The property at 1004 Central is almost entirely covered with grass. Having been left untended for a long time it’s developed an impressive root system. Removing it is… ugh… hard. In addition, the soil in the area is a poorly draining clay, increasingly nutrient deprived because it’s been growing grass. One approach to removing this unwanted grass and enriching the soil is sheet mulching.

Well friends, it’s official – the house at 1004 Central is no longer. We purchased the property without being certain of what we would do with it – revitalize the old house or tear it down and rebuild.

When we learned that we would have to take the house down we were determined to investigate the option of deconstruction, in addition to standard demolition.

Work done on 1004 Central:
Demolition of existing structure

Financing a construction project can be tricky. It’s tough to save up enough cash to go whole hog into a large remodel or rebuild and getting a loan can be tricky and costly. Our friend Katie, a financial planner, just let us know about a very cool thing for managing social lending (loans between friends and family) – Virgin Money.

It’s for reals, folks! Demolition of the house at 1004 Central is Saturday, July 25, 2009, 7:00 am! We’ll post photos and video after!

Luke and I recently took a class focused on dealing with lead and asbestos in home remodel projects, sponsored by the Olympia chapter o the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild. I was thoroughly entranced, to say the least. Tearing things down is complicated.

Wowzers! We have been productive during our first week as owners of 1004 Central. Okay, so it helped that we had seven weeks of closing to devise our plan of attack.

Needless to say figuring out how to pay for a home remodel, or in our case complete rebuild, is a somewhat daunting task. The most typical way to structure such a project is to apply for a construction loan.