Twelve Mares and a Gelding

Welp, safe to say the honeymoon is over. 

One day not long ago, Cody and I gathered crowbars and dust masks after church and headed to the great unknown. 
Nope. 
Not Alaska, again. 
Our new (old) house. 

We knew what we bought. 
We knew what we wanted for our home. 
We (kind of?) knew how to get there. 
We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. 

I guess...I may have had an inkling?
Growing up, Dad called this "building character" - we called it tearing down the very house we lived in with tools we could barely lift. 
It's where we learned how to play 52-pick-up. 
And also extract nails from one another's shoes without telling Momma. 

Fast forward 25 years and I realized that love makes one do funny things, like repeat history. 

Once we ripped through the dreaded plaster and lath (several days later), we found the old frame of the the home that we've already grown to love. Round pegs and all. 

It's all fun and games until you have to restore these puppies. 

Three walls down in this old homestead, 

we found more horse hair than a barn housing twelve mares and a gelding. 

Like, more than the Quarter Horse Congress. 

Just, a lot of horse hair. 

Trapped in the Dirt Devil filter.

I'm no stranger to the horsehair 
I'm a friend of sheet rock
Friend, is it any wonder plaster chokes me
I've fought the Dirt Devil
Got down on it's level
But I never gave in, so it blew up on me
I'm no stranger to the horsehair

Nearly a week after re-writing Whitley's classic during deconstruction time, the work got a bit less meticulous and the urge to put a FOR SALE sign in the yard drifted into the wind. Along with approximately 200 lbs. of ancient insulation. 

Friends and family alike were kind enough to comment about how much they enjoyed seeing the interior of our home throw up on our front yard. What can we say? We've never been great at landscaping and the guts had to go somewhere. 

As I type this, the ancient rafters have been coupled with new to stand the test of time for the next 100 years. 
Same with the electric, insulation and windows.

Using heavy duty tools to demolish the very thing you've spent your combined life savings on has been a great teacher in early marriage. 

I've learned you can't can't kiss in dust masks and strangely, while wearing those masks, you have absolutely no desire to. 

I've learned a whole new vocabulary from Cody. 

And he's learned of a side of me I'm fairly certain he prayed he'd never encounter. 

Can't always get what you want, cowboy. 

You think I wanted to purchase an old fixer-upper and invest every last dime and second of free time into it?

You're right - It's Genetic

Until next time, a preview of our progress: