First!

We had just spent 8 leisurely months in Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico and it stank not living on our own.  That's when my dad offered me a house. A house that needs lots of work. A house that's full of his junk. A house that has knob and tube wiring. It's a two small bedroom on the main floor but a full size upstairs.  I said "Oh, but that would be so much work. I mean we'd have to empty it. Re-do the walls, the wiring, the plumbing!!!"  to which my dad said "I had total confidence that you two could do it all yourselves with my help of course."  I was bitten.  The house isn't in a great neighborhood, isn't near coffee shops or grocery stores. And it's across the street from my mother.  But it would be free. No rent. No down payment. My brother and his friend were talking about moving back home after their lease expired to save money.  We need to save money for a wedding and for more traveling. What would my SO say?  This was at the end of November.

I go to my SO and the first thing he says is "The yellow house?! NO WAY!"  I say "I know but we'll talk about it later." As he was at his brother's house and had imbibed a bit. On the car ride home, I said "Just imagine it. We would knock down walls, we'd install wiring and drywall."  It would be ours.  He got bitten by the idea.

We go to assess with my father. We get a copy of the key so we can come and ponder at will.  We take measurements of the rooms.  We can't even walk on the floors it's so full. Of lumber, of spare doors and windows, of motors and printers and computers and anything that my dad thought might be useful one day.

We clear out a pathway in the kitchen and we decide to make the central room, the dining room, our station.  We clear it out. We load my dad's small blue pickup with almost two tons of scrap metal. It yielded $120 dollars at the junk yard.  We install a wood burning stove and hook up the pipes to the chimney.

We get a lead-paint testing kit.  Everything clear, except for the woodworking trim in the dining room. But it's at acceptable epa levels. The exterior paint? BAD.  We won't touch it.

Then we start to think about the drywall that has to come down. The previous owners put up drywall over the plaster and lathe.  Thoughts and fears of mesothelioma and lung cancer haunt us. It could be the end of our project. But we have to find out.  We don't need to empty the house if it's got asbestos. So, we're at a standstill.

Internet research yields some labs at $40 dollars a sample. Yuck. We find a local company that said $25 a sample.  We take samples of the dining room wall drywall and the plaster, the ceiling and it's two layers. The living room and ceiling and attic plaster.  The first bedroom has plaster and lathe and on top of that is OSB.  The kitchen walls were already demolished.  All in all it was 11 samples. 10 were completely asbestos free! One had trace amounts <1% in a joint compound, which is less than epa regulations.  We are in the clear!  When we take down we will cut around the joint compound and spray it with water (so it's not airborne) and take it out in solid single pieces.

This takes us to January. After the Baltimore trip.