The walls came tumbling down

Winter has really arrived here at the farm. The temps have dropped colder than the proverbial well diggers, you know. Warming up this weekend, however, with rain of course, then the temps plummet even further down the thermometer next week. Brrr. The house here at the farm was built in 1932. It’s almost as old as dirt, but not quite. It does, however, have plenty of charm and personality. We are in the process of giving it more charm. Houses built back in the day were sectioned off into individual rooms, with little wide open spaces. We are now creating our wide open spaces. Kitchen first. Most of the plaster and lathe boards that were once walls is now lying in a pile on the floor. There is something to be said for demolition. Many a stressful day can be displaced to a hammer banging against a plaster wall. It’s quite fun sometimes. It is surprising what one might find behind very old walls. As one part of a dining room wall was being dismantled, some brick appeared. As more wall came down, more brick appeared. Low and behold, there is a chimney behind the dining room wall. The chimney has a round hole in it about 4 ft up from the floor. It is apparent it was once used for a furnace or wood burning stove. Possibly the only source of heat when the house was originally built. I was surprised, however, being that there is only one chimney that extends beyond the roof line, that one belonging to the fireplace in the living room. My curiosity had the best of me now and I was on a mission to find the rest of this chimney. I went upstairs and entered one of the three entrances into the attic space. As I crawled on hands and knees, cleaning cobwebs with my head as I went and hoping not to make a skylight opening in the ceiling with my body, I found the rest of the chimney. The top of the chimney stops just shy of the roof. I began to surmise. Yes, I do surmise every now and then. I was surmising as to why this chimney stopped just under the roof line. It became very clear to me that if I put another wood stove in place in front of this chimney, vented the flue into the chimney; all the smoke and ash would end up in the attic. In my 56 years of life on this earth and a stint with the Gwinnett County Fire Dept as a fireman, I surmised, there I go again, surmising. I surmised that the attic was not a good place to deposit such items as smoke, heat and ash. After much surmising, I determined that when this house was built it was originally a single story house with this chimney easily being above the roof line. At some point and time a second story was added, and for whatever reason, the decision was made to not extend the chimney above the new roof line and to close in the chimney behind a wall. As I write, plans are being made and surmising is going on to once again extend this fine looking chimney above the roof line and once again use its services as a smoke belching, ash gathering flue for a wood burning stove. And I’m not talking about just a wood burner. This will be a regular ole timey real stove that uses wood as its source of heat for cooking and heating. I can be like Matt Dillon and have my old coffee pot sitting there on the stove ready to fill a cup with hot, steaming coffee every time Festus stops by. For everyone reading this under the age of 30, Google Matt Dillon and Festus Hagen. Anyway, remodeling has begun. I’ll keep you posted as I continue to surmise....