The attic is one of the last two dirty places IN the house. Knowing we would be back, I never properly cleaned up the attic after removing the chimney. There were bricks, shingles, and lots of sand and dirt from the chimney.
The boards in the attic floor were a mismatched collection of every random board the previous, previous owners could find. Some of the boards were part of an old fence, several boards were parts of old furniture, one was part of an old garage door, and lots of boards were old siding.
In some sections, they had the boards close together and nailed.
In other sections, not so much. There was also this hole were the chimney used to be.
Walt Kowalski brought the sawzall expecting to have to cut each board for removal. Instead, most of the boards were so loose they only required a few taps with a hammer to be removed.
We used 3/4 inch plywood for the new attic floor. It's solid and has very little sag when you walk on it.
However, 3/4 inch plywood is heavy. About 75 pounds per 4 foot by 8 foot sheet. Now for a tall person like Walt Kowalski, the stretch to get your arms around a sheet to carry a 4 foot section isn't too bad. But for a short person like me, it is a little more difficult.
The first set of stairs wasn't too bad. The second flight of stairs, the boards got a little heavier. Multiply by 8 boards.
Finally, add the last flight of steep steps up to the attic...well now I've got monkey arms.
I don't know what it looks like, but I can tell you my arms feel something like this:
We utilize the porch roof on a regular basis. The old boards from the attic first made a stop on the porch roof, then they were dropped onto the front yard, before being loaded into the truck. (It saved a step of carrying them down two flights of steps. We had a full truck load of wood and started a nice bonfire when we got home, but cold, wind, tired monkey arms and muddy head, elbows and knees forced us inside for the evening. There will be lots of opportunities for bonfires in the coming weeks.
What was that about muddy elbows and knees? It is a simple math equation, really.
1 empty beer to quench a thirst
+
2 full arms of boards
+
3 slippery steps up the hill
=
6 muddy body parts and 1 laughing Walt Kowalski
After I went head first down into the mud, he said 'I wouldn't go up the hill that way. I slipped the first time.'
I asked him why he didn't fall when he went that way. He said 'I have big feet. They had more time to tell my brain the ground was slippy. Your little feet moved too fast. Your brain didn't have time to figure it out.'
I said, 'I don't know if my brain figured it out or not, but my aching body certainly did.'
We laughed about it. Falling down is funny. Ok maybe more laughing on his part at the time than mine. I can laugh about it now.
I made him unload the rest of the boards.
