Weekend update

Yesterday we cut out the metal straps from the stone walls and floor in the attic. The metal was hardened steel--it dulled 2 sawzall blades! It was under some tension, and gapped about a half inch after being cut. We left the cut ends in the stone and lifted the floor boards to remove the other ends, which were fastened to the beam with gigantic old nails. A small portion of the floor needs to be repaired where the boards were cut to accommodate the metal bars.

Next we bricked in the stovepipe holes and mortared the first coat on the side walls. After researching online about how to remediate creosote stains, we've decided to use a shellac-based primer to cover them, so we only removed the loose plaster instead of chipping out half the wall to remove the stained areas.

We also finished the insulation in the corners of the attic. John showed me how to use his foam gun last week, but there are several things you can do that would destroy the gun, and I didn't want to take the chance of that happening, so I paid John to do that job. Then yesterday I got a few cans of spray foam to fill in the remaining gaps.

I broom-swept the entire attic (again!) and we hauled a bunch of buckets of trash out to the dumpster.

Oh, and we caught another mouse. It may have been there for a while, as it was pretty dried up, but we just noticed it yesterday. Last week we put all the set traps on a windowsill to get them out of the way, and one unfortunate hungry guy found them!

Today we finished the demolition of the bathroom. I started taking the tiles off the ceiling one-by-one, but when Keith saw my plodding progress he stepped in. As usual, he's better and faster at almost everything than I am. He used a rusted old ice chopper from the barn and finished the job in about 30 minutes, whereas it would have taken me hours to do the same thing. Alas, once again I was most useful filling buckets with rubble.

The ceiling and interior wall are a mess from the tile cement, so they will have to be drywalled. But the exterior wall was framed out before the tile was applied, so the curving contours at the window have been preserved, and we will attempt to repair the plaster from the gouges caused by the huge nails that held the framing in place. The window sill was cut to fit under the framing and was just sitting loosely in place. It needs to be replaced, and of course when we took it out, what was revealed? Mouse nests!

I took down the pipe chase in the living room (more mouse nests) while Keith worked on the masonry in the attic. He ran out of the mortar mix we bought so he didn't get to the living room walls yet.

We didn't even consider burning scrap wood this weekend as it was too windy. The air is almost never still here--I think we should put up some windmills and take advantage of it.

Even though we put in two full days of work, there are still a lot of unfinished jobs on our current to-do list. I'll continue working on those things this week.