Way down South...

Way down South stands a beautiful old house...with no floor. Where did the floor go you may even now be asking yourselves. Luckily in this instance we actually meant the floor to come up. If there is one thing that is in no short supply in the South, besides craw fish and shrimp po-boys it would be old houses that haven't had a lick of fixin in forever. So when we bought this gem of a project we knew it would need updating and being head over heal in love with history I was enchanted with the idea. Three years later I am no less enchanted ...just covered in grime. Taking Her , our pretty Victorian Lady down to her skivvies has been dirty work. Upon opening one wall we found the wall constructed from old door jams, still completely intact. You gotta do what you gotta do. I have to respect the ingenuity that is inherent to the American experience that allows us to persevere under whatever circumstances we face. So when you have a perfectly good door jam and limited funds...well it just makes good sense. In the South we have been recycling since before it was cool!

In our neck of the woods houses don't stay where you put them. So after a century of slow migration it was rather imperative that we re-do the floor joists and settle them securely on mostly new piers. That is definitely where the real fun begins. Two jacks...brothers, go figure...my husband and a smaller jack ( the non-human variety) spent a frustrating morning driving piers deeply into the ground. Before you set pen to paper in a quest to find out from me why they would spend time pursuing this unclear past time. Let me assure you this was not intentional and therefore involved a lot of spitting ( not my husband) and standing in a group with heads cocked to the side. Before you shake your head in disgust, unless you have tried leveling a house in a swamp...well, enough said. Eventually they either hit the backside of China or a well placed rock and the house was declared level...enough. The good news is the floors are going in faster than they came out and I anticipate a day soon when I will walk the floors without fear of my leg going through to the earth below, sadly an experience we have had. Have no fear in the greatest of traditions we are planing all the floors down and re-using them however there will be no doorways used to re-frame the walls ...we're saving those for the roof.