We’ve begun a new salvage project

We started a new salvage project this week, this time in Nacogdoches, Texas.

There are two old homes located on a 2.36 acre tract of commercial land for sale.  The owners want them torn down to make the land more attractive to commercial buyers.

The first home is a small cottage, approximately 900 square feet in size.  We guestimate that it was built in the 30’s.

The second house is a newer ranch construction.   It measures about 1,200 square feet.

This house is nothing to write home about — it’s not that architecturally significant.

But, the owner told us that her father built the place using old building materials.    We’re hoping that will be the case and the old lumber is still in great shape.

At a minimum, we will be able to salvage the old windows, old siding, old plumbing fixtures (like the cast iron tub), structural lumber, etc. as well as “newer” items like the ceiling slats.

This one will come down quickly because we’ve already determined that the walls are not solid lumber, as is the case in the smaller home.

It is mostly drywall and acoustical ceiling tiles which will go directly into our trash trailer.

We will try to donate the kitchen and bathroom cabinets.   We might also be able to re-use the cabinet boxes on a tiny house and just replace the cabinet doors.  Maybe.

Because the better lumber is in the smaller of the two houses, we decided the cottage would be the first one we salvaged.

As is always the case, we stripped all the drywall off the walls.

We knew that there was termite damage in the old living room — you could see that immediately through one platter-sized hole in the drywall.

When we stripped all the drywall out of the room, we were dismayed, but not overly surprised, to find this:  massive termite damage.

We also made an unexpected discovery:  one wall where an old fireplace had been.

All of the wood in the living room was removed and most planks went directly into the trash trailer.  We were able to save maybe one foot out of a few of the shiplap planks.

Fortunately, most of the wood in the rest of the house, which was hidden behind drywall (or cheap paneling) and wallpaper, is still in pristine condition.

Totally beautiful.  Totally reusable.

We also salvaged these cute little columns which we’ll use in one of the little houses we build …

… and these floor boards used as wall sheathing.

My guess is that they ran out of ship lap and used whatever they had on hand.  (It’s very common to see a mish-mash of various wood, especially on homes of this size and age.)

We discovered pretty wallpaper, too.

Well …. some of them were pretty.  Others?  Not so much.

But, I’ll let you decide which ones you like.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

By the end of the third day, we had stripped most of the lumber from the interior walls.

The lumber you still see within the wall cavity is the backside of the house’s exterior siding.

The ceiling boards still remain, but I would say we’re already about 20% done.   This house is so small that it should  come down very quickly. So stay tuned for more progress posts on the NAC-2 project.

One final note that isn’t really related to this house salvage project:  check out this little house that’s just next door to our project.

It’s really cute!  I think it would be a perfect size for a guest home or lake house.   We measured it, and it’s about 490 square feet.

It’s certainly big enough for a small bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette, and living room.