Planning a renovation? Completing your own home remodel demolition can save you a boatload of money, but isn’t for the faint of heart. Put on some grubby clothes, pull on your gloves, and let’s get to work!
Hi, friends! Today’s post is all about the demolition phase of our home remodel. I’ve included some handy affiliate links for products that were indispensable to the success of our demo! You can catch up on the latest news by reading more about the remodel saga.
Without further adieu, here are the 7 Lessons I Learned During our Home Remodel Demolition:
1. It is Gross
There’s really no getting around this one. As nasty as something might seem on the surface, just wait until you start pulling it out and you see what’s underneath!
Urine stained carpet is bad enough, but then when you have to pull out urine stained carpet pad and urine stained chipboard, you’ll understand what I mean.
Another thing that no one warned me about was the prevalence of rodent feces on a remodel jobsite. Seriously, it’s like everywhere. We found literal rat’s nests in our crawl space, and even discovered a pile of dog food squirreled away by rats under our kitchen cabinets.
Throw in years of cigarette smoke residue and you’ve got yourself a big old mess of YUCK. Put on your work gloves and get over it – you’ll feel so much better once all of that crap is out of your house!
2. Have a Plan in Place for Trash
Definitely plan to get a big dumpster from your local waste management company.
Some items can be re-used, re-purposed, or given away on Craigslist (one person’s trash is another person’s treasure!), but some stuff just needs to never see the light of day again. You know, like all of that urine stained carpet you just pulled out!
We are lucky enough to have a space for a big burn pile on the property, so we made sure to keep separate piles for “trash,” “keep,” “donate,” and “burn.”
3. Collect Your Tools In Advance
There are a few tools that you will find invaluable for your home remodel demolition, and it’s best to round them all up ahead of time before you start your project. The less trips you have to make to the home improvement store, the better!
Designate a specific location to keep all of your tools and be sure to put them back there at the end of the day. It’s no fun to spend half your morning searching for your missing work gloves!
Here are the tools we used over and over again during our remodel demolition:
- A good crowbar
- A sturdy chisel (to remove wallpaper, floor staples and stubborn carpet pad)
- Contractor grade trash bags (found at Home Depot)
- Good work gloves
- Light-weight hammer (we used this awesome framing hammer)
- Utility knife and replacement blades
- Electric drill and bits
- Spray bottle (for wallpaper removal)
- Bucket (for plumbing fiascos)
- Broom and Dustpan (keep it clean, people)
- Shop Vac (get one with a filter that can suck up drywall dust, like this one from Rigid)
- Flat head screwdriver (to remove switch and receptacle plates)
- I also bought protective goggles and masks for everyone but no one ever used them!
4. Don’t Be So Darn Careful!
Realistically, the only things you need to worry about protecting from damage are your drywall, windows, bath tubs, and anything that will stay in the house.
We kept the solid oak bull nosing on the stairs so we could re-use it in the finished house.
Don’t worry about nicking up anything that you are planning to rip out. When you’re tearing out old baseboards, you should be careful not to damage the drywall, but it doesn’t matter if the old trim gets dinked up.
Basically, you can be a lot rougher than you think. Your crowbar will become your best friend! It’s really just using a few different methods to yank and pull stuff out of the house. You’ll be amazed at what everything looks like underneath. It really demystifies the home building process!
5. There’s a Method to the Madness
New cabinets can take quite a while to build, so it’s nice to get the old cabinets out of the way early on so your space can be accurately measured. This really helps you plan out your new space!
Next, focus on removing the carpets and carpet pad so you’ll have a nice, easy-to-clean chipboard floor.
It’s a lot easier to sweep up stray nails, staples, and debris from a flat, even surface than it is to let all of that mess fall onto your old carpet. Besides, you’ll need to get the carpet out of the way before you can remove all of your old shelving, door jams, and anything else that may have been installed before the old carpet.
Use a carpet knife or sharp utility knife to cut the carpet into manageable sections. Roll it up and carry it out of the house. The carpet pad should pull off easily from the ground; roll this stuff up, too, before disposal.
