The Start

On Tuesday, March 3, 2015, the first hammer swing marked the beginning of our major renovation here at Cedar Crest. It was truly a bitter sweet feeling to see a century of history fall away under the mauls and crowbars. The remnants of the old kennels were in the barn. As we tore down the walls separating the kennels we discovered (under false walls) that each kennel had a fold-down grooming table. However nostalgic the demolition also showed the wear and tear of the years. We discovered two support beams that will have to be replaced and years of horse urine had rotted out a great deal of the floor boards under the box stalls. These will have to be replaced prior to pouring the cement floor. The following are some photos we took just as the contractors were getting started and showing their progress by the end of the week.

It took a couple days for the guys to clear all the "junk" out of the space. Most of it was stored in the loft of the barn. At this time we're only renovating the foundation (reinforcement) and the main level (garage, storage and studio). We're pretty sure the hardware in the box stalls is all original. We're keeping it and perhaps we'll allow it to enjoy a reincarnation in the new space or in the garden.

Another final view of the box stalls before they come down.

Removing one of the interior walls to further open up the space.

More walls and stalls coming down.

The site of the old kennels. Each one had a window. We have the original blueprints for the barn so we know that this area was originally built to house poultry. There's no way of knowing when it was converted to dog kennels or perhaps it was never used for poultry at all.  This area of the barn was once heated - as is evident by the large cast iron radiator against the wall. I had hoped to be able to keep the barrel you see in the background but on closer inspection we think it's actually full of creosote so will have to be disposed of as a hazardous waste.

More walls torn out to open up the space. This was where we discovered a support beam that was smaller than what we'd anticipated. We had to call our engineer - Larry Honey - back in to take a look and make a recommendation of what needed to be done to provide adequate support.

Standing against the north wall of the barn and looking toward the south wall. There had previously been about three interior walls between the north and south sides of the barn so looking from one side all the way to the other was a very strange sensation.

This is the view from standing in the doorway on the east side of the barn looking to the west side. There used to be 3 box stalls on the right. You can still see the wall of one box stall on the left side of the photo but that was taken down later that day.

This is the opposite view from the photo above - taken from the door on the west side of the building looking to the east.

This is standing about mid way through the barn looking west - toward the house. You can see the front of my car parked by our kitchen door. The access to the basement is seen here open.  We will continue to use this as the only access to the basement. The wooden door will be replaced by a plate steel door (that will support a car) once the new concrete floor is poured.