Oh Holy House

When you start renovation on a home, you do so with the knowledge that the house will need to go through a worse period before you can reach the finished product. If this blog has taught non-renovators anything, clearly this is a lesson learned.

What was perhaps not realized in this particular renovation was the number of holes that would be involved in the renovation. Now, we knew we were asking for trouble when we decided to demolish both of the chimneys of the house, but I guess we never visualized it.

Walking through our house today requires light, attention to your next step and in the case of rain, an umbrella. In addition to the horrifying staircases described in the last post, there are random holes throughout the place just waiting for an unsuspecting ankle or someone in need of a shower.

Here is the former location of the chimney where it ran through the kitchen. Soon, it will be home to our new refrigerator.

Here is a picture of where the same chimney used to exit through the roof. We’ll be looking forward to getting some insulation over that quickly.


Here are pictures of the middle guest room where the second chimney used to run. Note that you can peer down the hole and see the basement below. The second shot shows that you can also peer up, through the ceiling, and see where the chimney used to exit the building in the attic.

Finally, there is a giant hole in the yard where they are going to put in a new footing to hold up our master bedroom closet. They skimmed an ancient and abandoned sewer line in the process, but by amazing luck, the pipe did not break.

And all of this is before the contractors have begun the installation of the dormer on the side of our house – which will of course be the largest hole of them all.
This is, I assure you, the holiest our house will be for the foreseeable future.