You may need to remove the baseboard around door frames before you can get to the carpet. Start in a corner or at a door jam and pull it up from there. It should release pretty easily from the staples. Use a razor blade tool or sturdy chisel to remove the staples left behind.
Baseboards and trim are easily removed with a crow bar. I prefer using my Wonder Bar rather than thick styled bars. Think back to your high school physics classes and utilize leverage to your advantage. When removing the baseboards, be careful not to let your tools press against the drywall too much or they will break through and then you’re stuck repairing drywall.
If you have wallpaper that needs to be removed, prepare for the worst. We really had it tough; the only room in the house without wallpaper was the laundry room. Some of our rooms actually had wallpaper on top of wallpaper!
We found that the best way to remove it was to saturate it in a 1:1 mixture of fabric softener and hot water, then use a scraping tool (like this chisel) to help you peel the paper off the walls. In a few of our rooms, the wallpaper was so strongly adhered to a flat wall (wallpaper on top of textured wall is easier to remove) that no amount of fabric softener or elbow grease would remove it.
We talked with our drywall guys, and found that we could paint over the wallpaper with KILZ (a type of hardcore primer)to seal it against the wall. The caveat here was that once we started painting on the KILZ, some of the sections that wouldn’t budge started just falling off the walls.
We think this was because the paint was much thicker than fabric softener so it stayed wet on the paper long enough to soften it and dislodge it from the wall. In areas where the paper was coming off, we just removed it. If the KILZ went on over the paper and the paper didn’t move, we let the paint dry.
You may have already removed your sinks when you were taking out cabinets, but if not, then go ahead and do it now. Try to leave at least one toilet in the house until you absolutely need it taken out (for example, when you are ready to paint the bathrooms and need to get behind the toilet with a brush or roller).
Only when you have EVERYTHING that is being replaced out of the house can you begin the drywall process.
6. It is going to get worse – way worse- before it gets better
It can be overwhelming when you walk into the house in the morning (or, even worse, wake up there if you are already living in the house!) and see a giant mess in every room.
If you’re the type of person who freaks out over a little mess, maybe you should consider hiring someone to complete your demolition.
7. Ask for Help
But be sure to provide food and coffee (or beer) to all of your helpers!
Comments
Wow, this is amazing that you were able to do all of this on your own! I have been looking to remodel my own home and will need some demolition done. However, I am not too sure that I will be able to do all of this on my own. It looks like the project might be too big for me. It would probably be best for me to get someone to come in and do it for me. Thanks for sharing more about your process though, it was great to see how you did all of this!
Thanks, Julie! I certainly didn’t do it on my own. But I will say that I had no idea how much I was capable of doing when we first started. I had to be shown how to use a crow bar! I feel much more confident about taking care of household things on my own, now. So worth it!
Thanks for sharing this! I’m planning on doing a demolition in my bathroom. Now I’m a little nervous about all the gross things I will find! It will definitely be good to get rid of them though! I would definitely imagine there is a method to the madness. It can probably be an organized mess at some points.
I highly recommend lots of coffee and really thick gloves!! Have FUN!
This is very helpful information because I have been looking into getting our kitchen/living room remodeled, and we are going to need to take out that part of the house. In order to extend that section of the house, we will need to demolish the walls and the connected ceiling. Hopefully all goes well, and we can have it finished in a month or two.
Sounds like a fun project, Wally! Let us know how it all turns out!
Great post, Anetta! We’re demolishing our garage, so we can build a new one. Your post is incredibly informative, and I liked your statement: “[home demolition] is gross.” I don’t like leaving things unfinished, so I’ll likely try to finish the project quickly. How long did it take you to completely finish your remodel? Thanks for sharing this with me!
Hi, Lily! It took us 3 months start to finish… but I had lots of help from my family!
This is definitely a more tricky process than I thought originally. It sounds like you have to be pretty careful to make sure that you only demolish the things you need to, especially with a remodeling project. I like what you said about not being too careful, though. It makes sense that you shouldn’t drive yourself crazy avoiding damage on things that are going to be torn out anyway.
