Buried treasure???

These are a few pictures of the girls digging up a box that I discovered pulling a few old things out from the crawlspace that was under the old kitchen eating area. After pulling out an old child's chair, a rusted ice cream maker, and a box with a "new" light fixture from the 1960's in it, the crawlspace was empty. Except for some old cardboard that had been laid down on the dirt to protect the other items stashed there... or that's what I initially thought.

For some reason I decided to pull the cardboard up, and when I did I saw the top of a box that was partially buried in a hole in a very deliberate way. The box looked fancy - the top was made from an old dining room table top.

I wondered if it might be a time capsule from the 50's, then I paused before opening it, catching my breath and having the thought there might be a stash of old greenbacks hidden there - enough to pay for a new driveway???

Alas, there was nothing in it but some old newspaper scraps that had been wrapping who knows what before the precious contents were removed. At least Alison and Lael got some good exercise, learned to swing a pick, and they now have a cool old box to hide their own treasures in...

Slab demolition took place over Thanksgiving week

This is the broken up slab sitting in the front yard. You can see they took a few whacks at the old stairs as well.

We were out of town over Thanksgiving, so we didn't get to see how they broke up the slab and got it and the rest of the material out of the basement, but they made good progress.

So after sprucing things up a bit in the yard, the work turned to the heavy stuff...

The downstairs comes up and out...

Lael thinks this is pretty cool.
How do they get the furnace, water heater and washer and dryer out now?

Looks like a tornado hit...

End of Day 5 - no more house!

And the house came down during the day...

9:30AM on Day 5 - almost gone

Wow, these guys are fast. They got power tools going this morning and grinned when I came over to see their progress. As I snapped these photos, Vitalino (the guy in the blue sweatshirt) yelled to his buddy in Spanish asking if he thought it would be crazy to hook the truck up to the front part of the house and pull it down. I smiled and told him I thought it would be crazy but would be fun to see (in English) and his eyes lit up. Calmer heads seem to have prevailed, though. They're taking it down by hand so we can be sure to have all the lumber in good shape to reuse or recycle.

The race is on since we're due for 3 days of rain &/or snow. We're hoping to be able to reuse the oak flooring, so that's the only real reason we're a bit concerned about what happens today before the weather worsens.

Photos - Day 3 of Deconstruction

The work moved inside... And the walls came down.

Photos - Day 2 of Deconstruction

The roof came off and the interior walls started to come down. Dumpster #1 full and removed from site.

Photos - Day 1 of Deconstruction

Dumpster + Portapotty = GO!

The dumpster arrived on Wednesday, the portapotty showed up mysteriously that night, so we are ready to start deconstruction of old 2615 to make way for the new. We have to recycle 60%+ of the mass of the house, so it is more of a dismantling than demolition process. We'll reuse many of the materials - the old 2x6 rafters will become studs in the new house, lots of the other lumber will be used and some saved for renovating the garage (when we get to that later).