We finally got around to tearing down some of the old framing inside of the hangar this week.

Before we dive into that-which-makes-my-arms-into-gelatin, I’ve got to send a big shout out of a thanks for your advice on this post about figuring out a business direction with a splash of public speaking for storykeeping. I can see it now. You sighing. Hands casually on hips. “Now Katie,” you say. “Turn to your journal; you’ll figure it out there.” So I did. You were right. And here’s the deal – becoming an awesome (or at least much better!) public speaker is on my list for down the road. You know… when we don’t have stuff like this going on:

No. That’s not framing going up. It’s wood coming down.

We’re tearing everything down in our future hangar loft home for a couple of reasons:

1. The present framing doesn’t go to the ceiling of the hangar. It sort of flat-lined at the traditional eight foot tall ceiling – which looked pretty funny when you’re looking up there from inside of the hangar. Why not have an awesome arched ceiling inside the loft?

You remember this cluttered shot from back when we started:

2. Worst of all – the present framing was not designed to block fumes, temperature differences, or noise from the hangar. The hangar is a working environment. Who wants to be trying to take a nap in the dead of winter and wake up to the sound of a drill press as the heat from your home leaks into a moderately heated hangar? Not me.

This was demolition day if you recall:

3. The present framing cannot work with window plans we made. Framing is a fine art of structural support systems. You can’t just cut in and plop a window in there.

You might remember our window plan that we marked with black spray paint. The windows are taking advantage of the structural shape of the hangar:

So the big question of the day…

Where does that leave us now?

It leaves us with tired and gelatin-arms, quite ready to start installing windows. YEAH!

Can you see our pile of wood ready to be reused? Look to the right of the ACF-50 sign. Fabulous, no?

This is why I’m gelatin-arm-Katie. Each of those pieces of lumber was jam-packed with 4 inch long nails. Martin and I pulled them all out with a hammer, crowbar, and pair of old pliers.

(To give you a little perspective, this pile of nails could completely fill a plastic grocery bag if it didn’t weigh a million pounds.)

We still have the future bedroom to tear down one of these days.

It’s not such an intense priority since the window has already been cut out in there. It’s also not as important as the project we’ve got going on outside.

Here’s a hint: it involves a backhoe and a scramble to beat the first snowfall which could come any day.