Thanks for the information. It really is something that you have to plan for. I love your statement that it is going to get worse before it gets better. That is true with most home projects I’ve found. One tips is also to be healthy. Have an inspector in especially to make sure there isn’t anything hazardous to your health you have to worry about.
Thank you for these words of wisdom concerning house demolition. My husband and I want to renovate our home, and to be honest, I’m a little nervous. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m not sure what to expect. Your advice to have a plan in place for trash was very helpful. I’ll be sure to do that.
You are so brave to do your own renovations! I’m planning on having my kitchen redone soon, and I’m not sure I’m bold enough to do all the work myself. I’d be one of those careful people, trying desperately not to scratch anything–even if it was leaving. Great job!
Thank you, Jane! It was definitely a risk, but I love being involved in projects so I’m happy it all worked out.
It’s incredible that you managed to complete the entire renovation in only three months. Thankfully, remodeling my kitchen is a significantly smaller project. After seeing how much work it takes to remodel, I think I’ll probably hire someone to renovate my kitchen.
It was definitely a LOT of work! But, I had a lot of free time on my hands 🙂
Anetta, my husband and I want to do a lot of remodeling in our home. We have been thinking of doing the demolition ourselves. You are right, this doesn’t look like it is for the faint of heart! Maybe we should hire a demolition service.
It all comes down to how much you like doing things yourself! I love getting my hands dirty, so I couldn’t stand to let everyone else have all the fun 🙂
Thanks for the tips! I want to get started on working on the drywall in my house, but I’m still trying to figure out where I should get started. Replacing everything out of my house seems like a really great tip that I should keep in mind. I can’t get to work on any demolition work while everything is still at home, so I should get started on moving all of my furniture into storage before doing any drywall work.
There’s always so much to think about!
Thanks for sharing with us what you learned during your home demolition! I’ll be sure to have a plan for all the trash we will be creating, as you suggested. Do you have any other tips for me?
Thanks for all of the pictures. After looking at them, I agree- a remodel is a gross job! But it looks like a rewarding one. How long did yours take? We’re thinking about remodeling the upstairs of our house, but if it takes too long we might hire a contractor to do the work. I don’t want to be tied up forever.
The whole thing took 3 1/2 months 🙂
Great article, I love your writing style! I can’t help but think of your tip about having a designated garbage zone. I am thinking of remodeling and I feel like it would be pretty easy actually. The one logistical issue I can think of is having so much garbage that I wouldn’t be able to fit into my city supplied dumpster. Do you generally rent dumpsters for stuff like that, or do you sometimes get companies to come clean it all up for you? I feel like that are lots of options, but I want to make sure that I get the best one the first time.
You can definitely rent dumpsters, and you can also rent trucks and/or large flat-bed trailers and take your stuff to the dump yourself. Lots of stuff can be re-used, and you’d be surprised what people will come haul away for free if you list it on Craigslist!
I don’t think I have ever taken part in a remodel demolition. It actually sounds like a lot of fun. I love watching demolitions of commercial buildings. It would be a lot of fun to take part in the action yourself. I guess the first one I will take part in will probably be for when I remodel my home. That wouldn’t happen for a few years.
It’s definitely a hoot!
My husband and I decided to do a full home remodel on our very outdated home. Although, this is an ambitious task to take on, I know that it’s possible to get through the demolition and construction process alive. That being said, I appreciate the personal experience and advice that you give to help me plan and prepare adequately, nonetheless. Specifically, I thought it was really awesome that you suggested to have a plan in place for trash and to plan on getting a big dumpster. Things like carpet and ripped out walls can take up a lot of space and make a huge mess. Thus, having a dumpster ready to store and remove all of these materials will make clean up a lot easier and faster. Thank you for your insight!
My husband and I have been thinking about doing some major remodeling to our home for the past few months. We have lived in this home for about ten years now and a few big changes would be really nice. There is one section of our house that we would have to knock out for the plans that we want so we will have to look into different demolition companies and processes. These tips will be really helpful during our project, thanks for sharing!
My family and I will be remodeling our home soon. I never realized it could get so messy and gross! We will have to keep that in mind. Thank you for the help.
