Keeping Home Depot in the Black

Well - I think I will single-handedly be keeping Home Depot in the black. And I wish I had a corner hardware store near me, but there is nothing close by. Unbelievable. And while I love walking to the local place rather than the big corporate-taking-over-everything places, tools are really really heavy. I bought an 8lb. sledge hammer the last time, and I can't imagine having that on my bike or walking with it.
Right in the middle of this post a construction guy who was recommended to me stopped by and talked me through the whole changing the staircase job. It's going to be big. Changing the staircase is going to be interesting and did I mention it's going to be a big job? Oh boy. But he was really great and explained everything that needs to be done, including ripping up the ceiling to "sister the joist" - whatever that is. And he won't be able to start for a while. Ugh.
But what I really wanted to post about was taking down this wall - which I'm going to do myself. I found the coolest do-it-yourself website (I added the link) which has great advice, and a shopping list of stuff you need to take the wall down. Good grief.
Here's the front of the wall:
and here's the back of the wall:

After watching the tutorial about knocking walls down I went down stairs and poked a hole in the wall. I showed the construction guy the wall and we looked at it very closely and he thinks the wall may have had pocket doors in it at one point. Wouldn't that be soOo cool if that was still in there? I'm not holding my breath - it doesn't look like it. But it did get another idea going, that maybe I should just put in french doors (his idea) so that the room can be closed off as a guest room. Hmmmmm.... what a great idea!
I still need to go to Home Depot first and a crowbar, reciprocating saw and a shop vac. Cha-ching!