Yesterday evening my brother called me with an offer too good to pass up.  A friend of his was invited to go salvage some floorboards from an old house scheduled for demolition today, and this friend was allowed to bring anyone else who might be interested in salvaging items from the old house.  I couldn’t think of anything we would need to grab from an old house, but I am intrigued by old houses, and I’ve never been a part of a salvage team, so it piqued my interest right away.

I called Michael and his brother Roy, and found they were both interested in this adventure as well.

We packed up a variety of tools, pry bars, hammers, wrenches, clippers, a drill, a sawsall, and whatever else seemed like it might be useful, and headed for 404 First Street in ElPaso, IL.  

When we arrived, we greeted the folks waiting there for the rest of the party to show up, and then we headed to the house to walk through.  Of course there was no power hooked up, so we had to explore by way of flashlight.  The house was simply enormous.  I kept dreaming about how wonderful it would be to have such a big house, and I felt very sad that this beauty had been allowed to deteriorate beyond repair.  We admired the woodwork, noticed odd additions and changes, wondered at the three kitchens we found, and exclaimed each time we noticed yet another room beyond the rooms we had already walked through.  We had to be careful, because the main staircase had already been removed, and various floorboards had been salvaged previously.

We spent about four hours there, helping tear up floorboards for the girl who needed them, taking little bits and pieces of things that we thought we might be able to use, grabbing a few odd things that we have no idea how we’ll use, and then carefully taking down some crown molding from the main room that I think I’d like to put in my new kitchen.  Roy was able to get some things to use in his new house when he finishes the basement, and my brother, Dave, was tickled that Michael and Roy salvaged a breaker box for him to take home to replace his fuse box.

We got home so much later than we’d anticipated, but it was such a fun excursion that none of us minded the late hour.

This morning I keep wondering about that big old house and I’m tempted to drive back out and see if it’s already torn down.  If I had nothing else to do, I’d drive the kids out there to watch the demolition.  Then again, I think it would be a sad sight to see the end of a noble structure.  Some things are better left unseen.