Thanks for sharing! I recently helped a friend with a major remodeling project. Unlike you, we did not initially have a plan for the trash and debris of demolition. We ended up hiring a crew for the demolition because we were quickly in over our heads. It was worth it. Maybe next time we will be more prepared.
You did your own demolition? That is amazing! I didn’t want to have to deal with it when we took down our home to rebuild. We hired a demolition contractor to do the job for us.
I like to get my hands dirty!!
This is really good to know! My wife and I are planning on doing a kitchen renovation soon. We want to be prepared for the demolition part. I’m sure there are a lot of things we haven’t even thought about that we should plan for.
Wow what a great bunch of useful information! This was great for us as we are recently moving homes. Whats more is that we recently had a good friend of ours get injured from doing some minor demolition in his home from tearing out his kitchen. I will have to save this site for later usage as well as there is some great information here that should be remembered. Thanks again!
It would be a smart idea to collect all of your belongings especially the tools when you are starting to demolish the home. I also liked how you mention that it is only getting worse before it gets better. In the pictures, you can see this coming to life. It looks really bad to start, but the end product is a work of art. Just remember that when you are in the middle of the worst part.
My wife and I are doing a lot of home and kitchen remodeling later this year, and want to make sure that we don’t have any horror stories by the end! Like you said, it is going to be gross, and we are going to make sure we have sufficient plans for things like garbage. My wife will have to try pretty to hard to resist being too careful, but thats a great tip!
Thank you so much for sharing you experience with you home remodel. My wife and I are going to be remodeling our kitchen soon, and we really want to make the process as easy as possible. I’ll definitely show these 7 things to my wife so that we can best prepare for them.
I agree that it gets way worse before it gets better when it comes to home renovation. One of the things we didn’t have in place from day one was where the trash would go and that was a mistake. The good news is that home renovation is worth it! Our home looks 100 times better than it did before.
This is really helpful advice for home renovation! My husband and I are replacing our living room carpet with hardwood flooring. I couldn’t be more excited for how it is going to turn out. I appreciate the heads-up about what you’ll find underneath the carpet.
Doing a major house renovation like yours takes some serious time and effort! Your right about making sure that you get a large dumpster rental. With all the debris and construction waste, you will need something to handle that kind of waste. It’s important to stay on good terms with you local municipal waste management service. Trying to put construction waste in your regular garbage is never a good idea.
I really appreciate your comment about waste disposal. I can only imagine how much waste there will be after our old house is demolished. I will make sure we have a plan of how to dispose of it before we start the demolition process. Thanks for the great insight!
I can see how having a large dumpster would be essential when remodeling. I’ve heard of some great dumpster rentals. I feel like that would be a good option. There’s no point in buying a huge one just to remodel.
Oh goodness Annetta, you and your husband are so brave! I love your candidness and willingness to share this process with the rest of us. Sometimes TV shows make remodeling seem like a breeze when it actually takes so much work! I definitely agree with your second tip. All that trash can become unbelievably overwhelming and having a plan set out beforehand (and the proper equipment, like a dumpster!) definitely can help to calm trash anxiety.
My parents are wanting to remodel their kitchen, but don’t really know where to start. They want to make sure that they do this right so that the kitchen will last them a long time. This article of personal experiences can probably help them out during the demolition process.
Anetta, my husband and I are getting ready to do some major remodeling in our home. I am glad you included the tools that you used the most.
We are starting to plan our project and make a list of some of the things we will need to get. We will have to see if we can get some of these tools used at a cheaper price. Thanks for the helpful post!
I agree that its important to pre-plan where the trash will go when you are remodeling. I have never remodeled a kitchen, but I can imagine that there is definitely plenty of trash that gets accumulated. Not to mention, I’m sure the pieces of trash are rather large, too.
I really appreciate the list of tools you used the most frequently in your demolition. We are considering demolishing part of our own home and remodeling it to be larger. We want to be as budget-conscious as possible in doing this, so having a list of tools to use is really helpful in knowing what we need to buy!
Thanks so much for this! I’m one of those people who bites off more than they can chew when it comes to home renovation. These are fantastic tips for undertaking a responsible remodel. Also, your (?) daughter is adorable. I’m sure she has some strong feelings about the remodeling process as well. Thanks for sharing!
