Dawn over War-Torn Northfield

November 13th, 2007 by Mary Schmelzer

As the sun comes up

Ok, so we haven’t experienced a war. But it does look like our house has been shelled–the roof and second floor are almost completely gone. I took this photo early this morning after a very busy yesterday. Duden and Viken’s crew arrived early with saws and began by chopping approximately 2 x 4-foot sections of the roof off.

Matt cutting out roof sections

After the roof and gable ends were removed, they started cutting slabs out of the walls. I couldn’t help but think about carving a turkey…they cut fairly uniform size shapes out and stacked them on the dumpster/platter. Probably my favorite part was wondering how they’d work around the vent stack for the water heater. No problem! They whacked it off with the saw and lifted it through the remaining roof.

Monday morning before big demolition

Above is the photo of the house Monday morning before the major demolition started. As you’ll see, they removed siding to get to the upper floor framing. I like to think of this as the ugly duck phase–very unattractive before the transformation to beautiful swan begins. I hope the neighbors feel the same way. We are fortunate to be in such a nice neighborhood–everyone has been patient with the noise and extra street traffic.

Monday afternoon after the saws attacked

Here it is with most of the second floor and roof gone. “What were we thinking??!!??” keeps creeping to the forefront of my mind. But now the framing can begin and soon we’ll see roof go on. The house will take on another whole feeling once that starts. This is one of the paybacks in the design world–seeing past what exists, modifying it with what we’ve imagined and drawn, and then see it come to life.

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