More Kitchen Demo!!!

Today was a good day moving forward!!!  It feels so good!

But first!  As I pulled up to the property, I noticed a mess in my pasture!  I drove down to check it out.  It turns out that someone blew through the stop sign across the yard.  We DID have an ice and snowstorm last night, so that is a possibility, but it was also prom night, so that is ALSO a possibility.  Regardless, a very large GMC pick-up truck has at least $3000 in damage to it.  I had so many pieces scattered throughout my pasture.  I am leaning towards a drunken escapade, as the truck made a quick moon-shape turn back to the road...through the ditch AGAIN...literally right next to my driveway.  Unbelievable.

Someone flew off the road and hit the opposing ditch HARD.  At this point they likely went airborne and landed at that area 50 feet ahead where all of the broken pieces then fell off with the fall back to earth.

Notice the tire tracks to the right.  The truck just kept going and drove back out through the extremely steep ditch...right next to my flat drive!

It was a hard enough hit to lose quite a bit of the front!

The repair costs are going to be EXPENSIVE.

I suppose it could have been worse.  That truck hit the upward slope of the ditch HARD.

Several inches of dirt was taken away where the truck hit the upslope of the ditch on my pasture.

First on today's list was fixing the Pride of the Farm waterer.  The parts for the unit came in the mail yesterday, so today I wanted to install them.  First I wanted to try to remove the two SUPER rusty bolts that originally held the tank to the base.  But no matter what we tried, they didn't budge.

The new parts for the waterer.

I tried to notch one bolt into a screw so I could turn it.  No luck.  The other one I used a screw/bolt extractor, and it wouldn't budge, either.  I tried to drill the bolt out, but I still couldn't get it to budge.  Because the tank is going to be over 500 pounds full of water anyway, I decided to just use the two good bolts (I bought new ones yesterday).  So the new part is installed, and the waterer will be tested tomorrow.  It was WAY too cold today!!!  We had snow and crazy wind!!!  BRRRRR!!!

I drilled down the middle of the bolt but still couldn't get it out of the nut.

I notched out this bolt to make it a flat-head screw but still couldn't get it to budge!

The new parts are installed!  The waterer is ready to be tested.

Then we started to tackle the Deere pull-behind wagon I received yesterday.  All of the bolts ripped off the plastic (almost like a side-load was put on it), and the bolts aren't long enough to be used for how I want to repair it.  So I'll have to get 8 longer bolts and a washer.  But I should have a handy $180 wagon for a few bucks!

The plastic broke off on all eight bolts, but I think I can creatively fix it with longer bolts.  This will be a super-handy wagon!

After that, I decided to use the help I had (Mom and Dad) to remove the upper kitchen cabinets.  That was a bit tricky!!!  I am QUICKLY learning that this house was kind of just put together any which way.  The cabinets look to be hand-made with screws everywhere.  And on one of them, there was a bolt holding up the cabinets that took FOREVER to unscrew!  It was an old square-head bolt, and we literally took turns turning it!  All three of us!  But the overhead cabinets finally came down.

The cabinets look decent...until you open them.  I think they were all refaced.

Time to remove those cabinets!

The kitchen actually feels big without the cabinets!

While taking down the southwest cabinets today, I saw part of a yardstick fall down from behind the cabinets.  I picked it up and couldn't believe my eyes!  "Blakley Implement Co."  Just two weeks ago I was literally having a conversation with my brother-in-law's dad about the company his grandpa used to run.  It was a Massey-Harris dealership.  And I had just had this conversation with my dad about this a couple of days ago asking if he knew about it.  So how fun is it that this yardstick falls down advertising that very company?!  It says it was on West Wabash in Springfield, Illinois, and tonight I would learn that the building is the old Merlin Muffler shop that burned down several years ago.  My brother-in-law's grandpa built that building where he ran an implement dealership!

So fun.

The yardstick that advertises the company run by my sister's husband's great-grandfather.  What a small, small world.

Mom and Dad had to leave after that (thanks for the help!), so I went down to visit with the piggies.  Oh, man, these little guys were wound up tonight!!!  I think they like their new windows!  I gave them a few flecks of hay (they LOVE hay), and they just started dancing!!!  They are so fun to watch.  They run out of the barn, then run right back in, and at the end, they do a 360-degree wild spin!  It's soooooooooo hilarious.  They look so out of control, but somehow they keep it together!

Ever seen confinement pigs do this?  They are soooooooo happy!!!

I wanted to make some progress on the kitchen, so I put on my respirator and went to work.  I pulled down the lath (so easily) and quite enjoyed finding out the secrets of the house!  Seriously, the lathe just peels right off the studs.  I was ecstatic to find that!  I just put a prybar behind the pieces and pull.  And they are eager to come down!

It's time for the lath to come down!

The lath just pulled right off.

I was actually able to pull large sections down at a time!

