After the interior work done in week 1 of our remodel, Enzo and his team got serious in week 2, as you can see in our latest set of photos. Chekhov’s excavator, which sat menacingly in our driveway at the end of the previous week, was put to extensive use in week 2.

Julie and Julia visited the site during the week as work was progressing, and by the time the whole family made the trip on Sunday, little was left standing of the portions of the house that are scheduled to be removed: a bit of the front kitchen window, which will become part of the garage wall; the back corner of the garage, which was only spared to preserve access to power, as that’s where our electrical panel is situated; and the roof, pretty much all of which has to go eventually.

Julia’s room is completely gone except for the hardwood floor, and there’s a crack in the wall of our master bedroom where it appears that the machinery was a bit too voracious. Likewise, the planter of boxwoods under the kitchen windows has been removed, as have the garage and the painted brick corral where we stored the garbage cans out of sight from the street. They’ve even started tearing up the patio to clear the way to put down the foundation for the new sections of the house. I suspect the large rose bush in front of the house, which we bought for Julie for Mother’s Day a number of years ago, but only really came into its own last year, is not long for this world.

Having lived in this house for nearly two decades, it’s a pretty remarkable sight.

There are glimmers of hope, however. On the floor near where Julia’s closet and the hall closet once stood, the crew has marked off where the mud room walls will eventually sit. It’s not much, but it’s one of the few signs we have thus far that the project will change to a more constructive mode sometime soon.

To lighten the mood a bit, we’ve included a cat picture or two and some photos of the kids playing in the pool. Toward the end, there are a few pictures of Joe and Julie bravely taking a late-night swim. The pool light casts a beautiful glow in and around the water, but I suspect it was a bit chilly.

Gallery: Week 2: Demolition!

Credits: Julia Neva Wong took many of these photos.