Burn, Baby, Burn

So far, April has been a pretty slow month. Josh and I have finished most of the plaster removal. Josh has started tearing down the chimney, but there is not much that I can do to help with that. The girls and I have been out to see if we have any plant life. You can see the lines of a large flower bed in the yard, but it is terribly overgrown with weeds. It will be interesting to see what continues to appear this spring and summer. So far, I have been able to identify peonies (what old house doesn't have them!!), Virginia Bluebells, road lilies, poppies, and a rose bush. I don't know whether the roses will produce; they have not been maintained for so long. The girls and I transplanted several bluebells, taking some into our house in town and moving others to a spot where hopefully Josh won't run them over:)
Josh has also been doing some yard maintenance. He cut out the poison ivy around the corn crib, without suffering any effects! He brought in a load of rock for the driveway, so we won't cut as many ruts in the yard. Josh also leveled out the spot in the yard where the garage stood and cleaned up all the bricks and concrete from the foundation. He had the new mower out today at the house in town, just playing around. I will have to mark out where he can't mow so he doesn't destroy any of my flower treasures:) He also burned off the ditches and the lot to the west of the house. This helped make things look a little better.
Speaking of fire, we had an interesting night at the beginning of the month. Josh was burning lathe one evening. We have a pit by the corn crib where he has done most of the burning. He has had to be careful in choosing what times to burn because we have had a very windy spring. Josh had also moved the small garden shed out between the corn crib and the burn pile so that he could do some dirt work. On this particular evening, the girls and I were out with him. As we watched the fire, we noticed that there was some smoke on the shed. Josh started looking more closely and realized that the shingles were starting to smolder. He ran to get the skid loader and pushed the shed out of the way, but it was too late. So he went ahead and pushed the shed into the fire. It made for some really cool pictures, even if I am disappointed that my shed is gone!

On a sad note, we have had to create a pet burial ground. My cat, Butterball, died at the beginning of the month. He was 12 years old. Josh buried him and the girls and I are creating a marker.

And the Walls Came Down...

March was a very dusty, dirty month in our remodel. We spent the month tearing out the plaster in the house. The original plan was to start with the upstairs, then demolish the downstairs later on. The plan changed about halfway through when Josh started tearing out the downstairs bathroom. The month ended with all of the plaster in the house gone, except for one small section in the hallway.
Josh and a friend started on the upstairs the week before my Spring Break. Josh used a pry bar type of tool that quickly torn through the plaster and lathe. They would tear out one room at a time, then spend time sorting the lathe from the plaster. The lathe went out an upstairs window into the back of our old dump truck. The plaster had to be scooped into buckets and hauled to the upstairs porch. From there, Josh made a chute where the plaster could slide down to the trailer below. I think that Josh gave his friend, Lucas, quite a workout that week as bucket boy!
By the time Spring Break rolled around, he had the upstairs completely cleaned out. My job that week was to pull all of the nails that were left after the lathe was taken down and finish taking down any plaster that Josh missed. This was very tedious work, but it felt good when I could look at the upstairs and see that it was completely done.
While I worked upstairs, Josh spent the week removing all of the trim downstairs. That has definitely been his least favorite job so far. But he did really well; only one piece in the entire house was severely damaged, and we probably won't have to reuse that piece anyway. By the end of the week, he had the bathroom and two downstairs bedrooms torn down. I got the pleasure of helping scoop out those rooms!!
The week after Spring Break, the girls went to Grandma's, so Josh and I worked every night for several hours. This meant that we could tear out the mud room, hallway and kitchen. The mud room was somewhat difficult because of the height of the ceiling over the basement stairs. It made it harder to reach all of the nails that I had to pull, so Josh had to do some (standing on a ladder on steps over the basement was more than I could do). We had hoped that the kitchen cabinets would be salvageable, but they did not come off the walls very well so they went to the burn pile. The hallway was also difficult because of the stairway. Josh decided that, rather than dismantling the entire staircase, it would be easier to leave the small portion of plaster that butted up to it. So we have a small (4x4) section of plaster that will remain in the house. Josh plans on skim coating it to smooth it out. The dining room and living room were the last project. I still have to finish my nail pulling in there.
One other chore during this time was to move all of the trim out of the house and into our place in town. After Josh pulled the nails out of the trim, we loaded it up and hauled it in to be stored in the loft in our garage. This will make it more convenient for me this summer when I am refinishing it. We also brought in all of the doors (17 in all) and stored them in our basement.
This demolition process was hard work, but looking at the house now, it was definitely worth it. I can't wait to see where we head next!