Completion of our old home salvage project

We completed the Bolton salvage project last week.

The old house is gone.

With no rain in three weeks, we weren’t hampered by Mother Nature.

(But oh my word, we need rain so badly!   We were close enough to rain to smell it and hear thunder, but darn it, no rainfall!)

This is what the house looked like when we began the final stretch.

Just a few walls and floors remaining.

Still, it was a week’s worth of work, cleanup included.

But it all went very quickly.   We knew it would.

We dismantled the carport first.

Within a few hours, it was gone.

Next, we salvaged the two dozen or so wall studs that remained.

Then we tackled the old 5″ pine floors ….

… and the lovely and massive floor joists and beams.

We salvaged up to 17 foot long 6×8 inch longleaf pine beams out of this old place!

We continued to be amazed and thankful to find so little damage due to moisture and/or termites.

That’s really incredible considering the age of the house.

It’s a testament to the enduring quality of heart of pine lumber.

On the last two days, we tore apart a small section of the front porch and loaded up a stack of beams and metal scrap.

Then, we cleaned the site.

Itsy bitsy pieces of shingles, wood, and miscellaneous trash were bagged up.

Bigger pieces of unuseable lumber were brought to our house and will be burned.

Using a magnet, we filled up five buckets of nails.

Fortunately, we had three individuals respond to a Freecycle ad for free, old brick.  They hauled most of it off.

The rest we left behind at the owner’s request.

Another individual showed up and wanted some of the old wood that was damaged by insects or moisture.

We were going to haul off and burn it so we were glad they wanted it.

It made our life easier.

I have to say that we do feel a strange mix of emotions when we get to the last several days on every project.

We’re so tired and ready for it to be over and relieved when it finally is done.

We dread the not-fun cleanup process which is physically demanding and sheer drudgery.

We feel grateful for having gotten the chance to salvage an old house.

We feel pride that people tell us they respect our efforts and appreciate our hard work.

We are very grateful for the amount of old growth lumber we will be able to sell or use.

We’re sad to see an old piece of history disappear.

Goodbye, old house.

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