A Smashing Sunday

So, the pic of Eric in the Darth Vader mask (bottom right) represents his first foray into the fun world of plaster and lathe that I've been delving into since, oh, day two. He tackled the wall in the guest bedroom that hides the stairway to the second floor. The first pic (top left) is the ceiling in the "middle room" that I took down most of Sunday. Did I mention in the previous post what a hideously nasty job this is? Apparently, having 3 chimneys indicates that lots of stuff used to be burned in the house in fireplaces and stoves and such. Black dust is accumulated behind the plaster, especially in the ceilings that we assume is a product of the carbon-inducing burning. SO as I tore out plaster and lathe from above my head, I got a shower of black dust that went down my sweatshirt, up my sleeves and all over me. I had plaster and black dust in places that rarely see sunlight. A few cool things were also found in the ceiling. A pair of old tin tongs that looked like they might have come with sardines or something. And a program from some sort of police function that is dated 1903!!! It is in great condition except for a few black smudges and has photos of important police-people like Police Chief Kelly! Removal of all of the ceiling lathe and that higher up on the walls in the middle room and ceiling then permitted us to remove the old room dividing planks. (After consulting our architects to ensure that is was no load-bearing wall we were removing, naturally). So the top right photo is of the now huge center room that was created when we took down the beams between the entry and middle room. I'd have a better photo (aren't you impressed that we even remembered the camera this time?) Except the battery promptly died after those 3 pics. Better photos will follow, I promise. The remainder of the afternoon was spent cleaning up the chaos that tearing down plaster walls and ceilings creates, and trying to fit it al into our rented dumpster. Task accomplished!