and the dust goes on

This is what it looks like when you take a 12-ft stone fireplace down to the studs. A hot mess. Any surface (including felines) that wasn't previously covered in dust now has a triple layer.

We had the foresight to list the used stone in the 'free' section on Craigslist Friday night; within 15 minutes of the listing I had 2 phone calls and 3 emails. No joke. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to a.) charge for the stuff, since apparently it's hellapopular, and b.) tell them they had to haul away ALL of the rubble, concrete, mesh, drywall etc. in order to get said coveted rock. My bad.

So, as penance, I had to sort through all the rubble myself, and bag up whatever wasn't usable stone. Of course, this earned me another few hours with gloves and a breathing mask, and another shower that almost required a hammer and chisel to remove the coagulated dust. Yeeeech.

We're hoping we can open up the fireplace to the back porch - OH's idea. That would be super-cool, to be able to see outside from the fireplace, and to be able to enjoy the fire (and reap the benefits of some woodsmoke on the back porch - the bugs here are unbelievable) from outside as well as in. Well, on the 3 or so occasions we'll probably want to light a fire in the winter, anyway. It's been 90-ish every day for the past two weeks, so it's a little hard to imagine wanting to light a fire.

If you'd like to see a few more pictures of the construction (destruction, really), see them here, in the "construction" album.