11.02.05

The death of the house is a slow withdrawal, a peeling away. With the layers of asphalt shingles and fir planks removed, heavy drifts of snow settle onto the exposed shiplap. Temperatures climb from -30 degrees celcius to +1 in a matter of days, and dark stains begin to spread across the ceiling tiles upstairs. Soon, water is dripping in a repetitive cadence on the hardwood.

We arrive a day too late – the second floor is saturated. We face the damage reluctantly, knowing that it is our doing, that the watermarks blooming on the exposed building paper and the intense smell of smoke and mildew have occurred due to our own inaction.

In penance, we spend two hours shoveling wet, sticky snow off the roof. Working on our knees, we pull out nails one by one in preparation for the removal of boards above the southwest bedroom. We will touch every nail in this house by the time the project is complete.

11.02.06

The more nails we pull the more boards loosen beneath our feet, shifting and resettling with each step. In the absence of steel fixing shiplap to joist, the floor carries a new resonance, a hollow echo underfoot.

In order for the roof structure to stay even as the boards beneath are removed, Jordy pushes out the bottom truss braces with the sledgehammer. The studs that remain vibrate gently in the wind, an illusion of stability in the projection we are still working to achieve in the room below.

11.02.07

Finally, progress. Our work the past two days pulling nail after nail has been a gradual build up to something larger with little visible change. With the southwest bedroom bare of all finishes, we begin pushing through the closet wall to the next room.

We take photographs in the dark as light from the open window in the next bedroom begins to pierce through the lath and plaster. Daylight and black out coexist for the first time in our images.


Lath removal, continued from last week.

11.02.08

In our final review last semester, we discussed the poetic potential of the sky being reacquainted with the soil beneath the house after years spent casting shadows. We began with the roof, with daylight piercing through into Bachelard’s attic. Today we draw clouds into the body of the house.

Unable to remove more than a few boards around the bedroom window, the change is slight, barely visible from the gravel road. For us, it is the first of many fissures, the abrupt awakening of a room that has been stripped of its domesticity down to studs and blowing snow. The ceiling follows, Jordy kicking it down from above while I work below, gathering broken pieces of drywall and photographing the aftermath.


First wall opening.


Daylight capturing my movement.


First view of the sky from inside the house.