I took a break from the day job today to do a little demolition in the old exam room.
This is so I know where to get replacement cartridges for my mask. (It’s better than hunting through Lowe’s aimlessly for a half an hour).
This is the shared wall between the house and the exam room. I figured the chimney would be in good shape when it finally appeared, and I was right. It’s covered in eighty years of dust, but it’s in great shape. The horizontal boards on the right side cover over the original doorway that used to open out into this space when it was a screened porch. Also note the original shingles at foot level, still nailed to the sheathing. Back in the day, instead of Tyvek, they used tarpaper, or in this case, heavy brown paper. Not very efficient.
I did a little exploratory digging under the floor sheathing and found some pretty good-looking pine. I’m leaving the sheathing down until the bulk of the heavy demolition is done, and then I’ll pull it up to see what we have. This is very promising.
Here’s the entire west wall minus drywall. I found a label on the back of a few of the sheets which patents it in 1919—much earlier than I’d ever thought—so the writing on the wall is definitely from 1928.
This is the shared wall between the bathroom and the exam room. I decided to pull both of the interior walls down first so I wouldn’t have to deal with insulation just yet, but there’s some up above the bathroom ceiling.
Now I’ve got to figure out a way to haul the drywall out of the middle of the floor and up to White Marsh, where there’s a sanitary landfill (they won’t let me dump it at my usual go-to location, right down the beltway from the house).
Two things:
1) HOLY CRAP it didn’t occur to me that you’d have the kicakss exposed brick from teh back of the chimney. SWOON.
2) Writing the source/vendor on your equipment? My dad TOTALLY does that shit.
And a third thing:
Would you consider make it a two-way fireplace? I’d have a hard time parting with all that glorious old brick, personally, but it might be nice to have a fireplace in that room.
Considering how lousy the chimney looked in the living room, I’m beside myself with joy over how clean this side of the brick is.
We (I) considered a two-way fireplace, but the issue here would be where to put the TV in this room. It only really lends itself to one arrangement–the TV hung on the brick, with the couch against the outside wall-so I’m hesitant to punch a hole through. Maybe in the future.
Plus, since the flue is currently broken (and would cost $3K to fix), when the wind blows it comes straight down the chimney to rattle the [crappy] surround. Makes it right breezy in the living room on those 20 below nights.
Re: Way to Haul. Clifford says to say, “Hi.”
As always, Dave, we say THANK YOU. But now, however, I’m considering the wisdom of hiring a dumpster for the week-I’d just move into the front offices and demo that stuff, as well as tossing some yard waste, an old picnic table, assorted crap from the basement…