enough with the demolition

There is something deeply therapeutic, in the purest sense, in doing serious house renovations.

I walked into that house knowing it needed lots of work. Not just TLC or a coat of paint, but rip-out-the-walls-and-start-fresh work. That little house had been minimally maintained over the years; enough so as not to be condemned, but certainly not enough to call it fresh. Things that used to work as they were supposed to - like the knob and tube wiring, or the ancient windows, or the old plaster walls - had become decrepit and were sorely lacking for today's needs.

I took evenings, a few weekend days, and two days off work, and with the help of some friends as well as paid workers, tore out some old walls and floors, and all the old wiring.

The house today is stripped down. There are holes everywhere in the walls and the ceiling. Some rooms have walls stripped back to the studs. The bathroom is gutted. There is dust and dirt everywhere. It is ugly.

And this is the starting point.

It is now time to rebuild. To reinforce some floors and sister up the joists. To put in a kilometre or two of new wiring. To put in copper piping where there was once lead. To put in new windows to keep out the drafts.

And over the recovered, stronger bones, it will be time to put up new drywall and smooth it out with fresh plaster. To sand down the floors. To roll on a fresh coat of paint.

I, too, have had creaky, unstable floors. Walls that were crumbling. Wiring that wasn't quite right. I've stripped that all back. And it was ugly. And exposed. And vulnerable. But it was a starting place. I still have moments when I feel I am there again, at that starting place. Still digging up some old habit that needs to be torn out. I'm ready. It's as ugly as it gets.

Time to get this thing put back together.