Demolish Gently Please

When I was 5 years old my family moved into an old detached house in Loosdrecht on the Nootweg, apparently it was build in approximately 1910.

However we only occupied half of it, which made for an awkward partition as the house was never designed for such an arrangement.

As a result the front door belonged to our neighbors and part of my bedroom was above their entrance..., similarly our cellar was underneath their kitchen and more!

Despite that we enjoyed living there, the long garden behind the house certainly was part of the fun.

Over the years we had lots of renovations, repairs and changes, most of these done by our dad with some assistance until a few years ago when he was getting seriously old.

Our mum was always changing the interior, I usually (not voluntarily) ended up helping her with wallpapering.

The last couple of years were tough for both my parents as well as the house...

Mum died last year and last month I came back for a visit, just in time to assist moving Dad to a very nice old folks home.

Two years ago my brother - he's a professional 'all-rounder' - took over the house and he was very eager to start renovating it.

However as long as my parents were living there he couldn't do much.

Once Dad was settled in his new place, he could finally start working on the living room and me being stuck there helping him as much as I could.

Removing all the furniture, lamps, whatever decorations, etc. was relatively easy, but once we started investigating the walls it became 'interesting'.

Luckily for me I could use these special gloves as my hands were never really exposed to labor such as this ;-)