De-Construction

Our contractor gave us a funny little chart when we started working with him, to educate us a little about the emotional highs and lows of a home renovation.  He's probably had some experience with folks like me before, and just wanted to give us some advance warning that I'm going to want to invest in some anti-depressants or a little talk therapy when we get to drywall sanding, because that stuff is boring and takes forever.  Duly noted.  But now at the beginning, as the chart indicated, is a time for joy, because STUFF IS FINALLY HAPPENING!

Construction Fence! Woo!

Destruction of nuisance trees! Yay!

And if you're like me and feel a little sad about the destruction of any tree, please set your mind at ease.  This tree was a cherry laurel, and when I took that picture of the stump, my eyes were watering from the fumes coming off of the cut wood because that sucker is so poisonous.  I've hesitated to get rid of it for years, because it gives our yard some privacy from the house/apartment across the alley from us (and because I didn't know it was so bad, I swear).

Backyard before.  Giant tree shading yard, providing privacy, dropping toxic "cherries" into sandbox.

Backyard after.  No privacy, no death by cyanide.

But not only was our giant cherry laurel going to block construction vehicles, and not only has its unnatural multi-trunkness leaned precariously on our fence for years, and not only has it dropped irritating little fake cherries all over our yard and sandbox and drawn scary-huge flocks of birds to feast on the cherries and poop purple goo-poop all over everything, it also turns out that every part of the plant is rich in hydrogen cyanide.  You know, otherwise known as Zyklon-B.  So much so that the cyanide seeps into the soil around the tree from the roots and kills other plants growing nearby.  Which I'm going to believe explains why I've not been able to grow anything successfully in that corner (It has nothing to do with my black thumb.  Not a thing.).  So no feeling bad about that tree, ok?

This other tree wasn't poisonous, and it wasn't technically our tree either, being kind of on our neighbor's property line with the alley.  But our neighbor gave us his permission to get rid of it, the city doesn't care, it was hanging a giant dead limb over our garage, and it also dropped another dead limb onto the power lines in the alley last summer and started an electrical fire on another garage.  It was time.

We also did a little deconstruction of our own last weekend.  I told you before that we're pretty sure that the back bedroom used to be a porch because of the pitch of the floor (and the rooflines), but we always wondered what was going on in the walls.  We'd hang something on the wall, from a picture to a big cubby system, and whether we were hammering or drilling, we'd be fine going through the drywall, and then run into what felt like iron.  Something in the walls, throughout the walls, not just at studs, was the thickness and hardness of iron beams.  But when you're just living in a house, if you destruct it, you have to fix it when you're done, so my curiosity went only so far.  

Now, someone else is going to destruct and rebuild my house for me, so what the heck:

I may or may not have had a little too much fun ripping up the wall.

So now we know what's in our wall!  This wood siding, that matches the outside of our house, is behind the drywall/plasterboard in the guest room,

Second bathroom, and back porch (no picture, sorry.  My arm was too tired from whacking the other walls to make a good hole.).

So now we know for sure that the back bathroom and bedroom are additions to the house.  This doesn't affect what we're doing with the house or how we feel about it, but I like knowing things about the story of our house.  I like to know that our renovation and expansion are just another set of changes in the lifetime of our house, another way it's becoming home for our family the way it's become home for other families.  I like to speculate on whether that iron-hard siding is oak, as many from-a-kit bungalows were shipped out of Chicago and had Illinois and Wisconsin oak bits, or if it just might be cypress, as many houses built in Texas and Louisiana swamps used the native wood because of its strength, density, and resistance to rot (until we used it all up).  I like to think that maybe the house might like to be yellow again (IS that yellow paint?), or if it the couple who built it whitewashed it themselves (because that might be white).  And I'd like to find out who might have decided to build on a third bedroom and second bath and when.  It's part biography and part mystery and I like it all.

This all that's happening so far, so clearly, I'm using all caps and exclamation points for no reason, but stuff is happening (again, STUFF IS HAPPENING!).  We went by today and there's a crew unhooking light fixtures and taking knobs off of cabinets.  There's good plywood down to protect the floors that aren't coming up.  Little things falling into place.  It's like this season of The Walking Dead--plots aren't really moving, and everything is clearly setting up for next season and whatever horrors/wonders await everyone in Terminus, but the preparation provides a tension of its own.  We were clear that I'm a dork, right?  Good.  Coming soon--The Excavator!