Saturday, June 30, 2007

Some pics from Saturday, June 30

Omar; Will and Bob in the truck; tired Madonna and child; everyone's looking for Fifi (I found her on the neighbor's porch); fireworks as seen from the second floor of our house.




Saturday, June 30th

I'd post pictures today but I can't find the USB device that allows me to transfer pictures from the camera.

Crawling out of bed we found the power was still out. So Jennifer and I went to get coffee and tea, being that our stove is electric.

Jennifer left to get the truck and Christopher, I packed and staged stuff. They returned around 10am, then Omar came, then my sister, brother-in-law and my nephew. We packed the U-haul and a pickup, and my sister, Omar, Cara and I stayed behind to pack more.

We got a second load off in the afternoon and we are calling it quits for awhile. More later.

Friday, June 29th - night time

We got home to celebrate Cara's graduation. That went well enough until we got home to our old apartment for our last night. The power went out. The place is dark and gloomy to begin with, and this made it worse. To add insult to injury, only our complex suffered the outage.

So we went to dinner for oysters. Came back and the power was still out. I think it is still out NOW, the next day.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Friday, June 29th






We opened up the ceiling below where the roof has a hole. I got to use the Snapper for the first time, Jennifer got serious with cleaning the floors, and we left early to celebrate Cara's graduation at the pool at our old place.


Thursday, June 28, 2007

Thursday, June 28th

Purchasing and installing furring...

Mold and yuck in the ceiling. Do my gutters work?


....oh, the roof leaks.....

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

One more newspaper clipping


More newspaper snips from the inside of the walls



Weird to think that Columbus Day was thought of as an Italian holiday once.


Fiberglass insulation like we have today was not invented yet when my house was built. People used to pack newspaper in the walls or staple it to the sheathing to prevent drafts from coming in. It was rather dangerous, really, but it's what they knew and what they did.


We've found several newspapers in our walls, dated late in 1913. We are beginning to think that the house was built that year, and not 1920, as was advertized to us. Why would someone keep newspapers up to seven years so they could put them in a wall?


Here are more snippets from those newspapers. We found more mention of the Harry Thaw trials, as well as interesting pieces that seem a little anti-Italian.


Wednesday, June 27






Today I caved in and we got a U-Haul. My friend Chris (the one who won't let me take his picture) helped me move the big stuff while Jennifer - in her turn-on outfit of cutoffs and pigtails - worked the walls some more (yes, the cutoffs are a turn-on for me).


Cara joined us for lunch and then helped Mom empty the house of debris, making her own cutoffs out of necessity. Now we have to buy her more jeans :-(


It was a very productive day. Jennifer was very happy to have removed more walls and she sprayed the already open ones with bleach and water. One wall in the kitchen, from which she removed paneling, had some handwritten surprises. Cara added her own message to me, a running joke between the two of us.


Chris was a MAJOR help. We moved the heaviest things - including the anvil and the bar - and did it in two truckloads.



Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Tuesday, June 26






The heat started getting to Jennifer today. I got a bucket of cold water for her feet when she started languishing.
I got worn out the two prior days, suffering from bad headaches by day's end.
The tree is gone, the garage is filling up, there is a new dumpster, and the stairwell walls are coming down.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Emotions run high!


Jennifer expresses her opinion of my photography hobby as we drive home.


Monday, June 25th

Old newspapers that Jennifer found in the walls. One talks about Harry K. Thaw, known for shooting Stanford White over Evelyn Nesbit. If you saw the movie Ragtime you might know about this.


The house, as we left this afternoon.
The mailman makes his first delivery.
The crew enjoys a respite. Jennifer hit it off with our next door neighbor shortly after this photo was taken, and talked to him about half an hour. Yep, he is. Laura and I had a laugh over that.
View of the dumpster that we filled this day.

The newspaper.


There was also a mention of a horse thief from Brewster caught locally.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Finn At The House

Finn's first visit since we bought the place. Here he is standing in the door to what will be his room.



He loves to help out, and he is very excited. Cara is helping design his room. The lower picture is from Cara's graduation dinner.



More Fun Pictures

Jennifer caught by surprise, Laura offering a common gesture, self-portrait.




The Crew

This is Laura, on the left, and Jennifer on the right. Below it's me with Laura.




Demolition Begins