Sometimes, life just gives you a bit of a kick...

I don't know if it's to remind you something greater is in charge, or if it's a wake up call, or a change in the road, but sometimes, we just get an unexpected kick from time, to time...

We were in full swing on the 'Salvage Demo Job'... We were attempting to salvage as much of 'the homes' as possible, versus just smashing them to the ground and hauling them to the landfill. I'm a great believer that someday in future generations, our childrens' children will be sifting through our landfill's angry with us for our wasteful ways. So much can be recycled and we have become such a wasteful nation...

Anyway, on the 'man-child's' first trip to the landfill with some un-recyclable debris, fate struck. He was going up the narrow, winding, landfill road about 28 mph and a pickup truck with a dump trailer full of wood was coming down the narrow, winding, landfill road. The pickup truck's dump trailer veered across the yellow line forcing the 'man-child' to take corrective action in a Kenworth semi truck and a fully loaded 30' end dump trailer and the soft shoulder grabbed his trailer and sucked him off the road and onto his side...

The semi and trailer were totaled, but the 'man-child' walked away with cuts and bruises thank heavens and he averted hitting the passing vehicle which could have been catastrophic~!

Most of his injuries occurred when he popped his seatbelt to get out and fell onto the passenger side and into the glass and debris from the crash.

I am truly thankful that this beautiful Kenworth saved his life. At first, I was in shock...

The 'man-child' called me. I was at home planting all of the rosebushes he had dug out for me from the salvage yards. I had just finished planting my 27th, large, old, rose bush and my phone rang. It was the 'man-child' he was obviously shook up. He said, "Honey, I just totaled your truck..."

I said, "ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" He said, "Yes, but your truck isn't"... When he left that morning, he took my dodge pickup. At this point, I was thinking he had been in an accident with my dodge. I told him, "don't worry about the old dodge, I'm just glad you're alright..." That's when there was a long pause and he said, "no babe, I totaled your purple Kenworth..."

At this point, I paused for a bit. Still glad he was talking to me on the phone, but sick in the pit of my stomach and attempting to process everything I had heard... I asked him where he was and he said he was still waiting on the landfill road for law enforcement and an ambulance to arrive. He asked me if I could come get him...

I was in shock at this point, kind of dazed by the info and I was shaking. I wasn't thinking straight. I had his pickup that was hooked to a large car-hauler trailer full of dirt and bushes, jack-knifed in my yard. I looked at it and said, "honey, I don't think I can get your truck and trailer out of the yard the way you parked it, but I'll call and get a ride to my pickup and be there shortly..."

My daughter came and got me and took me to town. On our way, we came up behind the 'man-child's' older brother on main street and flagged him over. He took me up to where the crash was and the 'man-child' rode with us straight to the emergency room. We are rural here. The landfill road is very rural and sometimes things just move slow in rural america.

He had a CT scan, x-rays and it was found he had severe pneumonia, but no broken bones. He had been sick with flu-like symptoms for a few days, but neither of us knew it was this severe...

Poor guy - not only was he suffering from the adrenaline rush of the crash, but all of the anxiety inflamed the pneumonia and he was down in bed for 6 straight days, sore, tore up and sick as a dog...

He's finally up and mobile, albeit sore and tired, but we're moving forward again and I'm so, so very thankful he lived to tell the story with just cuts and bruises.

He's back in his excavator (the 'man-child') and a local contractor helped us (standing in front of the excavator) keep moving the project forward in his absence. We've hired other trucks to haul off the demo and get this job completed...

The old house hit the ground (just its chimney is standing in this pic)...

The old house is mostly hauled off and the old garage is demo'ed and now gone...

The newer of the 2 homes was demo'ed yesterday (I wasn't on the jobsite yesterday to get pics) and it's on the ground ready to start hauling off. All that's left of the old home is the basement cement and a plethora of old bricks...

~ jealous Pam?~ Trust me, I stacked pallets and pallets of bricks to bring home *big smile*~

Now, we just move forward, one step at a time...

Nobody was gravely injured, or hospitalized. We have great insurance. We are thankful this 'kick' had a good outcome because it could have been so much worse - Now, we just continue...

Remember ~ 

"The greatest things in life aren't THINGS~!"

The Salvage & Demo is in full swing...

I am TIRED~!

We got lucky and the asbestos removal was minimal, so it bought us an extra 6 days in the contract to really strip & salvage these homes before the demo begins...

