Demolition Derby: And The Walls Came A Tumbling Down

Nothin' but blue skies

We're coming down the home stretch in our crusade to tear down an older brick house as we salvage building materials for our dream cabin-y cottage. Saturday was another major milestone as the crew (which this time included my husband, brother-in-law, and our good friend along with three of his buddies) finally took apart the frame from rafters to sub-floor. I finished the day with Sheetrock dust in my hair, tiny splinters of framing lumber in my forearms, sore (and stinky) feet, and a killer t-shirt tan. Don't worry, I only did enough sweaty work to earn the ice cream cone for afternoon break...I was otherwise in charge of photo ops, lunch feast, first aid administration, and hydration patrol. As the photo above makes plain, it was a highly successful day.

Early Morning Glory

There has been significant progress since we started a month and a half ago, but the push to the finish line has been relentless. As of Saturday morning there was clapboard siding on an empty shell -- floor covering was long gone, ceilings and insulation were removed, windows and doors had been transported to storage, and shingles had been painstakingly scraped from the roof . We reported for duty after the sun was up, but the dew still hung on every surface. Weldon armed the younger guys with pry bars and told them to sic the clapboard. Like famished termites they inhaled it in no time. The oak and poplar sheeting was next. Very much against their will, they carefully pried off the sheeting. This was when I stopped gawking and started helping. As 1-inch boards came pummeling to the lawn I exiled the split ones for scrap and sorted the keepers by length. Needless to say, with four of them and one of me I couldn't keep up, but I tried. Weldon and his brother wove themselves in and out of the mayhem staying ahead of the flurry with specialized tasks like stripping wire and moving equipment.

By lunchtime there was nothing left but a wooden skeleton and 6-1/2 ravenous appetites (including mine). Our crew ate nearly 4 lbs. of beef burgers, 1 pound of cheese, a quart jar of pickles, two bags of chips, and a dozen fresh-baked Amish donuts. I got off easy on the menu this time, but I was happy to keep this dirty group nourished...and out of my clean house. Fighting off a food coma, the pack returned to their posts and began razing the roof. Sixteen-foot full-cut oak rafters were slung down from their perches one by one and within an hour the roof was no more. At this point I went back to gawking.

Like tight-rope walkers swinging sledge hammers, the group dismantled the ceiling joists from underneath their balancing feet. The liberated beams joined the others on a top-heavy wagon headed for storage. I dreamily envisioned the many reincarnations to come...and tried not to think about the many hours yet needed to remove the countless nails. Then it was time for an ice cream break.

    

By three thirty in the afternoon it looked like a cyclone had flattened the entire house in one fell swoop, which wouldn't exactly have been an untruth. This particular cyclone just happened to have 24 appendages and a lot of jokes to crack. With no more framing to fell, we'd made it through another successful day. The water jugs were dry, the clothes were drippy, grimy, and a bit worse for wear, and the trailers and wagon were loaded to the hilt. Even the chimney had come down with little protest. We left nothing standing...well, almost nothing.

Room With a View

Weldon and I have only one week left in our commitment for the demolition portion of this project. Plenty of detritus remains to be sorted and hauled off, but the feeling is more of a cool down lap at this point. The major coordinated effort of full Saturdays with all hands on deck has run its course (for this season). We'll spend the evenings of this week clearing the grounds of our piled lumber, cement blocks, brick for reuse, and metal for scrap. On the other end of the commute we'll be organizing storage in our barn as best as we can. At this point I think we'll set it and forget it...at least for a little while. You know what they say, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." We're going to need all the heart pangs we can muster to get cozy for the long haul. These materials need a LOT of work to be ready for the next chapter in their story.