A different kind of Thanksgiving

We have had a very busy, productive couple of days at the house.  Dad came down and we have been gutting.  We have removed all of the walls and ceilings in the first floor.  We only ran into a couple of things worth mentioning.  Below is a brief recap of Thursday, Friday, and today.

Thursday-
We Only had a short day, because it was Thanksgiving, and we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's house.  We were able to get the living room walls completely gutted, all except for the bee hive that was in the wall.  We were very grateful that it was November and 40 degrees so the bees were not active!  The hive was massive, but mostly dead.  Dad and I only got a small finger full of honey to sample.  We left the hive open Thursday night, hoping that the cold would kill them by Friday morning. 

Friday-
The first thing we did was check the hive to see if the bees were dead.  They were very much alive.  Here is a video of Mitchell and Dad taking care of those "dangerous" bees:

After the bee problem was taken care of, we were able to get back to work taking out walls.  I must note here that this is not as simple as just tearing out drywall, there is a layer of plaster, a layer of cement (infused with horse hair), then hundreds of small one inch boards that make up each wall.  We have to remove the cement and plaster, then pry each of the boards from the studs.  It is very hard work!  You can see the process here:

Saturday-
We spent most of the day on the breakfast nook, powder room, and kitchen.  We were able to save the top cabinets, which I would like to try to reuse.  We happened to find some great treasures when we removed the cabinets.  I am really excited about our find!

I now have an empty slate to work with!  It is so exciting.  We even removed the stairs that were going into the kitchen.  The kitchen is going to be awesome when we are done. 

We definitely would not have gotten nearly as much done as we did without dad's help.  We are so blessed to have such great family that is willing to help such crazy people!