But I guess they knew what they were doing, because the house next door was demolished without any damage to ours, which is impressive, considering there was only a couple of feet between them. My contractor was kind enough to send me this photo of the demolition in progress, since he happened to be there for all of the action.
And now, we have a nice, big open lot next door. On the inside, it is much brighter, with more natural sunlight filtering through the windows. There is now a much improved view of the renovated houses on the intersecting street, and they even removed the gigantic dead tree in the back yard. WIN!!!
I was thrilled to see that my contractor salvaged the original porch columns from the demolished house. I had asked him to attempt to get them, as the ones that currently hold up our porch roof are too large and boxy for the porch style, and they are definitely not original. I want to attempt to restore the porch to its original historical appearance and amazingly, considering the poor condition of the rest of the structure, the columns he took seem to be in decent shape. With a little work, I think they'll improve the exterior of our house and restore some of the historical charm.
