One last look at the house before all hell breaks loose.

First exposure reveals a bit of water damage, but also a surprise.

Looks like shadows from small corbels at the roof line, then fishscale, then square shingles, then what looks like a gap from the original porch roof, then "normal" clapboards. Looks like the old girl has some "foof" in her after all!

More interesting than I guessed it would be, that's for sure. Let's see where this goes around the other side...

How fun. Still can't picture the house all "foofed" up, but this is fun watching it being unwrapped!

Come on already, let's see the turret!

Looking good so far!

What a haul!

I wonder what the neighbors are thinking?

They clean up each time the ground 'disappears'

Okay, we've seen the patterned shingles wrap the entire house. It's a good thing.

Looking very Frankenstein-ish as a work in progress. Perhaps tomorrow we'll see the windows?!

That horrible gap on the first wall was not an original porch roof line at all...it was once a fancy "moulding" like this (thank you whoever thought to save me one little piece of this detail!!). Wonder how much this is gonna cost to replace? :-0

Oh, I really hope this plywood "goes" tomorrow!

But alas, the turret will have to wait until Monday. With rains coming, all the siding is the priority (that, and covering the "holes" that have been uncovered).

Even the contractors couldn't resist a sneak peek at the turret. Check out the cool transition around the curve!

Looking up the turret, you can just see the trim for the two 6' windows that are just waiting to be revealed.

Just a reminder that there is still plenty of repair work in our future.

Today the front of the house will be revealed, and all the rest of the siding will be removed.

Don't think there wasn't somebody holding the other end of this ladder steady!

Wow, this gets more fun by the minute. I just looked up an old architecture book and found this exact pattern.

Check out yet another unusual "decoration" between the two windows!

So, the turret is apparently highlighted on both sides with these curved boards "filled" with the staggered shingles. We'll have to wait until Monday to see the entire thing revealed.

This picture looking up the turret doesn't really show anything new, but I thought it was a cool shot, so I'm sharing. ;-)

So here's how the house looks so far, with most of the siding now down.

So, when the siding was pulled from the "undersides" of the existing porch, it reveals a portion of the original porch (beadboard and all, was hidden by the drop ceiling used to hang the new light fixture. Incredible what they did to this poor old house!

Here's a look at the details still left of the hidden porch ceiling.

Perhaps remnants of the original house numbers? Nice moulding, though, was hiding under that hideous aluminum siding!

Goodness only knows what will be revealed on Monday when the turret is fully revealed and the porch is demolished. We're expecting heavy rains before then, so you'll notice the "holes" around the house have been covered with flashing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it works!

One last look at the turret windows "in the dark."

Well, we knew we had them, but now you can see them from the outside!

This plywood box around the turret brought out all the power tools and then some to break free.

But check out how the pattern goes around the entire house!

After 50+ years in hiding!

And a nice bright staircase inside.

Mostly just repairs needed to replace what they tore off to put on the siding.

The old porch. Let's start with this awful wrought iron railing.

What a difference with just the railings gone!

And man, did they come "apart" easily.

Once the brick wall was pried off, there was a "retaining wall" behind it, and then...

Lots and lots and lots of dirt.

We won't be using the front door for a while...

Supposedly within a week the new porch footings will be poured and this will start looking like a restoration and not a demolition!

Notice my new mailbox? In the foreground; Al made a shepherds hook out of some rebar from the porch and created a box to mount the mailbox temporarily.

...and what a day it was!

Trailer full of porch: the old cement porch was difficult to tear down...look at the tiny chunks it was reduced to after all the pounding.

First job was smashing off the rest of the cement porch. Next the dirt must go!

They filled this trailer twice today, and there's still more left!

With some remnants of the retaining wall.

The changes will be more subtle for the next few days, so I'm starting a daily "day's end" photo to track the project.

Well, all I have is "after" shots of the work done today. They hauled off more dirt, and dug the holes for the new porch footings! (Notice all the unusual "debris" covering the holes.)

There are six porch holes "hidden" in this picture. And no, the hosta is not covering one of them!

A front yard of rubble!

Today's excavation revealed one old pepsi bottle, one old beer can, and one not-so-old Christmas decoration (I think it blew off the garland last year). We're still looking for the bags of money.

Same house, smaller pile of rubble.

Well, that's it for the demolition.
Click here for Chapter 3: The Remodeling.