Monday, I went with the "Man-Child" on the truck. We left Central Utah at 3:30 am and delivered sheetrock in Centerville, UT. Then, we bumped to Ogden, UT for a load of bagged, palleted animal feed to deliver to 4 dairy's in central Utah. Our final drop was at the "Man-Child's" cousins dairy and we unloaded ourselves at 2:30 am. Were we running legal? Oh, hardly, but we were able to squeeze in one last load before the demo began. The next morning the man-child went to a pre-construction meeting and they told us we could start 6 days early. Start? We were exhausted from the delivery the following day, but we started...

Tuesday morning about 10:30 am, we arrived with all of our tools and a 3 man work crew. We had to scour the area to find some help. We weren't suppose to start until October 8, so we weren't prepared. We made a deal with some of our neighbors. They were allowed to strip the newest, largest home and keep whatever they wanted for helping us salvage the nice aluminum roof and the pella windows. Me, the man-child and a friend started stripping the old house with the awesome hardwood doors and ornate brass door handles, while 2 other guys started on the other house... We took off all of the exterior storm doors and the yard lights first.Then, we started on the interior doors I wanted.

I only need 4 of these doors for my old house. We took down 17 all together and they are HEAVY~!

I have no clue what I'm going to do with 17 doors, but all of the hardware is beautiful and old and they are all in excellent condition. Yes, I carried 17 hardwood doors up and down stairs and out to the trailer myself ~ yay me!
The hinges are really pretty too, but of course I forgot to get pics before I took them down~ ugh... 

We are really hurrying to salvage all we can and the timeline in my head keeps me running and taking pics gets pushed to the sidelines...

Of course I salvaged all of the window cornices and the vintage drapes throughout the old house... 6 garbage bags full and a truck load of cornices and hardware~!

The young crew that done the asbestos removal were milking the clock and they stuck around and helped me with all of the drapes in trade for all of the vintage lights in the house and doughnuts. It's amazing what kind of labor you can get out of men when you provide a couple dozen doughnuts. 

This girl aint dumb~!

Wednesday, we pulled all of the windows out of the old house...

I was impressed... It only took a couple hours to remove 13 windows.. They were sold as soon as they hit the ground. Not only are we getting paid to do this, but we're turning some nice cash from passerby's...

This old house is so old, that there's no insulation... (oh - cold!)

Actually, there are 2 layers of brick... Inside of this old brick you can see is a layer of even older, sandstone brick. The home is older than we thought and was a bear to heat. There wasn't a lot of salvage on this home besides the old, old, hardwood doors, because of its age and all of the kitchen cabinets and appliances had been auctioned off previously by the school district. The roof is so steep, we're going to use an excavator to peel off the shiny silver aluminum roofing and salvage what we can for our sheep sheds and the rest will be sold to the recycler... We intend to keep all of the brick off of both homes. We're just going to take it to a piece of our property and dump it in a pile for now. We'll sell it later, when time permits.

When we got finished prepping the old house for demo, which only took us 2 days, we moved to the newer of the 2 homes. I call the newer of the two homes the "retro house"... It must have been built in the early 60's (?) Very retro inside. I wasn't interested in anything in the interior of the newer 'retro' home. It was really nice, but too retro for me with the hollow core maple doors and pink bathrooms - lol

The neighbors helping us didn't mind. They gutted the 'retro home' in about a day and a half. They even salvaged the pink bathroom fixtures for their personal remodel projects...

When I got my old doors out of the old home, I started pulling pavers and landscaping bricks and stacking them on pallets. While I was moving a pallet of pavers out of the way, I bumped the cinderblock wall with the loader and it fell over with such grace that it only broke about 10 blocks. They just fell over gently. The man-child clapped. Little did he know that I didn't mean to bump the wall, it was a complete accident, but I enjoyed the jeers and the fact the whole crew was impressed. I actually cringed when it fell. I was ready to jump out of the loader and yell, "I'm so sorry" instead, I just smiled and gloated. I spent Wednesday afternoon stacking 5 pallets of landscape pavers, brick paths and some of these cinderblocks. I have about 8 more pallets of blocks to stack and all of the landscaping bricks will be salvaged for transport ~ yay!

Thank heavens for happy accidents~!

