Faux Lava Rock Fireplace Demo

I knew when I moved into this house a year and a half ago that the fireplace would be one of the first things to go and I'm so thankful for the men in my life, because today it did! Today we focused just on the demo of it so this is just the first portion. 

Tools needed:

Tarps

Crowbars

Wire cutters

Hammer (small and large) 

Sheetrock knife 

Large straight edge

5 gallon buckets 

This took about 3 hours to do. 

Before:

We did very little to prep for it. We basically laid down some cardboard and a tarp over that. We started from the edges by using a crowbar (and using a peice of wood to push against so we didn't break more sheetrock than needed). 

We used 5 gallon buckets for the little pieces and just stacked the larger ones.  

Once all the rock was down. We took a hammer and found the closest stud, working out way away from the fireplace. Once it was found, we did the same thing lower on the wall so that we could have two points to make a straight line. We used the straight edge to mark and then cut the wall and did the same on the other side of the fireplace. 

You can see in the picture how we cut both sides and then tore down the sheetrock in between. 

Here's our progress for now. The next update will be of the installation of the new tile and mantle!