A WRENCH IN THE WORKS
If I've learned one thing in the past year it's that life happens no matter how old you are.
At the beginning of this year I started experiencing severe lower back pain. I couldn't sit up or bend over. I spent most of my days working from bed. Needless to say, the house took a back seat. After going to the doctor I learned I have a congenital anomaly called sacralization or sometimes referred to as "one less vertebra." My lower left vertebra is completely fused with my sacrum resulting in pain and decreased movement. Following a couple months of physical therapy I am back at it. Pain is minimal as long as I keep stretching and strengthening exercises in my daily routine (easier said than done if I'm honest).
After months of no progress on the house, I started this next project out of pure curiosity. My house has two chimneys, but the interior has no exposed fireplaces. I cut a small strip in the sheetrock where I believed a fireplace would be. A small strip, because I had no idea what kind of condition the brick would be in. If it looked to be in poor condition, a strip would be easy to patch back up.
I found plaster over brick, so I went ahead and took down the sheetrock. To my dismay, another shoddy job by the former owners was revealed. There was a large hole at the top of the chimney that had just been stuffed with newspaper and covered in a sheet of plastic. My assumption is there was originally a wood burning stove in this room with a pipe that connected to the hole. As you can imagine the chimney was filled with 100 years of soot and leaves. We cleaned it out, patched the hole, and chipped away at the plaster. Exposing the home's character one room at a time.