That’s a great idea to have a plan in place for trash. I was talking to my wife about this the other day, because we’re going to clean our house out. She doesn’t think that we’ll need a rental dumpster. However, like you say, you need a big space to put all of your trash!
Preparation for any remodeling project is essential for things to go smoothly, like you mentioned, Anetta. You make a great point about making sure that you have all of the proper tools and equipment for your job before you get started. Depending on what you need, it can be less expensive to rent some equipment like trucks, power tools, and dumpsters. This way you don’t have to purchase them and worry about storing them after your project is done.
We’re about to add a new room on the side of our home, and so this was very much needed information. I think that renting a bin from a company to put all the trash will be a necessity. I’m glad that I can be a lot rougher than I think for remodeling, as I thought it was a fragile work! I feel a lot more prepared for this now, so thank you for this advice!
We just moved into a new home and have decided that we watch to remodel the kitchen. I need to get a demolition service to take everything apart. I don’t even know where to start, nor what to take apart first. Do you know if demolition services take care of the trash?
I think it just depends on the company. I didn’t work with a demolition company, but trash removal kind of seems like one of the biggest parts of their job!
Thanks for the tips here for going through a home demolition. We are thinking of doing the same thing you have posted here, but I had never thought about having a place for trash. I guess we should start looking for a rental dumpsters, thanks!
I love the way which u explain in it… Your vision for the space is really impressive and that is such a brave undertaking. Well done
Wow, you guys really did clear everything out. I guess it makes sense after hearing there was urine on the carpet. My home isn’t in bad shape like this one is, but I do have a lot of stuff I want to be replaced. The thing with my home is that I have a lot of outdated items I want to be changed out. Wish my luck. I’d love to see the end of this project
Excellent data! I really like exactly how your own flooring ended up! Stunning! Thanks with regard to these types of phrases associated with knowledge regarding home demolition. it’s certainly useful. thanks greatly….
Thanks for such a inspirational renovation idea. i love every piece of it!
It is a good idea to give away old things during a remodel if you think they can be reused. I like your tip about sorting the trash into “trash,” “keep,” “donate,” and “burn” piles. Even after sorting it all out, I would imagine that you would still end up with heaps of garbage. Just looking at your pictures, I bet you easily filled up a large dumpster!
I really like the idea of taking the old cabinets out quickly when it comes to home renovation. I remember when my mom and dad were renovating their house, this was the first thing that they did, and it made all the difference. It saved them so much time when it came to installing the new cabinets.
You mentioned that if you’re the type person who freaks out over a little mess to consider hiring someone to complete your demolition. I am definitely the type of person that freaks out over a mess and my husband and I are wanting to completely remodel the guest bedroom in our house. I will for sure keep these demolition tips in mind when we get our remodel project started.
You have some great tips for having a demolition project. We want to remodel our bathroom, and to be honest, I hadn’t even thought about the trash. I’ll be sure to see if we can get a big dumpster, or something.
I appreciate your advice about hiring a demolition contractor if you don’t like dealing with messes. My husband wants to tear down the garage and expand the house, but I have a hard time when things aren’t clean around the house. It would be nice not to have to deal with cleaning up the demolition.
Thanks for this info. We are also going to remodel our house. We are now looking up some demolition contractors to demolish some parts of our house.
My wife and I are thinking about remodeling our home after some demolition, so reading about your experience was really helpful. I like that you separated everything into different piles to donate or throw out. We’ll have to do something similar for our project so we can keep it clean and organized. Thanks for sharing!
I’m very impressed, not too many people take on large-scale demolition projects themselves, but it can be so rewarding, especially when you can look back on it all in a few months time and see how much you’ve managed to transform it 🙂
The wallpaper seems like it was an absolute nightmare! You’ll have to post some photos so we can see the full before-after transformation. Good job!
Thanks for this tip to designate a specific location to keep all of your tools and be sure to put them back there at the end of the day. My mom wants to remodel a part of our house because it looks worn out. My dad suggested having demolition services and shared this article with her.
