no more plaster! and a little bit of old house love...

i am completely and utterly falling in love with this process. don't get me wrong, we have already had some stressful moments. yes it sucks to live in two rooms. yes, the dust is irritating, etc. but we are lucky to not have many of our belongings here.  its so nice to be living simply. yes. our clothes are in suitcases. we have have only two plates, two bowls, two beer glasses (HAHA. priorities), two forks, one frying pan, one sauce pan and so on. we have a sheet of drywall haphazardly screwed into the ceiling in the bathroom, to prevent the plaster from giving way. we are making due. just fine. 

 i am completely surprised how much i am loving this. ask me again later, i might not say the same. ask nick, he might not say the same.  we shall see. but for now, i love saving this 1920's bungalow. someone before us loved this house dearly, but never invested much more than love and time into it. this our chance to make it live again. it makes my heart happy.  and then, there is the preservation factor. we are contributing to maintaining the spirit of this old neighborhood.  in raleigh, they take old houses like these, in not-so-fancy neighborhoods, and bulldoze them. that is not for us. that is not for this house.  to emphasize that philosophy further, it also feels really good to minimize the amount of things that end up in the landfill. each layer that we pull back i get to reflect on a different time, a different life. its scary. its mysterious. its exciting. its beautiful. i am truly inspired, fascinated and blown away by the emotions that fixing up this house has stirred in me.

okay enough cheeseballishness.

i'll get to the point. 

we are doing the inside in two phases. right now we are working on the front half, which had really bad water damage from that stinkin leaky roof. we have and will have assistance from demos builders for the insulation and for the rehanging of the drywall and also for the roof.  tomorrow we will have the floor re-supported on the "rotten corner". otherwise, here is where we are as of today.

all the ceilings are demo-ed! 

old wiring is cool

the fireplaces are all uncovered and are going to be amazing!

before and afters...

library

before

after

den

before

after

here are some plaster before and afters 

for your entertainment...

den looking towards foyer

before

after

foyer

after

library:

before

after
note: the white door is now a closet. we will be closing off this side and opening it up to the bathroom on the other side of the wall. it will become a linen closet.

 foyer windows and door into library
also known as the rotten corner

and now for my favorite before:

dining room

library

library AND the dining room!

plaster demo

demo-ing the rest of the den and the foyer

its an adventure!

nick. post plaster demo.
(no he didn't get in a honky tonk bar brawl)
its a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it...

rainy day...

looks like we're going to be working inside!

 ok i wasn't working inside... i was in beaufort. yep, i left nick all alone to work on the house while i went back to to fire some pots and  pack up the studio. it rained. so the focus was on on demoing the inside. this is what it looked like.  

dining room now

october

dining room wednesday

dining room in october

fireplace in dining room, super cool brick underneath the plaster...BONUS!!!!

second bathroom, debris

october

dining room, another view

den looking towards entry

rotten as all get out

this was the corner of the house where the ceiling caved in during the roof demolition. this was also where the roof moved when you walked on it. even more fun? this is where after we demoed the drop ceiling we notice a crack where the ceiling and the wall met that was "slightly" gaping. this gap eventually revealed the wall seperating from the house. notice the very rotten beams... one of them had rotted down to 4 feet tall. 

(don't worry its fixed now!)

covering the window and the fireplace in the den

same room, october (can't see the fireplace very well though)

breaking it down, this action shot was right in the middle of demo

tarp over front porch and den/entryway after ceiling demo.
hi future roof! just some joists for now....

new joists