Diary of our old home salvage project

Saturday, October 6th

For half of the day, we focused on removing floors and floor joists in one room. Then, we briefly started on a second room.

We didn’t get far before realizing that the floors and floor joists provide much of the structural cross-support of the house, and we needed to start tearing the house down from top to bottom. In other words, the floors keep the house from twisting, and we needed to get the weight of the roof off of the house.

Removing old floors

Only 3 floor joists remaining in one room

After conferring with each other and talking to a construction expert to get a third opinion, John suited up in his safety gear and started tearing off roofing shingles.   John spent the rest of the day doing that while Mark and I focused on de-nailing the lumber that was salvaged earlier in the day.

John suiting up in his safety gear

John tethered to the roof, tearing off roofing shingles

Monday, October 8th

John has been focused on removing shingles from the roof.    Mark and I concentrated on removing old beadboard from underneath the old porch and some white siding.

Late in the day, we decided to pull down the front porch of the house.  The roof was too unsafe for John to stand on, so we knew we’d pull it down.

Almost time to pull down the front porch

Removal of the first porch post revealed that it was barely attached

The porch sagged a little when the second porch post was gone

Mark and John tied off to the third and final porch post and window frame

That did the trick

Now we just need to tear apart the former front porch

Tuesday, October 9th

On the way to the job site this morning, John called to report that he and his wife had eaten out the night before and he had a touch of food poisoning and needed to take the day off.

Poor guy!

Mark and I concentrated on tearing apart the porch and salvaging what we could.

We’ve been getting a lot of strange looks from people driving by.  At the beginning of the project, we were doing so much interior work that most people asked if we were remodeling the place.  Now, it’s very apparent that we’re tearing it down.

Front porch now gone

Wednesday, October 10th

John is feeling like himself again and spent all day removing the roof.  Despite his best efforts, the progress was very slow because he discovered that there are not 1, not 2, but 5 – 7 layers of old roofing on many sections of the old roof!

We are realizing that removing the roof is going to take longer than the 2 days we estimated.

He’s frustrated with it as are we.

Mark and I spent the day removing old siding and beadboard from the house and de-nailing all of the reclaimed lumber.  We also picked up roof debris and wheelbarrowed it to the trash trailer.

Roof partially done but progress is going slow

Old siding removed from front of house

Thursday and Friday, October 11th and 12th

More of the same.  John has spent his time on the job working on the roof, while Mark and I have concentrated on removing old siding from the house, de-nailing it, and loading it into the trailer.  We had trash detail as well, and our trash trailer is almost full.

Roofing from front of house removed which revealed the old 1×12’s

Close-up of old roof reveals several old layers of shingles

Saturday, October 13th

We hired another experienced roofer to help John and 95% of the roof has been removed at this point.

Mark, me and John’s wife, Christina, took a load of roof debris to the city landfill.    We spent the rest of the day wheelbarrowing  shingles to the trash trailer.  We made a small dent in it.

A ton of roofing debris that fell inside the house

Almost halfway done picking up a huge mess of asphalt shingles in the back yard

Sunday, October 14th

John and Christina are spending a much needed day off with their little boy.  Mark and I are washing clothes, buying groceries, buying supplies and tools from Home Depot, watching football, and writing blog posts.

We’re all nursing sore muscles … and getting physically and mentally ready for next week.