The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg is an example of a spectacularly successful renovation project. During the Soviet era, it reportedly was used as a vegetable warehouse. Today, it’s stunning, inside and out. While our goals for the LOAP Alpha aren’t quite so lofty, we’re shooting for a pretty impressive transformation. But first, things have to get torn up.

If you’ve followed this blog at all or been involved in projects of your own, you know that when one of these shows upthings are about to get serious. The Alpha had been vacant for over two years, so all of the utilities had been shut off and the electric meter had been removed, so we had to get a new meter set, as well. Here it is, all shiny and ready to start spinning:

Pergo being ripped up was the first demo activity, probably because, since it clicks together and isn’t glued down, it was pretty easy to pop up.

Oddly, there was plastic under the laminate flooring, in addition to the white foam under-layment.

While I really don’t understand the rationale for this, I’m grateful because it protected the concrete from seepage of much of what was either spilled or otherwise evacuated onto the flooring.

In the kitchen/dining area, there was tile, Pergo, and carpet, so that’s where things started to get really messy. Our son Chase is a demo demon, though, so he ripped through it pretty fast.

You may recall the wall in the living room opposite the ill-advised planter box where we detected some old termite activity. The sheet rock had to come off so that we could inspect for structural damage. Here’s the start of that effort: Not a lick of insulation in these walls. I guess they didn’t think much about that in the late ’40s. We will probably reduce energy consumption by 20% just throwing some batts into the front wall. The good – nay, great – news here is that the termites seem to have confined their ravenous activity to the sheet rock. There’s very little wood damage to be seen. Any structural repair will be minor.

Floor demo in the carpeted rooms was much harder than it should have been. The foam-backed carpet was ancient, had been subjected to who-knows-what kinds of spills, and had been glued to the concrete.

One thing about having a dumpster in the driveway, particularly when no one is living at the site, is that strange items appear in it. The TV and mattress were donated by persons unknown. The air vent box is legit – the new vents came with the new roof.

The kitchen demo followed on the tail of the floor demo:

And the space behind and under the dishwasher was even worse than the hall bath that I showed in the last post.

Most of the appliances ended up in the garage awaiting haul off.

Demo of the hall bath was quite a mess.

Remember the dark and gloomy cover over the deck out back? One bright and chilly Saturday morning was all it took:

And, my! How the outlook brightened!

Some clean up in the yard and things are beginning to improve – at least a bit.

It’s pretty clear that we’ll give the power washer a workout but getting just this much done stokes our optimism about what we can do with this place. You just wait – it’s going to be great!

Thanks for reading and please come back to enjoy the progress.