You might think, knowing that we’ve been planning this remodel in one form or another for about three years, that we would be fully prepared for the emotional impact of starting construction, but it turns out that it’s easy to talk about knocking down walls and replacing rooms in the abstract as you fantasize about the amazing new edifice you’re going to construct. It’s much harder to see the nursery you carefully painted and decorated for your unborn daughter—who is now just a couple years from heading off to college—gutted. Of course, this is exactly what we signed up for, and Julie has been very good about reminding me that things will feel better once the crew is doing something constructive rather than things that are purely destructive, but it’s still something of a gut punch.

Here are some pictures from the first couple days of interior demolition work, and an additional set covering the entire first week of the project.

The construction crew made amazing progress in the first couple days of work, largely stripping the garage, kitchen, and Julia’s bedroom. By the time we came back at the end of the week, the interior of the house was largely unrecognizable, as most of the distinguishing features of those spaces—including the boundaries separating rooms and hallways—had been removed.

And, at the end of the week, a small excavator was parked in our front yard, a harbinger of things to come.

The demolition process revealed some interesting facets that we’d never really examined in our time in the house, like the older wallpaper hidden behind the cabinets in the kitchen and the surprisingly well-preserved hardwood floors under the carpet in Julia’s room; maybe we should have refinished that surface at the same time we removed the carpeting in the hallway. There was a surprising amount of symmetry and intentionality in the layout of the hallways and doors that was more apparent when everything was stripped bare than it had been when the house was filled with the artifacts of everyday living. I hope we can bring some of that thoughtfulness and care to the new configuration.

It also dredged up emotions and memories, reminding me of simple, physical things like the chair rail we put up in Julia’s room in the last few weeks before she was born; it remains one of my favorite things that we’ve done to the house. Other memories bubbled up to the surface of my consciousness as well: lying in bed, listening to the sound of the kids’ feet as they crept (or stampeded) down the narrow hallway to our room; chasing them around the winding, looping path through the kitchen, dining room, and front hallway, confident that they’d never catch on to the fact that I could double back and catch them unawares going the other direction; and countless meals in the kitchen, from Julia’s first, thin spoonfuls of oat cereal mixed with breast milk to family dinners with all five of us crowded around the kitchen table, with thousands of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches packed into lunchboxes along the way.

Sometimes these thoughts keep me up at night, as I reflect on the fact that not only will I never hear the sound of Julia’s door creaking open, followed by hushed whispers as little feet tiptoe down the hall, but no one else will have that experience, either. That door and that hall are gone. Julie rightly and kindly reminds me that this is Not My Problem: we get to keep our memories and our joy, and the next family to come along—after we are beyond caring—will make their own memories and invest their emotions in the house as they know it, not in what it once was.

Also: people move (we moved when I was William’s age, and I solemnly swore to buy back our old house when I was grown); homes are lost to fires, floods, and financial ruin. This was our choice. Our situation is far from tragic and anything but unique.

I know all of that. And still, it’s hard.

Galleries: Days 1 & 2, Week 1

Credits: Julia Neva Wong took many of these photos.