Demolition Derby: Bringin' Down the House

I confess I'm feeling muscles today that I haven't felt in quite a while. I suppose five hours of hammering, chiseling, squatting, bending, pulling, and wrestling with a pry bar could be the culprit. Yesterday was the official start of our newest homestead project -- a house demo.

Living Room Flooring Before

Living Room Flooring After

Weldon and I have intentions of building our dream house. This plan has been loosely in the works for two years. Our idea is to build a cabin-like cottage out of mostly salvaged materials. It will be small enough to maintain our somewhat minimalist ideals and large enough to house our future family endeavors. It will not have traditional HVAC, will use filtered rainwater from a cistern, have an outdoor summer kitchen, utilize a hybrid solar power system, and make the most of natural light, passive solar energy, and our area's climate. Perhaps not surprisingly we expect it to be pretty unconventional. We also want to do as much of the work as we can ourselves. Up to now our activity has been directed mostly toward dreaming about the whole thing. I've been madly sketching 5,892 1/2 floor plans and taking measurements in our existing home (and everyone else's) for reference and inspiration. I've been tossing ideas off Weldon at the speed of light -- which he's beginning to tolerate more readily now than he did ten months ago. And we've begun to acquire materials.

Yesterday was spent taking up 500 square-feet of oak hardwood floor. That sentence seems so much simpler and startlingly shorter than the effort it describes. My husband and his cousin attacked (very gently) the living room while I took a chisel and hammer to the white bathroom wall tiles. After lunch I took over in the dining room with Weldon where his cousin left off. We worked in silence except for the piercing clang of metal on metal and the occasional crunch of splitting wood grain (oops). Ear plugs didn't help generate any worthwhile conversation either. About mid afternoon Weldon looked up at me from the other end of the run and said with a goofy smile, "We're going to finish it today." I shook my head in a dismal protest looking at what seemed to be a mile-long hallway we hadn't yet touched. But at least it's repetitive work -- whack my hammer into the pry bar to wedge it under a floor board, wiggle ever so tenderly to dislodge the nails from hibernation, repeat like a typewriter, creep foot by foot until an entire board is liberated and added to our mounding pile, finish the row, and repeat over and over again. As it so often does, time passed. I got back into my rhythm and we did indeed reach our goal. With my arms like Jell-O, our backs screaming in protest, and dusty smiles we called it a day.

Getting the Clang of It

Nearly 1,000 square-feet of hardwood floors are only one bit of booty we plan to gather from this house in the next month. If all goes well, by April we'll have plenty of brick to build our future chimney, wood-stove backdrops, an exterior brick oven, walkways, and a floor in the attached greenhouse. We'll salvage full-cut framing lumber, sub-floor planks, and astonishingly wide sheeting (all cut half a century ago from local hardwoods). These can be used as our wall/ceiling coverings, framing lumber, and other innumerable tasks that will require wood. Bathroom tiles, a handful of vinyl windows, a few antique wooden interior doors, and other sundry keepsakes like electrical plate covers, attic doors, curtain hardware, and a working chest freezer will also make our tabulation of goodies. I am SUPER excited!

This demo project is a homesteader's jackpot:
1. We're rescuing materials with a lot of life left in them that would otherwise be buried underground forever.
2. We're solidifying good relationships with an older couple in the community who are pleased as pie to see items from their aged family home be put to use by a young couple in the area.
3. We're saving scads of money on our new home's building materials without sacrificing quality (and increasing it's character with vintage material and a great story.)
4. We're living our convictions and enjoying the process!

Hall, Shmall...Been there, Done that!

It will be quite a while before a backhoe chomps into soil to reveal our new basement, but the increase in momentum this month gives me quite a rush. I finally feel like we're heading somewhere. And the news is traveling fast! A few folks in the community and both our families have responded with intrigue and offered supplies of their own that we can purchase or simply pick-up and re-use. In my mind the dream house is built and these items are already in their rightful places. But between now and the day we officially open our front door (no doubt to have a gathering and a big meal), I'll be swinging a hammer, brandishing a drill, spitefully counting nails as I remove them from used flooring, or measuring for the millionth time how this should be or that should look. In the very near future, I'll be bringing down a house. I suppose that's one way to begin the process of putting one together!