Burnin' Down the House

Spent yesterday working on the renovation project, which turned out to be a very long day in very, very hot weather. Luckily, the entire yard and attached forest is extremely shady - otherwise, we just wouldn't be able to work 8+ hours in 100+ heat. Even with the shade, however, we still have to take frequent breaks and down gallons of water and Gatorade. It's slow going. Still, progress was made.

At this point we have pretty much given up on the house. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, is falling apart on it. It wasn't well-built when it was constructed in 1973, and now, 30 some-odd years later, it is well and truly falling down. The floors, roof, electrical, plumbing - you name it, it has to be replaced. So, for the time being, we've just put the house on the back burner. It was my childhood home, the only house I remember growing up in, and so it makes me sad to think that we'll have to tear it down, but that's what it's starting to look like. Getting it back into shape would mean basically tearing it down to the studs at this point, and for that kind of money, we could rebuild something that more accurately fits our needs, and reflects our style. Therefore, in typical fashion, I'm just leaving it for now.

Instead, we're focusing now on the 10 acres of lawn, gardens, and forest. The current stage is clean-up and demolition, the latter encompassing about 400 miles of rusting, rotting fencing. Yesterday we took down part of the back fence, and the entire creosote fence across the front of the property. It was hot, sweaty work, but for once I was glad for the lack of rain. It meant the ditches we had to work in to get at the fence posts were dry and snake-free. This is a very, very good thing. I also managed to do a bit of pruning, and my sister Laura cleaned the pine straw and muck from the top of her little house. The LOML, meanwhile, got to operate a chainsaw for the first time, and took out two dying trees (one dogwood, one pear). It was a good day.

At the end of the day we were all tired, but happy. We got stuff done, stuff we can see and measure. Each time we go it looks a little bit better. Photos with the next post.

05 July 2009