The crew completed week one of demo on the Bolton house in Jacksonville. We were blessed with good weather, and we got a lot done.
We skinned interior walls on the top floor down to the studs.
Next on the agenda: we removed the roof.
Now normally, we don’t take a roof off at the beginning of a project. We usually strip interior wood from the inside of the house as much as we can. After that, when we do get to the point where we need to remove the roof, we strip off the shingles and save the roof boards, which are normally perfectly useable old shiplap.
However, for this house, it was way too dangerous to even consider putting a man on the top of the roof — the roof was in horribly bad condition …
…. and it’s a loooong way to the ground …
… so the shingles and roof boards were popped off from the underside.
The roof removal process revealed the beautiful roof rafters.
As is typical with such an old house, we found evidence that the roof had been modified at one time. The original peak and shake shingles (brown colored ones) can be seen thru the rafters in this photo.
Having two roofs in some areas kept the guys busy, but they blew through it in less than a day. We try to salvage as much wood as we can from our projects, but this one proved to be too far gone to save much of it.
With the roof gone, our next task was to partially demo the chimney stacks in the attic. All three (!!) of the original chimneys were showing their age. Cracked and tilted, it didn’t take much persuasion with the sledgehammer to bring them down. The brick was soft and the mortar barely held them all together. We brought them all down to level with the 2nd floor ceiling and will take them down as we bring down the house floor by floor.
With the roof and shingles gone, we concentrated on carefully removing the roof rafter boards. These boards were all very heavy, true dimensional 2×4 and 2×6 rough sawn pine boards. What is so amazing to us is how straight these 12 to 20 foot boards are after over 100+ of installation.
Just try finding a straight 16 foot 2×6 out of today’s lumber yards! It’s challenging to say the least.
This week we also removed the massive front door. We took it out with all of the surrounding door frame intact. It doesn’t look that heavy, but believe me, it weighed over 300 pounds and was a real bear to maneuver into the trailer.
It’s really pretty, too.
We also dismantled the original stair rails on the second floor. What an amazing piece of architectural history! We deconstructed it very carefully because we didn’t want to damage any of the spindles and trim pieces.
Do you know anyone looking to buy a beautiful old hand-carved stairway?
Several local visitors stop by the house every day. Some come to see just what we are doing and thank us for saving the house from the bulldozers, some ask about materials that they need for a project of their own, and some just want to tell us about the old house and their personal connection to the family or structure.
We love talking to people about these old houses, and are always looking for volunteers who want to lend a hand and work for a day (or more) on the salvage project.
But beware …. you will no doubt end up getting filthy dirty after a day of salvage in a 100+ year old house.
my hubby is so dirty. but i love him very much. thank u for working so hard.
He was extremely dirty when he left! So were we and Reuben. I’m glad he enjoys the physical work. Tell him to bring an extra bandana tomorrow to help when things get too dusty.
I love the photos of the interior. She must have been a real beauty in her day. Have you ever found anything interesting hidden away in an attic or under the floor boards of the houses you work on?
Oh, yeah. No doubt. We’re always finding interesting things. For example, one of owners the previous houses we salvaged — (it’s featured on the blog) — was a hoarder, so there was all kinds of personal memorabilia to go through. We find old bottles, marbles, dates on the back of old boards … but no stacks of cash yet! We keep looking. 🙂