The dust has settled from the wedding and a fabulous honey
moon in Key West is in the books. Time to get down to business. Adam has made
quite a bit of progress on the demolition of the attic and second floor
already. He started straight away the week after the wedding by pulling up the
attic floor boards and vacuuming out the vermiculite insulation. Bag by bag he
carried it down 2 flights of stairs and out the door. About 20 bags so far and
more to go. In the process he found some treasures. First, an old ID card
issued in the 1970’s. Neat to begin with, but to add to the mystery it was torn
into 4 pieces and scattered about with a bunch of cigarette butts….hmm. A quick
internet search of the name was inconclusive. Next was a Sauk City High School
graduation invitation from 1917! It predates the house by over 15 years! Wasn’t
expecting to find anything that old. Fun stuff.
More progress was made while I visited my parents for a long
weekend. Cardboard boxes laid down to protect the hardwood floor, and another
15 or so feet of the chimney taken out and carried by the bucketful down the
steps. Adam is getting his workout! The upstairs heater was service checked to
make sure it still worked, and then disconnected and hauled out for use in the
garage. And then we discovered exactly why it was so necessary to be installed
up there. Tonight Adam started the satisfying (and messy) process of ripping
out the plaster in one of the upstairs bedroom…and ALAS!...ZERO insulation.
Nill. Nada. None. I guess heating your house was a lot cheaper back in the day!
We also figured out which room served as the kitchen when this house was a
duplex at some point in its past. And further demo revealed that the house is
in fact balloon framed.
We are getting to the point where we definitely need a
dumpster to keep getting things accomplished. A long 4
th of July
weekend coming up should satisfy some much needed hard core demo time. The race
is on to get some new insulation in by winter!
