Sometimes you just have to laugh

Yesterday The Wandering Monk came by to pry some lengths of 2×4 off the exterior walls of Ye Olde Wreck. They are among the last traces of the monstrous not-a-garage. I’ve never had any idea of their purpose. They had zero structural function. They were as far from decorative as could possibly be. The only use I could imagine for them was for hanging tools, but there was no sign they’d ever borne hooks or any other hanging devices.

They were just … 2x4s. Extremely long ones. Nailed high up on the walls.

It baffled me that I’d been unable to make headway prying them off myself. But since they were large and potentially dangerous if they crashed down from overhead, I figured I’d leave them to a pro.

Here’s the reason they were so hard to get down:

The nails on the left — some of them nearly 5″ long — were holding up those useless trim strips. Dozens of the things, pairs every couple of feet. This is only a sampling.

For contrast I give you nails of the size the geniuses who built my house used for crucial structual functions. On the right are 6d and 8d nails like those they used to attach both the enclosed porch and the entire back wing to the original one-room house. These are not the actual nails, which were all rusted and bent from the stresses of the house pulling apart around them. They’re just nails I keep on hand for light duty applications — like nailing up trim.

I don’t know when the cancerous not-a-garage was built. It was clearly a boozy afterthought. But the useless 2x4s the monk removed yesterday were true dimensional lumber, from back in the day when 2×4 really meant 2×4. That puts them solidly in the time when the original builder was still living there.

Somebody really had some amazingly whacky priorities.

Anyhow, now that the 2x4s are gone, the only remaining trace of the not-a-garage is 1/4″ fiberboard that covers the original tongue-and-groove siding. And those my prybar and I are more than capable of doing away with.