I found an old doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.  It's quite interesting how it's framed in.  It has a 4x6 rough-hewn post on the left and right.  And to the left of the left post are TWO actual 2x4's braced together.  Seriously, this house is solid.  I love it.

Look at that framing!  2 x 4, 2 x 4, 4 x 6!

Such solid framing to the left of the old door.

It's neat to see the plaster keys of the wall in the dining room, too.  The plaster quite literally hangs onto the lath.  No wonder it's so solid.

The view inside the wall looking at the back of the dining room wall.  The plaster actually HANGS onto the lath.

Of course, everything was not good news.  I found a very destroyed support post that has been eaten away by termites.  I mean, they chewed right through this board.  They usually work from the ground up, so I would imagine this board is quite hollow all the way down.

This wood board needs replaced.  Completely eaten out by termites.

The termite board is actually a support board for the door!  Glad I found this damage.

It's funny, too, but this wasn't really a setback for me.  Quite the opposite.  It's finds like these that just solidify exactly why I am gutting the house.  I expect to find more termite damage (which will then be fixed), knob-and-tube wiring (which will be replaced), and who knows what else.  But by opening up the walls, all of the areas can properly be addressed.

I found a brick in the upper wall that I can't figure out yet.  It's in the top part of the ceiling.  I'll have to remove more to figure that out.

I can't figure out what this brick is in the upper wall.

An important find was actually insightful.  At closing, the previous owner told me that his parents had blown in insulation through the outer walls.  He thought this was done in the 1960's.  Well, I can absolutely confirm that insulation was blown in.  THIS is the hardest part about the demo!  The plaster dust isn't too bad.  But when I get into an exterior wall with the blown-in insulation, my eyes instantly start burning.  This insulation quickly turns to a dust.  I am now trying to work around it (keeping it in the wall as I pull down the parts around it).

As far as function?  Well, that's the interesting find.  On one exterior wall, I found a wall cavity that had the insulation only go halfway down.  The reason is that there is a hand-hewn board that rests horizontal (more on that later) in the wall cavity.  It adds structural support to the wall.  Well, when you work in the blind, you don't know if the whole wall cavity is getting filled with insulation.  So when the insulation was blown in from the top of the cavity (on the outside), the workers filled up the cavity until they started seeing insulation come out the top hole.

Well, without knowing that this exterior wall had a horizontal board across it, they thought they had filled the entire wall cavity.  Unfortunately for the owners (and their heating bill), only HALF of the wall was filled!  The insulation went down halfway, then piled up!  This would be an extreme area of heat loss or air infiltration.  This was yet another affirmation for why I am gutting this house!  Now this wall can be properly insulated.

The insulation only filled half the wall here!

The insulation stopped halfway down the wall!  The insulation company would never have known.

So now about that horizontal board...it's a beautiful hand-hewn board that uses mortise and tenon framing.  The edges are notched so that they fit into the vertical framing boards that are also notched to receive them.  The old architecture is just beautiful.

The beautiful hand-hewn board that goes horizontal across the middle of the room.

The vertical board is notched like this on the side to receive the horizontal board.  It literally rests in the opening.  Much like an old barn!

One other interesting find tonight was when I pulled off the northeast wall where the pantry used to be.  Once the lath was off, I could see the slope of the roof for this part of the house.  But I instantly felt a rush of cold air, almost like someone had turned a fan on me.  This section of the house was literally letting cold air come in!  I mean, there is a FLOW of air here!  It's coming down through the attic above the kitchen.  I'll be able to have that blown in with insulation for yet another way to save energy (I hope).

The cold draft coming down from here is ridiculous!  BRR!!!

I also had the first glimpse of the exterior sheathing for my house.  It's in great shape and actually runs vertical (a big surprise).  I've never seen or heard that before.  But if it's in good shape, I will probably remove both the masonite siding and wood siding and get down to this flat surface.  But that day is far, far away!!!

All in all, just a great day.  I am loving the demo experience.  The house has so many secrets, and it has years and years and years and years of patch jobs.  One job put over the next.

Oh, which reminds me!  I decided to see how difficult the ceiling tiles would be.  I stuck my hammer through one.  It went right through.  I thought these tiles would come down in a 4 x 8 sheet, but I I was wrong.  They are "slide-in" tiles...like laminate flooring.  But the good news is they come down super easy.  SUPER easy.  You just grab and pull.  But the surprise?  These tiles were only one inch down from the plaster ceiling!!!  Yes, this was yet another cover-up job!  Likely the plaster ceiling was looking rough, so they just covered it up!

Unbelievable!

But I was quickly running out of work room in the kitchen.  I was having a very difficult time propping up my stool on the piles of lath and plaster!  I need to take a day and remove the lath and cabinets so I can continue to work!

The tiles come down super easy.  But I was running out of room to put my step-stool on the floor below!

But all in all, a great day.  I am super excited to see the secrets of this home.  And one wall at a time, I will find out!