The following pictures represent the true state of demolition. For all those who question what parts of the house we might keep or what we could salvage... Well, I think these pictures pretty much represent what we are salvaging. In fact, not even entirely, since we intend to replace a lot of the beams as well.
The beauty of completely renovating a house is that you have the personal knowledge of what age and quality of materials will be hidden in your walls. This is both a blessing and a curse. Knowing everything is brand new and installed to your standards is of course a fantastic comfort. The fear of what it will take to get there, and the cost, however, is something else entirely.
At this point, we can still smile and be optimistic. Only a handful of checks have been written, after all.
Tonight I brought a very dear, close friend of mine to visit the property. It was the first time she had actually seen the house as she lives in Hoboken and we often catch up in Manhattan. I wish she had seen it before this state, but in actuality, post-demolition is almost an easier state to explain our visions.
We sat on the only surface available at the moment: a wooden board balanced over a few floor joists at the entrance of the house. On this shoddy surface we sat in dust and shared a bottle of wine while I showed her once again our floor plans. This time, in the raw space, the floor plans made sense. She looked around and gave me some great advice. "Next time you feel stressed, or that it might not happen," she said, "come back here, even as it is now, look around, and tell yourself what you just told me, and it will remind you why you are doing this and why it is worth it." Thank you, Annie. That is the reason I share your smile in the picture below.
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