Thanks for the home demolition tips. I like how you said that it doesn’t matter if you nick and scratch up things that are only going to be removed. We are looking to hire a professional to tear up our kitchen, and I’ll just tell them to go crazy! We want it all gone anyway.
My husband and I have found a spot that we would love for a new home but there is going to be a demolition phase first and I am so glad I found this article! I like that you say to have a plan in place for trash because some of the items can be re-used or recycled instead of just thrown away. Also, I thought it was interesting that you mentioned there is a method to the madness and that you should wait until everything is out of the house before you begin the drywall process.
I kind of cringed when you talked about imaging what something might look underneath the surface. The property I just purchased could really use some work because there are a lot of surface qualities that could use some help. Personally, I might end up calling demolition services since this might be a project too big enough for me to take on myself.
I like that this mentioned that you can use a crow bar or other type of demolition bar to remove baseboards and trim easily. We’ve been wanting to remodel our basement, so this is a helpful article. How can you tell a wrecking bar is high quality?
I like how you pointed out that it can be overwhelming when you walk into the house and see a huge mess. My husband wants to do some remodeling in our kitchen, but he likes to be very clean and organized. I think it would probably be a good idea if he rented a dumpster or something so that he can manage the mess a little bit more. Thanks for the tips!
My husband and I are considering remodeling our home, but we aren’t really sure what to expect. This article was extremely thorough and interesting, and I especially liked your point to not worry about damaging anything you’re planning on taking our anyway. Thanks for the great article, we will be sure to take this advice into consideration when remodeling our home.
Thank you so much for sharing this post with us, this article is very much informative for me 🙂
Take my gratitude thanks first. Because last few weeks I searching for some idea of remodeling of my house. and I must say your blog help me a lot do this easily. my wife also loves these ideas. Thanks again.
I am glad you suggested keeping a place for trash during demolition. We are demolishing a concrete wall in our basement this summer. Thank you for the tips on home remodel demolition.
I really like what you said about having a dumpster nearby or working with a waste management company for your remodeling projects. One can really see how homeowners can often forget about the trash removal part of the task since the building and designing are the most fun parts of the job. I’ll be sure to remember this tip should I decide to remodel our old kitchen. Thanks!
Well, thanks for useful tips, I was looking for the required tools and I found it in this article. Thank you so much for sharing such great information regarding renovation.
Thanks for pointing out that we should get big dumpsters. As you mentioned, it will be a good way to see if there are items that you plan to recycle or burn. I will share this tip with a friend of mine to help them since their whole house will be renovated next week to prepare for the Christmas party that they will host.
Thanks for pointing out that renting a dumpster is a must. As you mentioned, there are items that should be thrown there during the renovation. I will definitely rent one since there will be lots of wastes coming out of our home. We plan to get a lot of our items replaced due to how old our house is since I inherited this from my grandparents.
You’ve got some great tips for home demolition here. It’s gross to think about the urine stains and rodent poo, but I’m sure there’s that stuff under our living room and kitchen too! I’m glad I’m prepared for that once we start our remodel this summer.
Thanks for pointing out that we should probably hire someone to do the demolition for us if we don’t like messes. My husband and I want to demolish a structure in our yard, but I wasn’t sure if we should hire a contractor. I’m a really tidy person and don’t like messes, so I think I’ll save myself the stress and hire a contractor for the job.
Thanks for pointing out that there will be a lot of rodent urine and feces in a remodel site. With that in mind, I will just let the professionals handle this job since I might get exposed to those things and get sick. There might be a lot more than what we think because the storage house that we want to get demolished hasn’t been touched and taken care of since 2015.
It’s a good thing that you have enough space in your property to pile up the trash My mother is planning to demolish a small house in our old property. The only downside is there is no space for piling the trash. She is now looking for demolition services and garbage and roll-off dumpster to manage everything properly. Thanks for sharing your demolition story. It’s indeed informative to your readers.
I liked that you mentioned during a home renovation you may find that a lot of trash and waste will come up. My husband is starting a major remodeling project in my mom’s house and we are looking for advice about how to deal with all the waste. I believe that renting a dumpster will be a great idea to separate the things that can be recycled from waste.