We live in a 107 year old row house in downtown DC. The building next to us, was pretty awful (seriously terrible).  The owner of the building next door sold it, it’s now being demolished and will be rebuilt as 4 luxury condos. I guess that’s good right? I worry the century-old charm might be lost. Will this new building fit in? It’s a gamble, but really, the old building was horrible. Did I mention that? Really. Horrible. So I’m betting the new building will be better.

Our 107 year old home

The demolition is adding loads of excitement for the kids. They get to watch a building fall down everyday. Unfortunately, the kids slept through the most exciting development. As the building was being taken down “brick by brick” (the foreman of the construction site keeps using this term…judging by the demolition, I doubt he knows what “brick by brick” means) part of it collapsed. It was thrilling– we had the fire department, police and the structural engineers from the District here.

We had firefighters walk through our house to check the structural integrity of our house after the collapse. In a brutal irony, my firefighter-obsessed children napped right through it. Firefighters in their home, 6 firetrucks parked on their street, 3 police cars and loads of city officials. They missed it all. By the time they woke up all was back to normal. The demolition was even back to normal taking down the building next door — “brick by brick!”

Before and after! (With the red spray-painted bird feeder in full view in the “before” picture!)

Fire fighters inspect our neighbor’s yard after the partial collapse (visible on the left side of the picture)

The demolition in progress.