Day 4 - March 26, 2009

Today was a day of continued exploration and discovery! It was also the first day that Mark and his crew, Rocky and Sue began to work with us. We began work on the Living Room -- took down the plaster, lathe, wainscoting and fireplace trim. We have been able to remove the mantles from both of the fireplaces so far and will hopefully be able to re-use them -- if not, then we'll be able to re-create them with new wood. As our 'exploration" has progressed we have found considerable termite damage in many of the supporting pieces. A few of the photos below will show that once we took of the bottom piece of sheathing on the exterior, there wasn't much of the posts left. Fortunately it seems that the corner posts are in decent shape and that they, along with some major beams are doing a good job of holding the house up.

While Leigh and I were working on the interior, Rocky and Sue were continuing to take shingles off of the exterior - to truly assess the structural needs of the house we need to find as many clues as possible so we're going at it from both the inside and the outside. Note in one of the photos below all of the wood that is stacked against the house..this was all taken out of the ell that John and Chrissy took down last year. Our hope is that we will be able to use these materials as we shore up the main house. If not, then we may use some of it for a kitchen table or maybe for a counter top on the kitchen island.

Every day we seem to find some fun things in the house. Today, I was pulling up the carpet when I discovered that they used newspaper for carpet pad! See the photo below.

Finally and update on Riley vs. the Guinea Hens. It seems that Riley has gained the upper hand. The photo below is of the unsuspecting Guinea Hens before Riley noticed them. Today, Riley, feeling more at home, decided to let the Hens know that she is actually a dog and not just a poser. Anyway the result was about an hour of Hen squawks from 30 feet up in a tree.

We'll see how this story develops -- Score at the moment: Hens 1 Riley 1