Wednesday, June 18, 2008

If Walls Could Talk

Several years ago, HGTV had a series called "If Walls Could Talk" and they would feature older homes and some of the discoveries that the homeowners would find. Some were real treasures like old letters or photos holed up in the walls or floors. It has been quite some time since I have seen an episode, so nothing really pops into my memory other than remembering that I would think: "Gosh, I wish I had a home old enough to have treasures hidden inside"

Well, guess what, we may not have treasures, but our house sure is old enough now. It was built in 1895. It has been added to, painted and plastered over, but that just gives Larry an opportunity to do his favorite thing: DEMOLITION. Don't all guys like to blow up things and rip whatever they can find apart? He bought a heat gun and has decided to take off the ugly non-descript white paint from the window sills in the old part of the house and then decided to take off the sill itself and this is what he found. That wood next to the dry wall is quite possibly over 100 years old. The iron weight on the string is what was used to counterbalance the window when it was raised to the open position rather than the modern day springs that are used now. So now Larry is thinking of ripping off the dry wall to expose the wood that is peeking out. He SAYS that doing such would not pose an insulation problem. I don't know. It is all kind of over my head anyway. It is still kind of neat, though.

He was running out of projects with the old house, so we needed to find new opportunties for him and his passion for renovation. Boy, it will be a LONG time before he runs out of projects now. By the way, notice his tool of choice in hand: the crowbar and hammer.

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