No More Chimney

Now you see it.....

.... now you don't.

I've had plenty of stuff to blog about lately but the last three weeks have been pretty nuts, and I just haven't had enough time to get on the computer or even behind the sewing machine. Come to think of it, that may be a normal state of affairs for me, it's just usually not this bad.

One of the things that wreaked havoc with my schedule was the removal of our chimney two weeks ago. I sat upstairs and tried to handpiece most of the week so I could be available for whatever the work crew needed.

I was sad to have to take out the chimney and fireplaces, but we've had nothing but trouble with it. Over the years, the mortar has come away from the stones; and we've tried to seal it, but eventually the water soaks through the chimney and runs down into the basement, saturating the carpet and everything on it. We could have had it repointed, but eventually we'd be right back where we started, so we finally decided to get rid of it.

Wet walls also mean carpenter ants, and we thought we got rid of them once but discovered during the renovation they're still there in the walls surrounding the chimney. There's also the occasional bee that wanders down the chimney, and a few weekends ago a bat flew down the chimney and was sailing around my sewing room. At midnight. You know, they don't make a sound when they fly. He was netted and released.

Undoubtedly the scariest part of the whole ordeal was the yawning hole they put in the living room wall when they took out the fireplace and hearth. At one point they actually had that jackhammer in my living room. It was a little disconcerting to be able to see down the street through the hole.

They also leveled my beautiful sedums. We even asked if we should move them and were told the crew would work around them. Not! It's not much of a problem to replace them if they don't grow back next year, but it's a disappointment to lose them just the same.

The job is as finished as it's going to be for now. My husband still needs to put up some sort of siding and do the finish work inside the house. Both the roof and the siding will be redone within the next year I hope, and all the patch work will disappear.