the river house #4, a stump and a snake...

In our next episode of Fixer Upper on the River House...

Our neighbor finished his cute fence on the newly drawn lot.









Marc pulls out a stump with his Jeep!

And Jameson finds a black snake on the house!

(shudder.)  So creepy.  But at least it's the kind of snake that's good for your property??... if there is such a thing??

Demo continues!  The dumpster has arrived!  Which means it's now time to take out all of our pent-up aggressions with sledgehammers.  Fortunately, the only thing in the house is all the old plaster of the original front house, (the addition is new construction) but that will still be a major undertaking.

Before we swing the hammers, we're doing our best to carefully remove the historic trim in the house.  I want to reuse as much as we can salvage.

Here's a quick tip if you're renovating:  DON'T LEAVE YOUR HAMMER OR PRY BAR ON THE LADDER.  Because when you go to move your ladder and forget it's there... (ouch!)

Taylor and Marc

We don't have a crew, but we do have an intern, ha ha!  And Taylor only thought the RUF internship would be preparation for a life in ministry!  I'm sure he had no idea when he was placed with us that he'd be doing crazy things like THIS!  

(But seriously, I promise this is not forced labor, ha ha!  He pitched in for a couple hours yesterday.)

There's nothing quite as rewarding (and dusty) as smashing down walls.  Here you can see where the back of the old house meets the new addition.  We'll be taking out the exterior window you see on the right and turning it into an open doorway from the kitchen into the hallway that leads to the Great Room.

When you rip off plaster, there's these small wood boards underneath it called "lathe."  And if you do a Pinterest search on lathe, you'll see all kinds of crafty and creative uses for it.  People amaze me, really.

Lathe, anyone?

But there's only so much lathe wood one can ever hope to reuse, so if any of you are interested in grabbing a bunch of it, come and get it...

But remember the 18 historic radiators I offered you in the last post?  They are no longer available. (I know you're all so disappointed you missed out...)  They have all been hauled away for scrap metal, and we were so pleased to see them give some income to someone who could use the money much more than us.  

Kitchen wall BEFORE

Here's a before and after for you!  Pictured above was the wall between what WILL be the kitchen and the 24x24 Great Room that the previous owners had already added.

   

Mr. Larry, our awesome contractor, & his son opening up the kitchen wall

AFTER- open!

And now it's open!  Ahhhh, what a feeling.  You can see the temporary posts propped up in the Great Room- that was while our contractor was relocating the steel beams from the center of the room to the sides.  (for even more openness!  yes!!)  

Next time, I'll show you the open Great Room,  (which will have windows in it eventually...) but it's a huge first step in our remodel and now that it's finished, it means we can begin in the basement on Phase 1: a basement apartment for our female RUF intern coming this fall.  

(Phase 2 will be completing the main house, at which point our intern will move out and our family will move in.)

To be continued...