Things are going to get worse before they get better! But in reality, it's all progress to me. The first thing to come down was the Wayne Street side wall between the main house and the carriage house. This was necessary to get equipment into the build site. It was very unstable so it was to be rebuilt anyway. This picture is from inside the property. There was a gate in the opening on the right side of the picture and the wall was very weak so it was starting to topple.
In this view, you see the Wayne Street wall coming down.... and then down. And we had to lose the pretty little trees. But this will be where our single-car garage will go so they had to go. In future posts you'll see the outside steps of the carriage house taken out. More on the why later too.
Other brick work that came down included the stairs from the side porch to the courtyard which will be replaced with a spiral staircase and the walls separating the public courtyard from the private section. Again, they were not sound.
The side porches were deemed to be unsafe so they are getting a complete re-haul. It was fascinating to watch them work on this. Kind of scary too. I know some people won't like that we're taking down the cast (yes, cast) iron railings and pillars but we wanted to take the home back to its beginnings which means wood. If you are walking around Savannah, you can see other homes built by master builder George H. Ash, the master builder of this home. They all have wood posts, railings and spindles. Actually, the home to the left of us on Abercorn is an Ash home and there are also several on the 200 block of East Taylor Street. The cast iron railings and decorations you see in the pictures were not added until the early 1950's. As a side note, we did give some of the iron away to people who came by and asked for it. We were away for a few days and when we got back into town, it looked like the house was being held up by toothpicks. And it only got worse as time went by!
Every step of the way the levels are being re-enforced with re bar what looks to be every 18 inches tying the new porch to the main-frame of the house. And watching these posts being built as they went higher and higher was quite interesting.
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