Part III: Removing the south section

November, 2008

The next task is to disassemble and remove the southern section, that of frame-and-board, from the house.

The idea of this project has alwasy been to rebuild the house as close as possible to the original. This may be difficult to achieve, because so much of it is rotten, termite-eaten or otherwise damaged. Nonetheless, each piece that comes off the building (excluding shingles and other small bits) is meticulously numbered for future assembly. Where the pieces are too damaged to re-use, they can nonetheless serve as patterns for their replacement.

Boards which cannot be used in their original location, but which may nonetheless be useful, will be incorporated in interior walls. For example, most of the exterior boards are heavily damaged by sun, rain, wind and time. However, these same boards when flipped over, look very well, as the damage is only superficial. Such boards can therefore be recycled for interior use, with their good sides showing, and their clones made from their exact dimensions can form exterior walls.


The reason I want to be so meticulous is shown by this combination of boards:



The board leaning on the tailgate of my pickup above is one of the interior posts. It is slotted, and a notch carved in the horizontal beam that went above a doorway. Such things would have allowed a building to be constructed with few - or in case of the log portion - no nails at all.



The boards are numbed in pencil according to a pre-arranged shceme. The log section of the house is I and the board section is II. The center breezeway (only a roof section) is III. Each vertical wall is given a letter, F, B, L, R or M for front, back, left, right and middle. Thus, the back wall of the board section of the house is IIB, and its individual boards are sketched and labled, IIB1, IIB2, IIB3, etc. If a board splits when taken down, both halves are marked as IIB1a and IIB1b.

Each board is taken down, numbered, its nails are removed, and it is placed on my truck for transport to the barn and storage.





Some pieces are taken down in units. This is IIBD, the back door on building II. Almost indistinguishable as a door without its hinges.

Removal of back side:


The removal of the back side of building II began even before the roof was off. The boards were nailed on, and there was also a strip of tin buried in the ground at the bottom which held them in. This was probably designed to prevent animals from digging underneath the house.

IIB - the back wall of building II is removed except for the frame, which is kept for structural purposes.

The next part is the wall between II and the breezeway, III. This is IIL, as viewed from the front of the house:

Mostly down:

In the picture above, you're looking at IIL from the breezeway. The II section's front roof overhang was enclosed at some point, forming a small third room, in addition to the main rooms in buildings I and II. This I refer to as IIB, for bathroom, which is what I plan to use it for ultimately. The door to IIB, which you see hanging at an angle, is held on by improvised hinges - straps from what appears to have been a belt or tack leather.


The room known as IIB led to some interesting finds, including this board above. The wood strips covering up the lettering were used to cover up the gaps between the boards, prevent wind and insects from getting in, and keeping the boards from warping unevenly. This indicated that this wall - an interior one - was once an exterior one. This confirms that IIB was an enclosure later added, not a room from the beginning.

The writing on the board says: "Use Moore and Co's No. I Shingles." It is an advertisement which may have been on a packing crate, the side of a wagon or some other place. This is obviously referring to No. 1 (a quality designation still used) roofing shingles, and it is quite likely that the shingles I had removed a few weeks before were from this company. Moore and Co. could have been a local company in Medina County, or San Antonio. Alternatively, there is still a Moore and Co. in existence that primarily sells paint.

Most intriguingly, it could have been a company out of East Texas:

http://libweb.sfasu.edu/proser/etrc/collections/forest/lutchermoore/

If I can verify that this wood comes from that company, I can date the age of the board building II as post 1877.

The wood on this wall is cypress and the entire interior wall is made of it. This wall was held up with square nails, although it appears the other walls of building II were replaced, as the boards there were nailed down with round nails. However, the structural supports had clinched square nails on them, indicating that boards had been replaced. It is likely that the boards exposed to the weather were replaced, but this one interior wall was original.

Next we move on to the South or right wall. This is an exterior wall making up the edge of the entire building:

Once the roof was removed - see Part II - this wall could come down:

My photographic record is limited here as I had left my camera in Austin that weekend. But I got a few more pictures with my cell phone. Here is II with all of the walls but the cypress-built interior wall IIM removed.

Here's another angle.

Building II is now completely down. My brother and I removed this wall and after I returned to Austin after Christmas, my brother pulled up the floor boards. This is the status of the house on Jan. 1, 2009.