(And, I'm going to stay out of the loader, for fear the next accident doesn't have such a happy ending)

*Big smile*

I have 'accidental talent' at times... Lets just let the 'man folk' think I did it on purpose *wink*

The man-child has started referring to his crew as "The Beavers" - my hell those guys can work fast... They gutted the 'retro house' in practically a day. Carpet, cabinets, drawers, lights, trim ~ it's been attacked by "The Beavers" and removed from the premises... They even stripped all of the crown molding in the kitchen and dining room~ When you consider that 2 pieces of hard wood moulding can cost upwards of $100, a house full is worth the effort. We're just happy to have it gone. It's less weight to take to the landfill and pay to dump. Happy those guys can reuse it in their own homes.

A really awesome surprise happened when they got the carpet out, but it was short lived. The whole retro-house was full of tongue and groove, new, hardwood flooring. But, it had been glued and nailed and trying to get it up, to salvage and reuse posed impossible - darn...

It just ended up being one of those awesome things you have to walk away from due to time constraints. It would have been quite neat to have a whole house worth of salvaged hard wood flooring. You win some, you lose some, I suppose...

The whole 'retro-house' was full of built in cupboards, dressers, vanity's and bureaus too... 'The Beavers' were allowed to keep them all, but 2 closet bureaus. They took them out for my closet and the rest was theirs~!

All of the built in cupboards were really pretty before the demo started, but alas, I forgot to take pics. I was just in a hurry. This is what they all look like now that 'The Beavers' have attacked - lol

Can you believe there were 5 loads of drawers like these out of the retro house?

I'm so sick of looking at drawers... This is the last load, sitting on the front porch and nobody wants them. 

I'm really considering walking them out to the curb tomorrow afternoon with a sign on them that says, "Need a drawer ~ take one," just to get rid of the remainder of them.

I think all together, there were 56 drawer that needed to find a home. I am really tired of drawers~!

Thursday, I got a break. I got to put all of my old doors in the shed. So, I got to move 17 hard wood doors again by myself. Well, actually, I got to drag 17 hardwood doors to the shed. Lifting at this point is not working for me. I'm beat and my whole body hurts...

*Ssshhhh ~ don't tell the guys... !*

They think I'm super-woman ~ I refuse to let them know I've been defeated by 17 hardwood doors and pallets and pallets of stacked brick... 

Oh, my heavens I'm worn out...

 But, I did get Thursday afternoon off, to do my laundry and get some temporary nursery beds prepared at my house for all of the roses, petunias, hostas, lillies etc., to get dug up and moved over here... The Beavers kept salvaging and the man-child and a good friend transported more equipment to the demo site to get ready for the demo part of the job.

This morning (Friday,) I got to take it easy, drink coffee and breath for a couple hours. The Beavers and the man-child started salvaging the aluminum roof on the 'retro house' and I'm scared of heights, so I just refused to help with that... I have been so worried about getting those aluminum shingles down. We have been having some cold, snowy kind of weather. It would be impossible to strip that roof with snow sitting on it. It would be way too slippery. So, they got to work on that roof early, while I sat home, in my housecoat and slippers drinking coffee. Sometimes, it's just awesome to be the boss, if only in my own mind...

Here is 3 of the crew. John seems to always be sitting on the chimney when I look. I told him I was heading to my truck to get a whip! Every time I show up, they all hurry. I hear, "Ah oh, the boss is here"... 

John is on the chimney (as usual...) Doug is in the middle. I think he's showing me his IQ (flipping me off) they're such gentlemen. And, the man-child is on the right, staring off into space as usual. Seriously though, I got there about 3 hours after they started and they had 3 sides of this big, aluminum roof, stripped &

salvaged. 

I was so impressed~!

Yep, John is still sitting on the chimney, while the man-child is still staring off in space... Doug looks like he may take flight - (he might still be flipping me off?)... And, I'm missing one of my crew in the pics ~ Gregory... I don't know where he is? I think he's the hardest worker, but he's missing... Sorry Greg that you're absent from the pics. I can't find you???

Pallets and pallets of salvaged aluminum roofing all around the house. And,  pallets and pallets of bricks I stacked myself all around the yard...

I got a few temporary garden beds tilled up and prepared for all of the landscaping that I can save while it was snowing on me today and 31 degrees outside. I stopped at Ace Hdwe to get some mulch and a neighbor is the nursery manager and she sold me a bunch of bushes for 80% off the sales price. I got 16 for $1.21 each in 1 and 2 gallon pots. Like I need more to do~~ But, who could resist...?

I have 42+ roses to transplant from this yard, plus all of the perennials and now, I've added 16 new bushes to the labor ~ Oy' Vey, I need my head examined~!

