Warning; Walls fall over when not attached!
I thought I did some shoddy repairs in my life, but this was just scary. The installer of a wall that I planned on removing had never been attached to the ceiling. It was basically just caulked to the ceiling, which made it look like it was actually attached.
One end of the wall ended halfway through the living room and the other end cornered at the hallway. I tore most of the drywall off and found that the top 2 feet was plaster again, go figure. I thought I'd start at the hall end and start removing bit by bit as I went across the room. So I break out my trusty saws-all, and start cutting at the corner next to the hallway.
I really did have a plan, honest! I think I only removed one 2*4 at the joint next to the hallway, and I thought the next day I would just remove one 2*4 at a time and stack them in the backyard. After doing this it had gotten late so it was time to close off the room, (we have 5 pets, one of them being our young Son), and go to bed.
Well, about 2:34:21am, (I really do remember the time EXACTLY), there was a noise that sounded like a bus just drove through the front door into our living room. After picking myself up off the floor, because either that's where I landed or that's where my wife kicked me to, I slowly walked through the house into the hallway where the living room door is. It was odd, I couldn't open the door from the hallway. I then had to go through the back bathroom which leads to the back door near the kitchen. All the furniture from the living room was now blocking access to the living room from that side. Still a little sleepy but very curious state went back to the bedroom to get dressed and tell my wife that I still had no clue what had happened. After getting dressed I went out the back door and around the house to the gate, which I couldn't get open because that was the next project on my list to fix. I ended up having to climb the fence because the tools that I needed to get the gate open were still in the living room. After making it over the fence and ripping my shorts in the process, I made it to the front door. This is when I realized that my door keys were in my other pair of pants on the bedroom dresser! Well, I inspected the front of the house, no bus was found. I thought I could just look through the windows and see what happened, that's when I remembered that I had put plastic on all the windows to keep the dust from getting into the window slides. Now it was time to make my way back over the fence, into the house, and in the bedroom for a second time to tell my wife that I still had no clue what happened. I did however get to give her some good information; there was no bus in the living room! Of course, she hadn't even thought of that and now that made her worry even more.
Finally, I'm on my way back out, this time with the front door keys and a towel to cover the sharp edges of the fence. I open the front door to find that the wall I was going to remove had removed itself entirely, taking my door frame to the hallway with it. Well, not much I could do at 3am, so back to bed I go. Then I had to explain to my wife that the wall that I was trying to get to fall over the day before, did. (Oh come on, it was just a little white-lie, right). I didn't get back to sleep the rest of the night; I think my heart was still racing until around 6am.
My wife gets up the next morning, (I didn't want to get up until noon), and she makes her way into the kitchen and grabs a bite to eat. She was running a little late because something had woken her up earlier that morning. And for some reason, she blamed me. That wasn't the worst part, since she was running late, she took off out of the kitchen ran back through the bedroom, (waking me up in the process), and out to the hallway door. Which only opened about 1 inch. I never knew my wife new those words. To say the least, I was wide awake as she came back through the bedroom and for some reason, she wasn't happy. I told her I would take care of it today and she went to the back door. Now I'm still very sleepy and not thinking very well. She returns even madder than before because she can't get out of the backyard through the broken gate that I had told her I fixed a while ago. So I had to get the towel and help her over the fence and yes, she was late for work. So of course, the phone rang about the time I finally fell back asleep again just so she could let me know.
It did make the job easier! The next day I just lifted what was left of the broken wall up on my saw horse and trimmed away. Which was what my plan was to begin with, minus the 2:34am crash. But I don't suggest allowing your walls to fall on their own. They have a tendency to do a lot of damage on the way down! You wouldn't believe the noise they can make at such a quiet hour! And besides, we needed new carpet anyway...
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