Thursday, June 6, 2013

"Galaxy! What lovely old plastics..."

Well, the truck, trailer and lift rentals are booked which means the schoolhouse is definitely coming home to roost. The plan is to begin deconstruction Wednesday, with our carpenter joining us on Thursday, and loading and moving it on Friday. We will begin rebuilding it as soon as the foundation goes in (a phone call I need to make tomorrow). We almost had to walk away as the extra day of deconstruction and the lift rentals put us over by quite a bit. We had planned on doing the siding ourselves if we had the time to save that chunk of money, now, we have no choice but to do it ourselves . . . fie. At this point we're just too enamored with the additional privacy, storage, and being able to see the final layout of the yard (not to mention a home for Daphne) . . .

What this means is that we have two weeks of manual labor ahead of us. The mansion that once stood behind us (now the evil apartment building we're trying to block out) was carried, stone by stone, and brick by brick, into our backyard decades ago, and this pile sits right where the schoolhouse will be. Many of these stones (mostly faced limestone with decorative edges) will be used when we rebuild the porch, but for now they're being distributed around the yard as borders to my flower beds.

I had meant to back up and get a better picture,
however, the cat was distracting . . .

There's also a 20x10 temporary shed full of salvage and roof slate, and the piles of fir floor boards to find temporary homes for.


Temporary homes of course require that I clean out the basement, which is where I spent most of the day. One shower and several hours later I'm still brushing imaginary webs off.

Despite finding cool things (and by cool I mean heart-breaking) buried everywhere we've dug so far, these piles have been devoid of anything of interest, with the exception of one solitary black plastic horse. I don't think I've ever been so happy about a piece of plastic . . .

the black horse is a rival for our attention

6 comments:

  1. So the schoolhouse excitement starts next Wednesday the 12th? Hope all goes well getting the foundation in!

    But--! But--! Forgive me the opportunism, but if you should have some of those limestone blocks left over after you finish rebuilding the porch, would you be willing to work something out to trade me for a few of them? Maybe I could drive over and give yinz a few hours of labor this summer? I, too, have a flower bed or two to edge, and though large Beaver County roundy-rocks might look more natural, dressed limestone would look fine, too.

    (Oh, yeah. Adorable kitteh. As usual. :-D )

    Kate H.
    www.sowsearhouse.blogspot.com

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    1. Well, the porch has been pushed back a good three years because of the schoolhouse, so that may be a rather long wait to edge your flower beds. On the other hand, once we start hitting up demoed houses again after the schoolhouse goes up I'll let you know if we come across some good stone!

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  2. Oh, it's getting exciting! I know you're not looking forward to the long slog of two weeks of manual labor, but just think--when it's done, you never have to do that particular job again, and every time you look at the schoolhouse you'll have the pride of knowing you did it yourself. (That's my attempt at a motivational speech--did it work??) Can't wait to see the progress!

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    1. Haha, practicing for a career as a motivational speaker? It will be worth it (unless something goes terribly wrong), but the moment I start to count the number of things I need to do I start to have a panic attack . . .

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  3. This is very exciting and all well worth it in the end. You and Jayne work harder than anyone I know!

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    1. I somehow missed your comment Lottie, sorry! Jayne is amazing (and may be one of the reasons I decided to blog to begin with) . . .

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