The great news is that I got 10 of the new bushes in the ground this evening. Sometimes, I'm just an animal with a shovel...

The 16 new bushes I got today from Ace are;

(2) Spirea - Gold Flame
(3) Spirea - B. Anthony Waterer
(2) Spirea - Lil Princess
(3) Dwarf Arctic Willows
(1) Emerald Mound Honeysuckle
(1) European Fly Honeysuckle
(1) Snow White Nectar Bush
(3) Ruby Spice Summer Sweet

Like I needed more to do right now~ Ey, ye, ye... When does a girl stop? When there's 3' of snow on the ground?

Tomorrow, we get to pull out all of the big, beautiful Pella windows from the retro-house... They're coming home with us, for our dining room and garage add-on's that I hope the new construction starts on soon.

(A girl can dream, right?)

And, tomorrow, I'm going to start digging up all of the landscaping and taking it home to replant, if it quits raining and snowing. Don't fret about me. I already called "dibs" on the backhoe. John gets to operate the shovel, for spending the day sitting on the chimney ~ *Wink*...

And, we're WAY ahead of schedule~!

 If it keeps going at this pace, we'll have these 2 houses on the ground and hauled off by the end of next week. That will be 7 days early. And, the city stopped by yesterday and invited us to bid on another salvage and demo, on another house, on the other side of town, for a new parking lot. We might have one more home to do. We'll find out on Monday~!

For now, I'm tired, sore and going to go climb in the hot tub~ 

(Don't ever tell my crew I'm old and tired ~ Sigh~...)

Nite All!

A salvage & demo job coming up~!

Oh, I'm so excited~!!!

I would be one of the only females excited about the amount of physical labor I'm going to be exerting in the coming weeks...

Our construction company got awarded a bid for a "Salvage & Demo" job. The School District here needs 2 homes removed for the construction of a new High School. And, these aren't just old, dilapidated homes that have already been salvaged. With the bid on these 2 homes, we get all of the salvage rights~!

~Newer Demo Home~

~Older Demo Home~

The 'newer' of the 2 homes is really, really, nice. And has been completely updated recently with brand new windows, with custom blinds throughout. And, heavy duty, high quality storm doors...

 It has a newer aluminum roof that resembles cedar shakers, like this old house. And,  what seems like miles and miles of high quality, aluminum 'soffit & fascia' we can reincorporate into this old house's renovation and our planned home additions....

The beauty part about the 'Man-Child' being a contractor is that he has all of the tools and experience necessary to reuse just nearly everything. No need to hire outside labor. Him and his crew are fully capable of removing all of this and reinstalling it later...

The homemade screen doors will be a wonderful addition to my new dining room soon - so will some of the windows & blinds...

The "newer" of the 2 homes has all of the bells and whistles, plus 42+ rose bushes and lots of other landscaping that will be moved to this old yard~!

And, lets not forget about all of the brick, pavers, cinderblock and more brick... You guessed it~~~ we're going to save all of the brick we can too...

Oh, and how about a new outdoor, cast iron light fixture - how sweet is that? It's one of the old, HEAVY, real ones. Not a Hom Depot / china-mart, plastic reproduction...

And lots of iron details to bring home and re-purpose somewhere...

The inside of this newer home is loaded with 'built in' storage areas, bureaus in the closets, vintage doors, you name it. The only thing that was salvaged prior was the appliances and kitchen cupboards. Everything else is still intact and coming home with us. I have no pics of the interiors yet, because the 'asbestos testing' won't be complete until Friday and then, we'll get keys and I'll get pictures~! 

Then, there's the older of the 2 homes...

This wrought iron storm door is a perfect fit for my front door - In fact, there are enough heavy duty storm doors to outfit this old house. They will work perfect salvaging them from both homes~!

More aluminum roofing and new windows to make use of~!

Some fun, vintage, architectural things to're-use' perhaps...

And, a secret awaits revealing in this older home... The whole house has antique doors, complete with the carved brass door handles and backplates ~~~ ! 

I'm so excited and can't wait for the asbestos removal to finish in this old house, so we can get the doors removed. There are lots of other 'antique' and 'vintage' salvage items in this old home, to bring home...

All of the salvage on these homes will save us possibly, tens of thousands of dollars on the renovation of our old house ~ I feel so grateful... And, there's nothing like being paid to bring things homes and re-use them...

It's going to be a fun & exciting October~