monster in a box

As Michael mentioned last week the only remaining demolition we had left to do was removing the dry wall from the interior wall on the second floor that faces the street. This wall is where we are reconfiguring the rough opening to install one of two sets of matching casement windows on the first and second floors while closing up an existing window opening on the second floor.

 Removal was snappy. The reason why? A make-shift studded wall had been installed in front of portions of an existing plaster and lathing wall. In classic quick reno style someone just came in and built over existing conditions rather than bothering to deal. Behind the plaster and lathing were the studs and of course behind that was the outer sheeting coming in from the exterior wall. An interesting building construction note; between the studs was what looked like a brick fire wall-- small brick that are mortared between the studs. On the far left corner of the wall the studs were not in such great shape, nor was the “brick work” between. In fact you could say it was more or less crumbling, looks to be some sort of dry rot.

 Pause……Breath.

 The Wall is not load bearing. All of the weight of the house is carried through the floor joists that tie into the sides of the house not the front. Worst case scenario we have to totally rip off and reframe the front of the house but as we were 1) removing and replacing the exterior siding and 2) replacing the interior walls while, 3) replacing all the windows, we’re almost there anyway (it’s that kind of rationalizing that I scare myself with sometimes.)

 Way back in the logs I must have said something about the “money pit” fear. And while I’m fairly confident that what we exposed today the contractor will think about for all of two seconds before replacing the studs to construct the new wall. It still shook me to my core. At ANY moment a monster can leap out from beneath a wall demanding (as they all seem to demand) a couple of thousand dollars to go away. What’s the core shaking? Let’s just say I have a healthy curiosity for all the monsters that are still waiting to be revealed.

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