No natural disasters, or tragic losses this week. Looking ahead to the hard work still to do. We have had good discoveries, and bad. Breaking down the wall from the kitchen to the dining room, to open the back stairwell, we found some termite damage, albeit old damage, but termite damage nonetheless. We were told the house was previously inspected and termite free and treated. Hoping this damage was very old, as it was inside the wall and stops halfway up the post. Luckily, we are pulling out those damaged posts to open up the stairway and door to the kitchen. It is actually now allowing us to open up the opening to the kitchen wider, and making some adjustments to the dining room to kitchen wall, that will be much more efficient.
Good discoveries, we found a window in one of the outbuildings that lets more light in, so the "stable" is no longer so dark. Also, it seems that the rear of the house, where the kitchen is, was not balloon framed as the rest of the house was, so this will allow us to replace the one window in the kitchen with a much larger area of 2 windows. Also, in the taking down of part of the walls in the kitchen pulled the ceiling down to check on the structural nature of the stairway and have decided to expose the ceiling throughout the kitchen. Eventually the thought is to set it up so we will have exposed rafters, with drywall in between…but that will be added to the end of the list. We can begin with clearing out the ceiling and starting from the wood floor and rafters above, may just paint the wood planks white and leave the rafters…Decisions decisions. I guess we can't make a final decision until we get into the ceiling throughout.
Renovating a 100 year old home, is full of surprises. You may have an idea of what you WANT to do when tearing in, but may come out with a whole different idea once the demo is done. Part of it is exciting to see what will actually come of it, and some of it is perplexing. Having to be creative to come up with a new direction if necessary. Honestly I have enjoyed the process of demolition, there is nothing more satisfying then pulling down old ceiling tiles, damaged plaster and layer upon layer of old wallpaper. So old it comes down in sheets. I look forward to learning how to re-plaster the walls where needed, and adding some texture to those old walls.
