Urban Renovation - April 10, 2007

I am including the following link to my Flickr account that has pictures of today's demolition results.

The skeleton of the building reveals the dramatic difference in the house built for the rich and middle class, from the house built for the servant class, which is the kind of house I have. It is all in the details. It is in the way wall-meets-wall, and wall-meets-ceiling. It is in the care with which the bricks were laid and the quality of the lumber and flooring. Its in the quality of the beams and studs. The quality of the joists. The difference is dramatic. The walls are separating and crumbling. Some of the wood has deteriorated from termites, long gone, but still influential. This one hundred year old, little ten-foot wide gem, has some problems. All of which were neatly concealed beneath the drywall.

I am thinking that my one and only real estate adventure could be a catastrophe. But, then again, with Trudy and Paul, it could be totally solvable. Probably it will be somewhere in the middle. Paul said tonight, "We can build it to last for twenty years. Would that be enough?" Hmm. That might be a little short for my lifetime. Or, it could be just right. Who knows!

Let's see what tomorrow reveals.