Bye Bye Chimneys!

It really was a hard decision to take down the chimneys. On one hand, this is a 100 year old house and we really want to restore as much as we can. Chimneys add so much character to older homes.

But, the mortar between the bricks was so disintegrated, my Handsome Engineer was literally just picking the bricks up--they were stacked on top of each other, but no longer really attached.


And we know that water was getting into the house via the chimneys.

In the upstairs, the two chimneys really cut into the bedroom space in an awkward way.


So, we decided to take them down, at least through the second floor. My Handsome Engineer and my oldest daughter went up on the roof and removed the bricks down through the attic level.

Can I just mention that the thought of my brilliant--but rather scatterbrained--oldest daughter being on the roof of our house worried me a bit. She tends to live in her own reality and that can be bad when you are two-plus stories in the air.


But the work was finished with zero work related injuries. Lil Bit was very proud of herself. The roof patch looked about as good as you could expect for such an old roof (we want to eventually replace the roof with metal roofing--and will probably change the whole roofline when we do in order to create a useful attic space).


The bricks will be used in other projects around the home--a patio or flower bed walls--in order to continue their story with the house. We will probably expose the brick chimneys downstairs in the kitchen, so they still stay a part of the actual house, as well.

Now, our room project can continue--slowly but surely! I will keep you updated!!