And the walls came down

 Starting to see the colours change, on this hot and sunny September weekend.  At 26 degrees it's hard to believe this is the first day of fall.

 All that earth from the landscaping had to be put somewhere!  

 Salvaging the wall boards.

Some things can't be salvaged... and that's when we're happy to have a chainsaw...

...and a sledgehammer!

 First wall down!

The third wall was tenacious...

...Chris huffed and puffed but couldn't pull that wall down.

Success! 

 Carrie dismantling the final wall.

This is the salvaged wood that needs to be denailed.

Once denailed it gets piled neatly inside to keep dry for the winter.

This is what happens to the non-salvageable wood.  Burn baby burn!

 

 A nice swim to end the day.

 The next day Mike came by to help us demolish the floor.  First he tried the sledge...

...but eventually opted for the reciprocating saw.

 Finally getting a look at the foundation.  Looks pretty good!  And fairly dry considering the amount of rain we've had. Maybe the landscaping is working!

Chris preferred the chainsaw...

 ...and brute strength!  (And he wonders why his back is always sore.)

A timelapse of our progress over the weekend.  What a change!

Sledgehammer

I like to think I can hold my own on a construction site, but these will demonstrate a major difference between Chris and I when it comes to demolition:

 

Trench Aftermath

Since the landscaping was completed we had a torrential rainfall - a good test of the new trench. 

The newly sloped land was all dry, and the water in the trench was flowing nicely.

 

The new trench joined up to the old one, and leads the water far away from the house.

As we get closer to the lake it makes its way through this filtration bed.

The heavy rains made a huge difference to the water level.  The dry summer had caused the water level to drop, but in one week it was back up to its highest point since the spring.

We have a couple of apple trees.  Unfortunately the deer ate most of the low-hanging fruit.

There was some collateral damage from the digger driving back and forth through this area, so Chris had to cut off this broken branch.

Rafters and Trench

The don't call it Labour Day for nothin'... this was a busy long weekend at the cottage.  

Taking down the rest of the roof with a chainsaw.

 Practicing for the zombie apocalypse.

What a mess.

 Removing nails from the salvaged wood, and stacking it inside to keep it dry.

 Last one!  A strong breeze will take the walls down for us.

The deck was pretty unsafe, so we started to dismantle it.

 Everyone is working their butts off today.  Here's Mum mowing the lawn.

 The next day the digger arrived to relandscape the yard to slope away from the foundation, leading any surface water into a trench.

 

 He had to take down a few trees so I'm cutting them up for firewood.

The finished backyard with a nice slope AWAY from the house.  Should help keep the foundation dry.

 The trench slopes away into the woods.  You'll also notice that we've started removing the wall sheathing.

Digger parked for the night.  He'll be back tomorrow to finish the job.