Here’s wishing a very warm greeting to all of you who’ve been following our blog and thanks for the words of encouragement as we plunged into this project. I emphasize a “warm greeting” because it’s been a very cold week, especially the nights. As a matter of fact, it’s been cold since this adventure started. We were wondering back in early December why winter was delaying its arrival here in Texas, and now I have the answer. It was waiting for us to start the demo on the house, and almost the very day we began it blew in.
For a month now
I’ve been doing a lot of gutting, ripping, prying, sweeping, yanking, tearing, cutting, sweeping, sawing, scraping, nailing, sweeping, tossing,
splitting, towing, and . . . you guessed
it . . . sweeping. Not to mention SPENDING. You’ve been seeing
the pictures Jeannette posts so you know we’ve really changed the floor plan of
this old house. And that reminds me that
I wish I had watched all the episodes in years past of that cable TV show “This
Old House” where the handyman guy helps people remodel, repair and restore
their old fixers like ours.
It’s been fun and
interesting to say the least. What
amazes me first is how sturdy this old house was built. Pulling nails out of this wood is like
pulling rebar out of concrete, and I think the wood is petrified now by
now. I never personally appreciated the
bones of these old structures and never looked beyond the external appearance,
but let’s just say I see them in a different light now. Not only can I praise this old wooden box for
standing strong for over a century, I now know why the wood is so darn solid
and straight.
The city
inspector told me the other day that back when this house was built, the saw
mills typically cut lumber from what we now call “old growth” trees. They weren’t concerned yet with forest
management per se, but cut trees that
rendered top quality wood which could remain straight after cutting. Old trees have a much tighter grain and fewer
knots. Today’s forestry service,
however, has to make sure that the old growth trees are not extinguished, so,
under strict regulation, it is difficult and expensive to get that type of wood
anymore. The construction lumber we are
able to buy nowadays is from those fast growing “new growth” trees instead and
it’s nearly impossible to get any straight stuff. If it’s straight on the rack at the lumber
yard, it’ll be bowed by the time you get home with it.
I’ve been asked
several times if I’m getting tired of this construction mess and the answer is
“No”. I do get tired and I need to pace
myself to avoid burnout, not to mention the escape from so much dust. It seems that God has blessed me by sealing
my respiratory mechanism from the ugly dust monster. For years I have been extremely allergic to
dust of any kind – sawdust, country road dust, and especially vacuum cleaner
dust. Okay. So we all know that I should wear a dust
mask, but it’s not that simple. Wearing
eyeglasses and a dust mask don’t work together very well. My glasses fog up instantly and I can’t see a
thing. So it must be that God has been busy
protecting my immune system lately. Thank Him!
We have turned a
big corner in that the demo is 98% done and some rebuild has already
started. The new central heat has been a
blessing this past week despite the numerous holes for it all to escape
through. The electricians are about 90%
finished and were able to get us some lights and live outlets to work
with. The plumbers have completed the
enormous re-do under the house and we’re ready to fill in the gaping hole in
the bathroom floor. They finished
installing the new water heater today and fired her up, as well as roto-rooting
the sewer from house to street. Heck,
we’ve just had a major upgrade. We now
have lights, heat, a working shower with hot water and a functional toilet. Let’s just say that the trees have been well
irrigated by me and all the contractors these past 5 weeks. J
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