Major Progress at the Duck!

5 days at the Duck and things were happening....

I got into town on Friday with my sister....called my friend that is helping me with demolition....and he unloaded the truck for us and got my sister's mattress, springs and bed frame upstairs at the Beast. and carried up some other furniture that we couldn't get up there. God bless men with muscles.

Then i got my barn wood unloaded from my truck and got my grass cut at the Duck. .... same men with muscles. Just a couple hours work....but so needed.

Saturday we headed to Greenville, Illinois, for a book sale. both my sis and I came away with more books. i don't know when i shall have time to read all that i have now.

Saturday they delivered my hot pink dumpster.

16 feet long....8 feet wide.....6 feet tall.  and we filled every square inch of it.

Sunday morning at 6am it looked like this:

And then 4 hours later at 10am.....it looked like this.

And this is the man responsible for that.

I just cannot say enough good things about Josh. he brought a buddy and his stepson and got the wheelbarrow brigade rolling and the dumpster was filled in no time flat. He is the hardest working individual i have ever met. Give him a couple cigarette breaks and keep him supplied with Mountain Dew and he works like a demon. I'm not giving him up.....got to keep the 'to-do' list growing.

These are horrid pictures that were taken practically in the dark.....but the garage is empty of the mountain of plaster and the mountain of trash......Yay!!

Just a bit of plywood against the wall that Josh will take home and use.

The doghouse is gone from the corner. i tried and tried to move it and thought it must be made of really heavy wood.......it was nailed to the fence. sheesh!!    went into the dumpster.

Monday and Tuesday were very hot....100 degrees or better. All slats are now cleared out of the house....baseboards are all pulled up....kitchen floor (with 4 layers of linoleum and a plywood base) is gone....pantry walls and ceiling are removed. ... tile floor in laundry area is removed.   we worked like crazy.

That kitchen floor was a pure bitch the first day....just kept tearing into small pieces. but after learning of a trick to use a pitchfork to pull it up....the second half went very quickly. i'm going to have to replace that floor, though....so i can put down some ceramic tiles.

I got electric turned on in the garage finally and discovered that the a/c unit in the window of the office works. so we pulled some lumber out of there and made ourselves a break room. LOL   can hardly beat sitting in an air conditioned room for your cigarette break rather than on the back steps. throw in a cold bottle of water and it's almost heaven.

I got an estimate from the insulation people to install the blown in closed cell wet foam insulation and it wasn't as high as i thought it would be. for some reason the ceilings cost much more than the walls. so i have a little while to decide how i want to go with the insulation. i believe i will leave the insulation that i currently have in the ceilings....it seems to be adequate....and just blow in the exterior walls.

I did get 4 doors and 6 windows ordered. i need a carpenter to do a bit of repair on doorways and window casings but in a couple weeks i will have a new front door, back door, garage walk-in door, and door from the garage to the house. ..... and windows in 4 rooms. ....  all at a very reasonable price. i am pretty excited about that.

And i talked Josh into coming home with me to help hubby with his 'to-do' list of things that hadn't move OFF the list in a couple years.

All in all....a VERY productive few days. now i feel a nap coming on.

Later