first blow struck

After a couple of weeks of wandering around our home at every available opportunity, discussing what we wanna do with it, we have grown a little antsy to actually do something.

So we bought a sledghammer. Nothing like a sledghammer to make you feel like you're really accomplishing something.

Of course, we needed the crucial second ingredient as well: something to destroy. So we picked the wall between the two small back rooms. This is something we are absolutely sure, no matter what else happens, we need to get rid of. The resulting room will be 16 feet square, which is a sight better than two 8' slices of space. This extra space will allow us to actually use the fireplace, as well as being able to do something about this:

We are using this armoire as a closet, since it's the only closet in the whole house until we find one we like better. We are also using it because we have little choice but to get along with it. We tried moving it, only to discover that the wall was apparently built after this piece of furniture was already in the room. It's too big to turn it to be able to get it out the door. The wall gets in the way. So the wall has to go.

And a one...

...and a two...

...and a three.

There's no therapy like a big hammer.

And now I have my very own hole in the wall:

I pounded through until there was a doorway top to bottom. But in so doing, we became aware of a slight miscalculation. We had no means of disposing of the enormous pile of rubble which was starting to ensue. And so, until we have a way to resolve this issue, we have discontinued the demolition.

But now we know what all the thin interior walls are made of:

I described this to Pablo, who wrote me back advising me to start at the top and hammer downwards toward the bottom of the wall, or else it might fall down on me. Thanks, Pablo. I do have a degree in philosophy, you know.

But despite our arrested progress, it's nice to have a big window through that wall, to better imagine how it will soon look. It's going to be a tremendous room. Just gotta find a derubbleator.