original front wall of the house, and carried back there by myself, Casey, Tim and Michael over a few days of back-breaking work. Thank you gents! The rocks in the foreground were from the foundation, and placed there by Dave in about 2 seconds.

Finished, Dave rides off into the sunset, like a grizzled hero from an old Western. See ya round, Dave. Ya done good.

A lot of nice clean dirt stands ready for excavation work. TBD 12/18/17!

Cornerstone Found!

The massive cornerstone of the original house. It was so big even the excavator had trouble with it. But in 1913 they laid it by hand!

Demo Day!

Well, it finally arrived: demo day! December 11th, 2017.

After long delays, we finally had the green light to demo the house. And it happened a lot faster than anyone thought. In just about 3 hours, the house was gone.

Thankfully, Grandma Eva, Aunt Bea and Michele and the boys were able to rush over for the big event. It was impressive to watch, and bitter sweet.

The Sunnyside house was built in 1913, and has been home to so many wonderful memories. It was sad to see it go. But, it was ultimately a joyful moment knowing the house will be rebuilt. And there were plenty of exciting demo moments! Enjoy!

As the morning light pierces the fog, so too does the iron claw of demolition pierce the walls!

First the garage. It took one punch to get through the roof. Two more and it was gone. Then, Dave (the operator and a really nice, joyful guy - considering he's destroying a century of memories) drove up into the garage to reach the house.

A few scrapes from the claw and the front of the house fell off. It was a little strange to see inside your bedroom...from the street.

In about one hour the front of the house was gone.

Dave finally made his way to the bathroom, where hilarity ensued when he crushed the toilet.

As more of the house got munched, Dave used it to climb further and further back to the rest of the house.

We make a picture!!!! (and photo-bombed by an excavator.)

You can't tell in the picture, but the back right of the house is actually the inside of the boys' closet. Dave had ripped the back closet wall away to reveal the inside of the closet wall, the side you never see since you're always looking "in". When Dave exposed the wall, we noticed the familiar handwriting of Matthew. There he had simply written, "I love you." He must have secretly written it during the Goodbye Party. It was perfect - the last farewell from a faithful house.

The boys soon arrived and got a (safe) front row seat to all the action.

Here Dave loads one of many scoops of debris into the dumpster. All the material gets separated by stone and "everything else." Ultimately, it all gets recycled. Amazing.

Dave moves in for the final blow to the back kitchen wall. The sound of the sliding glass door shattering was incredible.

Boom! With the NE corner down, all that stood was the SE corner.

Like The Last Watchman, steadfast at his post, the SE corner wall refused to fall. So Dave crushed it.

Here you're looking out from the back yard to the front.

One of the many small miracles of the day was Dave's ability to pull all but one of these fantastic timbers from the basement. These 100 year-old beams will get sanded, stained and reused in a half dozen projects, from a nice post in the house, to a mantel.

Incredibly, when the gutters fell, a bunch of moss and mud fell inside the gutter, making them appear like someone hadn't cleaned them in a year. Amazing.

The final pile.

It is completed. Sunnyside has been demo'd. But like the Phoenix, it will rise again! Coming July/August 2018.

Temp Power Pole

Demo has been delayed while the temporary power pole gets installed and inspected. This has taken a lot longer than anticipated. Here's a shot of the house with the pole in and "ready". Demo will likely happen later next week.

The temp power pole. This thing has been inspected, adjusted and "fixed" about 7 times already.

Here's the house with the pole installed. Poor house. Poor neighbors!

Prepping for Demo 2

After getting moved out, we had a lot of work to do to prep for the demo. First, the rock wall in the front had to be removed. Next, the asbestos siding had to come off, and last, we needed to strip parts of the interior we wanted to save.

A huge *thank you* to the Bernstein, Kneier, Bassage-Glock, Larpenteur and Stamschror families, as well as my parents, for making this phase a reality.

Here's the house before all the serious prep started.

First the rock wall had to come down. Mr. Tim brought his huge impact tool to help, and the boys loved it.

All the stone removed from the wall was carried by hand to the back yard. We hope to use it in the new wall.

I love how photos make a big job seem instantly done. In reality, taking out the stone wall was brutal and took a few days.

Next, materials from the interior were salvaged. Here, Mr. Michael "supervises" Mr. Tim taking out Uncle Dennis' beautiful wood panels. Safety fourth!

We had really hoped to save these original painted tiles over the fireplace to use in the new house. But they were set deep into the mantel. So, Mr. Tim once again brought over an impact tool and made short work of it. Michele was very pleased!

 

This shot is of Mr. Casey taking a load of rocks to the back yard, but gives you a good view of the house with and without the asbestos siding.

Prep done! Here's the house with the siding stripped, the rock wall removed, and the interior ready for demo. Thank you to everyone who helped!

And just for comparison again, here's what the house looked like when we started.

Prepping for Demo

To get ready for the demo,we started the long process of packing up 12 years worth of stuff. Once out, we had to prep the house for Demo Day. That meant removing asbestos, testing for rats and digging infiltration test holes, to name a few things.

To send the house off in style, we had a fantastic family party to commemorate all the wonderful memories. The highlight was definitely Grandma taking the first ceremonial "demo swing" to kick things off.

Packing got a little...chaotic. We realized we had been putting it off far too long and things turned into a mad scramble in May and June.

Not wanting to waste a dime, we packed our PODs pretty tight.

We got pretty good at packing. We made the whole house fit in essentially 4 PODs.

Many evenings Michele and I put the kids to bed and kept packing late into the night. Here's a shot of us on pure adrenaline at 2am.

The kids would wake up in the morning, and like magic, the PODs were packed!

 

With all our stuff out, suddenly, the house had plenty of space - especially for indoor soccer!

Once we were done packing we had the Hanzeli family party. It was fantastic to be together and relive some hilarious stories from over the years at Sunnyside. We all enjoyed taking a wack at the walls to help start the demo.

Grandma was reserved the honor of taking the first ceremonial demo swing. She nailed it.

After Grandma, we took our turn at the wall. Ya. It was pretty fun!

Even little Peter helped out with demo prep.

Why not put all the kids on the mantel for a photo?

Wonderful home. Wonderful memories. Wonderful family.

Sunnyside v2.0

After many decades of housing friends and family, the next edition of the Sunnyside House is about to be built. We feel very honored to carry on the family tradition of being stewards of this house, and are excited to share the next chapter of it's adventure with everyone.

It's also a wonderful time to remember all the great memories of the current (old) Sunnyside House and celebrate the building of the new Sunnyside House - Sunnyside v2.0!

After a long absence, we'll be using our blog to post pictures of the construction over the next 9-10 months, as well as some fun trips down memory lane. Enjoy!

The day Grandma Eva sold us her Sunnyside House (December 2014). Can you see Baby Peter? Thank you Grandma!

 

Grandpa Victor and Grandma Eva bought the Sunnyside house in ~1957 shortly after moving to Seattle. It's been a beloved home to many family members ever since. Note: this photo is likely from the 1970s or 80s. There's a photo out there of what it looked liked originally in the 1950s, and we're trying to track it down. But this is pretty close.

UPDATE! Found some old photos of the house. There's an even older one I'm still looking for.

Here you can see the stone wall clearly and the covered porch that existed before the remodel in the 1980s.

I just love the old cars in the shot. And you can see the original style of the garage doors on the house.

Who doesn't like a white Christmas?