We're Still Here.

This post might be more appropriately titled "A lot has been done, but I apparently forgot to pick up a camera". Oh well. My parents came in town for what can only be described as a week long birthday extravaganza. I took the week off of work and we worked on the house, went shopping, ate, went shopping, did some sight seeing, ate and then shopped some more. Amazing. I probably should have thrown in "worked on the house" one more time, because we spent the first half of the trip working them to death. Thanks mom and dad!!! I wasn't kidding when I said I forgot to pick up the camera a lot during their visit, but I did manage to snap a few pictures.

Step one was to finish the back bedroom demo.

We only managed to get the plaster down and bagged before their arrival...we could have done more, but we got "distracted" by a work party the night before that we were only supposed to attend for 30 minutes. Whoops. This is also apparently the part where I "misplaced" my camera...because I don't have any pics after this. Just imagine, no lath and a little bit cleaner.

The next project I was really excited to tackle...and then I never got around to it. The front chimney has been ready to take down since our roof adventure and the front bedroom demo were finished. This is as far as I managed to make it.

In my defense, I promise I was working on other things....like the back bedroom demo.

Ok, maybe I made it to this point and after that mom arrived! She took down the whole chimney brick by brick. We dumped the bricks that were turning to dust and stacked the ones worth saving in the back yard (it's a really big stack).

Mom's amazing handiwork. Again, that damn camera just kind of disappeared during the whole "during" phase.

Boom. Chimney gone.

Now, maybe you are wondering what we did with all of that junk? Well, we finally broke down and rented a dumpster. It was a lot cheaper than paying the guys to tote it out. Although, maybe the sore muscles from carrying 7.5 tons of stuff out of that house wasn't worth it? Dad? Was it worth it? That's right, 7.5 TONS! That is just from the upstairs. I think P put it best, "our house just had gastric bypass".

HUGE dumpster, stuffed to the rim.

Dumpster and dust, or are those ghosts? Ooooo spooky.

All covered up and ready for pick-up the next day.