Outside Looking In

One of the lessons that renovators often speak to is not starting a new task without finishing the one you're working on.  I've found this to be good advice but have trouble following it.

In a perfect world I could finish working on the bidet project and then move on to the bedroom trim as planned.  But in that perfect world the doors I sent away to be stripped would have come back,and the trim job would be finished before the weekend that my wife and son planned to go out of town arrived so that they were absent while I took care of some nasty demolition work.  For that matter, in a perfect world there wouldn't be any nasty demolition work to take care of and I would be enjoying spring afternoons sipping margaritas on the side porch.

The south side exterior of the house has been an eyesore for a while.  Since installing a large double window over two years ago, the wall remained in disrepair as I concentrated on making the interior space livable.  Of course the wall kept out the elements, but was a constant reminder of an unfinished project.

This past week I took my first stride towards beautifying the main entrance to our humble abode.  The first task was removing the remaining cement-asbestos shingles/tiles that grace(?) the sides.

The ell section of the house was originally sided with cedar shakes and those shakes lay under the asbestos shingles.  My plan is to leave the asbestos shingles on the main part of the house for the foreseeable future but remove them from the ell and re-shingle that part with cedar.

Cement-asbestos siding, although fallen out of favor aesthetically, is nonetheless a decent siding material.  It's strong, fireproof, and has good insulating characteristics.  It's safe if left alone but if you start breaking up the tiles, you can release the harmful asbestos particles into the air and risk breathing them in.  The most dangerous aspect of cement-asbestos shingles were in their manufacture.  The workers who fabricated these tiles were exposed to harmful levels of asbestos.  In fact the company, Johns-Manville, that manufactured the shingles that are on my house was forced to file chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982 as a result of class-action suits brought on by the health affects of their manufacturing process.

I thought it best to take on the job of removing the tiles when my wife and son were away.  For my own safety I donned a tyvek suit and respirator while handling the stuff.

Once the asbestos was off and safely wrapped up in 6mil plastic packages for later disposal, I got to tearing off the old cedar shingles.

On home renovation shows, the demolition stage of a project is often portrayed as fun.  "Here's a sledgehammer George, have a ball."  For me, aside from the hard work involved, I find it depressing.  After all, I'm tearing apart something that someone else spent time, energy, and money on building.  I like old good things and having to destroy them brings me no pleasure.  I'm also keenly aware of the time, energy, and money it's going to take to rebuild.

I suspect that as we learn more about the finite aspect of the earth's resources we'll look back on some of those gleeful demolition party scenes with a bit of shame.  I would like to have been able to recycle the old cedar shakes by burning them come wintertime but they were covered with vestiges of paint (probably lead-based).  Into the landfill they go.