A Picture is Worth a Thousand Pounds

It feels like we have waited years, when in reality it has only been a few months. We are finally tearing down the exterior of the house and gutting the interior! We have wanted to get our hands on the major demolition part of this project for so long. It feels good to finally see some progress.

Back Porch

The back porch was completely removed on Monday August 8th. My brother John got ahold of it with his tractor and loader with a grappel. In about 30 seconds he had the entire porch pulled free from the house!

Trim/Woodwork Removal

Our next project was taking all interior trim off the entire 2nd story to prep for demo. We talked a lot about the benefits and risks of taking off the trim. The trim in our house is absolutely stunning, it was one of the main reasons we wanted the house. We had a long discussion about whether it could be removed without damaging. We also talked about the risks of damaging it while demo-ing if it were left on. Houses that were built in the early 1900s were built with lathe and plaster going on the walls first, then all of the trim work was hung over the plaster. Therefore, if we were to leave the trim on, we would end up with slivers of lathe and pieces of plaster stuck behind all of the woodwork. It would be difficult to match new sheetrock to each trim depth. We researched tools and methods of how to successfully remove interior trim and found a tool called a trim puller at Home Depot. We purchased it and tested removing trim in the master bedroom upstairs. It worked like a charm! We took off the entire baseboard trim work in just under a half hour without damaging any of it.

For the next week I spent my days taking off trim while Eddie took and removed all of the nails from each individual piece. After all nails were removed, each set of trim got wrapped in plastic wrap and labeled. This ensures that when we hang it all back up we know where everything goes. When all was said and done we had removed every piece of trim from the second story.

Plaster Demo

Once the 2nd story was removed of trim work we decided to begin taking plaster down room by room. The corner front room was the first room we tore into. We removed plaster from the walls, closet and ceiling and had a massive mess by the time we were finished. When we looked at our pictures of the removal we joked that our picture was worth a thousand pounds, since we are sure we removed at least a few hundred pounds of plaster per wall! After removing the plaster, we parked our dump truck directly below the corner bedrooms side window and shoveled all of the plaster out the window.

The back bedroom was next, we removed plaster from the walls and closet of that room. The ceiling was tiled and significantly easier to remove than plaster, which we were incredibly grateful for. We tackled the bathroom and hall closet next. The hall closet is complete while the bathroom is still in progress. The only plaster left to remove upstairs is the front bedroom, the landing area and the walls up the stair case.

Front Porch

On Monday August 29th we recruited the help of my brother, John, and my dad, Ron, to help us take off the front porch. It took an hour or so to determine the best way to get it loose from the house. But once we got it partly free, we lifted with the tines on my dads caterpillar and it came away from the house in one big piece! We then proceeded to take up the porch flooring and tore apart the floor joists under the entire structure. When we were done there was nothing left but the limestone corner pillars that used to hold the porch up. Amazing what big equipment and 4 sets of hands can get accomplished in a day!

Land Owners

We officially own land! Our paperwork was ready for signatures on August 22nd at Security 1st Title in Lincoln. We signed at 11am and are now the official owners of our 3.2 acre field. On that very same day the crew we hired to excavate our basement finished digging. We are now the owners of a 3.2 acre plot with a big hole in the middle! The next step is to get the basement contractors out to start pouring footings and setting rebar for our basement walls. This should happen sometime this week, barring no unforeseen setbacks. Our new driveway is currently under construction. The pipe for the culvert has been laid and dirt has gone on it. We are in the final stages of deciding on a material for our driveway. As soon as that decision is made we will be pouring and finishing the drive.

Life is full and our days are busy, we couldn’t ask for more! So excited to see what comes next!