Chimneys: Out. Bricks: Gone. Progress: Some.

I'd like to say that we made tons of progress this weekend, but that's a bald-face lie. Aside from picking up the William Morris wallpaper, and trolling Craig's List a fair amount, almost nothing else was accomplished.

But! This is the great thing about paying a local dude to remove your chimney and fill the hole it left behind!

*I know. I know. I have guilt about paying someone to do this work, I'm such a crazy hawk about money, but sometimes... 

"It's a dirty job and somebody else can do it." 

Last week while we were working away in New York City, someone else was upstate hacking away at the remains of the brick chimneys in our guest bedroom and attic, and throwing all the debris out of our third floor window onto a tarp in the yard.

Just to be clear-- these chimneys were not functional and did not extend through my roof. Some vindictive son-of-a-#$% chopped the rest of the chimneys off when they re-did the roof a few years before we bought the house, so although there were once wood-burning stoves in every bedroom (AMAZING) they aren't there any more. That same vindictive $%$ also left the bottom half of all the chimneys in the house for us to deal with a few years later. What a guy. (NOT AMAZING.) Of course, the perils of being incredibly-cheap and paying the local dude by the hour is that you end up with a yard full-a-bricks, and it's left to you to dispose of them. Luckily, John and my dad were incredibly good sports and loaded up this epic pile of bricks this afternoon, and now they're headed off to the town dump when we go up to the country next!

I can't wait to photograph our guest room once it's fully-finished. It's already transformed sans chimney. What a difference!!