Chimney Sweeps?

The hole in the room and the ceiling (sorry, it's sideways) where the chimney once stood....these guys did a "clean sweep" of all the brick, coal and wood dust, mortar and debris that has been here for over a hundred years!
I didn't think to take this picture till we were almost done clearing all the junk from the room.

My 3 volunteers...Left to right Haine (pronounced Hi-na both long vowels) Steven and Wes. In this shot they are trying to show that parts of their legs were clean...I don't think it worked.

Steven and Wes actually had bandanas tied around their mouth and nose to try to keep out some of the coal dust. But they were removed for the picture. This was Haine's mask after he had tried to beat off some of the coal dust.

When they were done they all ran for the back yard where they stipped down to shorts and did a cold wash with soap and water. They are so much better even though they REALLY need a hot shower!

Ahhh, the payoff? We'll these guys were great sports, all they wanted was Pizza and ice cream! I actually think they had fun doing the demolition. They were great. I didn't get pictures of the many bucket loads of brick and mortar they took from the attic and lowered to the hall, one bucket at a time, then empying each bucket in the dumpster out front. They worked for about 4 hours on this ugly project!!

103 year's old...deserves new roof!

Today three layers of roofing were removed from our house. We live in a house that is 103 years old.We knew the garage had been roofed this way, I guess we never considered the house was also done this way. After the rafters were in, the outside was covered with what they could find of old amunition crates from the Tooele Army Depot. With no additional support the roof was then filled in with shake shingles. Luckily for us the house had 2 more layers of asphalt shingles, so we didn't leak.

Here is one of the roofer's hammering in loose nails. Notice how wide the spaces are...gee whiz!

Our house is completely surrounded by piles of shake shingles. What a mess!

So here we are, cleared of old shingles and ready to start the new roof. With any luck we won't have rain till we finish:)

Latest Project

We purchased a big (8 ft long and sticking a third of the way into the family room) couch. It had ugly pillows and we had blinds on the windows as well as a quilt over the big window.













I made new curtains for the family room and decided to spruce up the pillows as well

The results were great! It really lightened up the family room. Wes hung the curtain rods for me and Bill helped me hang curtains. I have enough fabric to cover the footstool as well. It is not in the picture, it's a very ugly mustard yellow vinyl. It is perfect to store a couple of blankets to cozy up on the couch.