Death By Plaster

Unfortunately the next step in this renovation was to take off ALL of the existing plaster and wooden lath from the first and second floor. By the time we started swinging our crowbars, the plaster had seen better days and did not put up much of a fight coming off.

The first room we tested was our small knick-knack room upstairs - as we wanted to see what was behind the walls and how easy it would be to take off. The second room came down almost by accident as Markus, my dad Peter, our friend Don and I were finishing taking down the trim in the house one weekend. Being a bit bored, as we worked in the living room, I started to bang at the wall and the plaster started falling. We all looked at each other and shrug our shoulders and pretty soon there was a gigantic pile of plaster in the middle of the room. The reaming rooms we cleared of plaster on two different "work weekends". The wooden lath cam down over a series of weeks, with Markus and I working after school and on the weekends.

Taking down the plaster and wooden lath has to be one of the dirtiest and crappiest jobs around. The dust is so fine and chokes you if you don't have a respirator on. The dust also goes EVERYWHERE and we are still sweeping it up around the house. We are in debt to the following friends who dared to come out and do some destruction with us:
-Peter Sawchyn
-Dominic Rubrecht
-Blair Litzenberger
-Don Balas
-Dan Innes
-Dan Fleishaker
-Chris Beingessner
-Steve Torgerson
-Kendra Walker

The worst sections of pulling off plaster we hit were in the corners of the bay windows and the bathroom walls. In these specially selected spots, somebody had decided to use an industrial diamond shape wire to ensure that the plaster stayed on. HOWEVER, trying to remove said wire piece from wall after it has been on for a 100 years was a bit ridiculous and resulted in many cuts and sore muscles.

The following is a selection of photo's from our destruction of the plaster!