Nailing down plans for the New Year

The year is starting off a few days (12/27) early with an old "acquaintance" turned "very dear friend", Jean Kunz helping to remove nails... and lots of them!

See the nails in the studs? They are on EVERY stud including up on the ceiling and EVERY one of them must be removed.    This is tedious, boring work... my least favorite of all the jobs so far.  Not to mention the fact that we don't have heat on the second floor, which hasn't been bad except for no matter what, my feet get cold.  We know it hasn't dropped below freezing up there because the bottle of Cherry PowerAid that someone left behind last summer isn't frozen!!!  

In case you couldn't see the nails in the previous picture, here's a closeup.  Notice that some areas have two nails on each row.  Grrrr....   Between Jean and I, we have 10 hours of nail-pulling and still have another room to go AND the upper parts of the walls and the ceilings.  Keep in mind this is for 3 of the previous apartments. And these were the SMALL apartments.  I hate asking for help, but may need to have a nail pulling party one of these days!

Another dumpster has been delivered in preparation for the remaining gutting activities to take place over the next couple of weeks.  If any of you have driven by and are wondering why Dale built a roof on the dumpster, it is to keep people from throwing their unwanted items into it.  Never fails, we're stuck pulling the items out and taking them to Randy's.  People just don't understand that this is a construction dumpster and only construction material can be placed in there.  That Dale's a thinker and a doer!

There's that bottle of Cherry PowerAid!  Kind of our "Canary in a coal mine"!

The untrained eye may not see any progress in the picture, but I'm here to tell you that there aren't any nails on these walls (at least from where I could reach).  And it has been swept again.  Still haven't figured out why I was so obsessed with scrubbing these floors last year.  That was totally fruitless!

Dale's creating more nail-pulling work for me!

It gets a little dusty working and need to protect everyone and everything!

I need to remember to take my camera with me instead of relying on my phone.  This is a really cool light fixture that we JUST noticed!  It's a keeper!

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a plastered wall looks like?  If you have an overly analytical mind such as myself you have.  And now you know!

This is a really mind-boggling picture.  I was standing at the front door on the sidewalk looking up the stairs.   There's a light on the ceiling and the wood stairs have been covered so they don't get ruined when we start dropping lathe and plaster.

Now here's the shot from the top of the stair.  Also notice the beautiful wood railing has been covered in order to protect it from any damage.  This is a BEFORE picture.

Another BEFORE pic.

AFTER!  Boy can Dale do some damage in just a couple of hours!

And we called it a day.  

I'm not looking forward to the brutally cold weather that has arrived and will be here all week, but I am thankful that we have some wonderful friends that don't want to work outside in the cold and are willing to come work in our 32ish degree building.  Thank you STODDARD guys!!! We really appreciate your help!!