Hung From the Chimney With Care

I can tell you demolition went a lot faster before I started looking at everything as a Halloween prop.

I bought my house almost 5 years ago and have pretty remodeled it from the first floor to the third, knocking down walls, moving walls, gutting rooms, etc. When I decided to tackle a room it was a pretty quick process. Sledge hammer in hand, I'd set about beating the crap out of a wall until it submitted to my will. Fun, quick, and messy as all hell.

Then I got into Halloween and making props and now the demo work has become a laborious process. I break up the plaster walls carefully to protect the lath underneath so that I can use equal care to pry off the lath with a crowbar or cat's paw. After all, lath makes a helluva creepy wall effect.

This only came into play as I began the last stage of renovation: the basement. But before I could finish that, I had to demo the back stairwell. And what would normally have taken me about an hour or so to complete, ended up becoming a multi-day project to protect and remove the lath. Fortunately that's completed now -- well I still need to get a new back door -- and the lath has been bundled up and stored away for future use. Now I can get this project completed so I can move on to more important projects like building Halloween props.