We had a pretty busy week. I almost finished my work bench in the barn. I have one more coat of polyurethane to go on the countertop, and then it will be done. Here is a picture:
We also started on the demolition of the old kitchen and the back part of the house. Taking the house apart by hand has been a little like doing an archeological dig.
BEFORE
AFTER
The crew started working from the inside out because it was a bit of a nasty day. The tiny kitchen is also coming out:
The great part about taking the kitchen down to the studs is that we get to look at the structure behind the walls so that we know what to expect in the other rooms. For example, the structural engineers that we have been working with stopped by today to see if they could tell whether the beams in the office were cosmetic, or if they were actually holding up the ceiling. Here is a quick reminded of what the office looks like:
The office is one of my favorite rooms in the house, mostly because of the exposed beams. After the engineers left, we pulled down part of the ceiling in the kitchen. We climbed up to look and realized that the old ceiling in the kitchen looks exactly like the ceiling in the office. At some point, someone dropped the ceiling down about a foot and half and covered up the beams.
Two good things could come from this, 1) We could take down the ceiling and have the exposed beams throughout most of the first floor and 2) we could end up with higher ceilings. Hopefully the engineers will be content with the strength of the beams so that we can keep them.
The demo team said that they could remove the entire back of the house (foundation and all) by the end of the weekend. We'll see.
Hooray for workbenches in barns! It's very "yankee workshop" :) - but if you start wearing the hats, we may have to hurt you.
ReplyDeleteI have never understood why someone would drop a cieling down, for crying out loud. Hooray for beams, and high ceilings! And you kept the fireplace, right, I can just see a corner of it in the second picture? I'm so excited to be vicariously doing construction through you - and looking forward to other finds (old photos behind the walls? newspapers? bottles?) and I'm so impressed that you are saving old stuff from the old section for the new edition (but of course you are, I should have known to expect nothing less!) You're doing a great job on the blog, keep it up! Luv Ya - She
We are not going to be able to keep the fireplace in the back section of the house. We are digging a new, full basement for the new addition (or replacement), so the fire place and chimney have to come down. There are currently two fireplaces in the main house, and we are planning on adding a third, so that it looks like it would have 200 years ago when the fireplaces were the only source heat.
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