plaster pile

Massey continues sleep deprivation tactics through tree-sit’s sixth day

PETTRY BOTTOM, W.Va.—Massey-hired security guards continued harassing the tree sitters with bright lights, air horns and loud bangs, all day and all night. Someone also brought out a chainsaw to the area of the tree sit. Aside from these sleep deprivation and scare tactics, the sitters are alive and well and. Still, no blasting has occurred above Pettry Bottom.
-from http://www.climategroundzero.org/
another video here

before and after

 

MORE Treasure!

I got the third of three mantel-pieces pulled away from the wall this evening and this is what I found behind it...

a photograph of a man who may have once lived here...

a photograph of the ghost who probably still lives here...

a newspaper subscription notice from 1914...

a letter from 1922...

a punched admission ticket to the 1893 world's columbian exposition in chicago...

(see the wikipedia article )

another letter from 1922...

and my favorite find of the day, Dr KC Morrison's business card advertising his natural endowment of "peculiar natural powers" that allow him to "control all kinds of unnatural physical spells with the supernatural powers of his mind and christian science"

 

lath is beautiful.

Regarding another Mountain State Disaster of slightly greater consequence - "Mountaintop removal protesters take to the trees"

This is unrelated to our house adventures but much more relevant to our lives... this happened today at the

 edge of the Edwight MTR mine down in Raleigh county.

Here's the story.
and a video.

goodbye plaster and 15 layers of lead paint and green wallpaper...

 

 

 

one room down, 3 to go.

treasure!

there are three fireplaces, this one is in the kitchen-to-be.  I pulled the mantle away from the wall and some small items dropped to the floor, over the years things have slid back behind there and I, being the first one to move this mantel in just shy of a century, had the pleasure of finding.......

a ring with a nun and a bird....

two letters dated 1939...

and a lovely assortment of knick-knacks including a fabulous bow-tie, a spool of thread, two floral still-lifes, and a well-loved portrait of the virgin mary.

the house...

so, we bought this house so that (the theory goes) we'll have a place to live here in the city while danielle finishes school. it's old.  it's ugly.  it was very cheap.  it needs everything.  and we certainly can't live in it, at least not yet.

 

this is the place!  built in 1910, purchased in 2009 for $14,500...

and the back...

 living room...

kitchen...

bathroom!

and the cellar...the house sits on a foundation of giant sandstone blocks.