The Wall

Yummy gets into these demolition and remodeling fits. Walls she wants gone, rooms she wants painted, and exterior doors she wants shifted a foot to the right. But even the stuff I can get behind require money. One project requires this fairly cheap little doodad to finish. Alas, I need 120 doodads to start with. Probably more.

The issue here is money. My job is moving in the not too distant future (currently expected in September) and I'll have to get a car. But I don't want to make payments on the car. I wanna hand the guy a briefcase full of cash and forget about it. Until that time I'm in hoarding mode. Any work that gets done must be cheap.

So you'll understand that I had to distract Yummy from her most recent fit of destruction. Instead of remodeling the kitchen by installing new outlets, new washer and drier connections, and removing a wall I pointed her at the wall along the stairs.

After having my bathroom replaced a few years back there was a new flaw in the brick wall outside the bathroom. The options were to fill it in with concrete, plaster it, and paint it OR to remove everything else to expose the brick. So, obviously, the answer was C) ignore it for as long as possible.

Trying to avoid killing the girlfriend, I got her set up with gear: safety goggles, dust mask, pry bar, and hammer.

Then I went to finish watching "Conan the Barbarian". Once the movie was over an hour later I saw this mess at the bottom of the stairs.

Looking up the stairs I found this.

I cleared some debris and got out of her way again. After two hours of chiseling and two hours of cleaning up debris the staircase had changed.

Before

After

As we were cleaning, Yummy asked me why there were tufts of hair in the wall.(click to enlarge)
The hairs are horse hairs. They used to be mixed in with the concrete to reinforce it. Like rebar does in larger structures or straw (hay) used to in bricks.

We still need to clean the brick and seal it. Also, removed the carpet from the rest of the stairs so I can remove the paint and try to make it look appealing.