We were trying to make an outside tour of the Mooreland House today with the drone. Somehow, the drone wound up in a tree. We won’t talk about who was flying the drone because she is a little embarrassed. Luckily, the drone operator (who will remain unnamed) didn’t start the “record” button until after the drone was lodged in the tree. Whoever mentioned that we dress in layers for the cold, thank you! The drone operator took that advice to heart. Don’t worry though, we ordered extra propellers and will have it up and running in no time.

We started a pile for the plaster we were taking out of the house when we started sweeping things up the first time. Slowly, that pile has grown quite a bit. With barely a tenth of the plaster cleaned up, this is going to be a mountain of plaster! Having a tractor with a bucket helps to move it around.

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We would like to thank every single one of you that are here following this blog. We started this journey and there were a lot of people that had seen the Mooreland House on FaceBook when it went up for sale. We wanted to let people know that the house was going to be saved so we started a FaceBook page to get that information out. That page quickly climbed to over 2600 followers and about 1200 would see the daily posts there on FaceBook.

We decided to leave FaceBook and started a temporary website and then finally got this permanent website. Now we have just over 100 people that follow the blog and about 30 actually look at it when we post.

This post is just to thank those of you that are truly interested in what is happening to the Mooreland House. We would be doing the work whether or not we had this blog so it doesn’t really change anything for us. It doesn’t add that much work because we are taking pictures and trying to document the journey anyway. Sharing with you is just a natural extension of that.

So, thank you! Frank and Kerry.

We finally got all the plaster down from one of the ceilings in one of the rooms! There are quite a few more to go. It is hard to imagine the amount of sand that had to be brought in for this house during construction. The plaster is almost an inch thick in some areas. It is nice to see that things that were hidden are in good shape.

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Oops! While trying to empty the catch tub on top of the scaffolding… a five gallon pail got away from us. It is amazing how much area can be affected by about four gallons of water. It didn’t take long to make it to the first floor. Kind of reminded us of old times…

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We begin the deconstruction of the Mooreland House. Don’t worry, we will get it back together someday.

Taking down the lath and plaster is going to take a while. If the ceilings weren’t so high it might be easier. With 12 foot ceilings you have to use a ladder or scaffolding. Scaffolding is much safer. Every time we complete a section we are forced to clean up everything so we can move the scaffolding to the next area to be taken down. At least it wasn’t freezing in the house. Wonderful December weather.

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Kerry used her magnetic personality and a new tool to attract a few nails from the driveway! After getting one of these cute little nails in her car tire the other day she decided to take matters into her own hands. We have been careful not to store or break down lumber in the driveways because we didn’t want to get nails everywhere. We suppose over the years people have not been so careful. Here are a few nails that won’t cause problems anymore!

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We aren’t necessarily ready to think about mantles yet but a lot of people ask about them. We don’t really have to match exactly what was there but most of the wood in each room is a certain species. The picture that shows the original mantle is from a realtor that had the house listed years ago. The opening for the tile is 42 inches wide and 36 inches tall. If someone sees one that is being thrown out or something, let us know.

We uncovered a sewer pipe while pulling stumps that adds some mystery as to where the septic system is on the Mooreland House property. This is a 4 inch clay pipe that heads out of the house to the north. We drew a red line on the overhead picture to show the area and direction that the pipe is heading.

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