This is hard work!

Well!  Day 3 of Demo was Friday, January 13th.  I must say, the glamour of this project was starting to wear off.  After a week recuperating, with sore hands, backs and feet, we gird ourselves for another such weekend.  I am not as excited, to say the least.  The parts that really excite me are yet to come.  Gabe seems to be relishing in the manual labor that he doesn't get at his office job.

We still had the dumpster, and will have it for another weekend.  The weekend was projected to be quite chilly, so Mom was trying to figure out a heat source for us, bless her, as I was NOT looking forward to working in the cold!!  It was a blustery day.  We still hadn't figured out why the electricity wasn't working, so that was Gabe's mission when we got there in the early afternoon.  He tested a few outlets, most of which were getting chewed up from the demo, but there was one from the later renovations (we think in the 80's) in the bathroom that worked!!

So, he promptly plugged in our new propane heater and we got to work removing lathe & plaster from the main living space in the oldest part of the house.  

Our goal for today was to get even the ceiling removed in this room.  So we started hacking away.  Gabe discovered that removing the plaster first and then the lathe was the best idea because of clean up.  They are altogether different animals.  Plaster is heavy and dusty, and lathe is all about leveraging thin strips of wood off the studs that have a plethora of tiny (and dangerous!) little nails.  The scrap lathe is best dumped directly into the trash bin.  Gabe would pound at the plaster to get it opened up, and I would start chipping away.  I also made it my baby to take plaster off the existing brick chimney, which was a beast.  I am standing on a block of wood in the following picture sequence.  The ceilings aren't that low.  If that were the case, I could help with the ceilings too, but no, Gabe did all of that.  

Action shot! see the plaster fall

Brick chimney--yes it's under there--see thick layers of paint too

Gabe got almost all the plaster removed from the walls, and then went to work at the lathe.  He was the one taking each heavy trash bin load out to the dumpster.  I took over with lathe removal, while he began on the ceiling.  It was a combination of plaster and drywall, so big, heavy chunks would fall, and I had to make sure I was out of the way!  It was an interesting dance, trying to keep out of each other's way. 

Before today's work began

                                         Plaster is down             Chimney is stripped exposing brick, Gabe started on ceiling

Since we had gotten started pretty late in the day (on Fridays Gabe works a half day) we thought we would stay a little bit later.  This was made possible by discovering the outlet that works and the industrial halogen light we bought.  We plugged it in around 5, and ended up probably staying until 7.  We also remembered to bring the industrial water sprayer to keep the dust down.  He thinks of everything, doesn't he? 

Gabe removes the big chunks from the ceiling and I take them out to the dumpster

We make a good team.  While Gabe works on the ceiling and I stay clear of the falling pieces, I work on removing lathe under the stairs.

Lathe to be removed under the stairs--notice the propane heater in the picture

And we found a friend!  Can you spot him?

He's hung onto floor joists for dear life!

Finally done for the evening after lots of dust and sweeping.  Hooray!

Now it's time to clean ourselves....