gone, radiator, gone

We managed to get right into the swing of things this weekend, which I think is a pretty good sign. Now that the first floor HVAC is done, everything's on our shoulders for a while, which is SO much easier than waiting for other people. As previously mentioned, we painted on Saturday in Virginia, but on Sunday we were here at the house, making things happen.

Or rather, we made one thing happen. But it was a big thing! We finally got rid of the last of the radiators on the first floor. There were two left after our big demolition, in the two rooms that didn't get gutted: the kitchen and the bathroom. Both of the radiators were EXTREMELY oversized, particularly the one in the kitchen. Don determined that the best strategy would be to chop them up into more manageable pieces with the reciprocating saw and a metal blade. Or rather, THREE metal blades, because that's how many we went through.

The tricky bit was actually that we needed to cut these long skinny metal rods that are strung through the middle of the radiator; they're soldered to a big lump at the ends to make sure they don't come out, so the only way to get them out is to cut them. And you have to get them out, because they're close to the big thick part at the top and bottom of the radiator that has to be chopped through, and the damn saw will hit them and either bind or rebound or do something else moderately alarming.

Watch, as our kitchen floor magically gets dirtier and dirtier! Yay, metal dust! That was fun to clean up afterwards.

I didn't get any pictures of him cutting the one from the bathroom; it was actually a lot heavier even though it wasn't as long, because it was taller and thicker. The one he's cutting in these pictures is the one from the kitchen, which used to be against the wall under the window, where my beloved temporary countertop goes.


End result: three pieces of radiator, one very confused cat.

(And can I just say how AWESOME it is to finally be able to take and post pictures of THINGS ACTUALLY HAPPENING?)