Scary scary basement pictures

I know it's a bit early for Halloween, but...
Here's what's been going on in our basement. Our crazy old furnace, named Hercules, has finally been liberated from the space that he has resided in for god knows how long. Hercules (so aptly named) was the octopus-armed beast that lived in our basement (think, the furnace the Freddy Kruger lives in, or...better yet, for 'Burbs fans, totally a 'Burbs furnace).
Closely related to Hercules was the oil tank, which nursed our furnace beast. Well, since we're switching to a natural gas furnace (the existing system was too old, asbestos covered and scary), we had to get those things out! Here's a picture of the furnace's head, or hat, sitting in our back yard.

The tragedy was, that several of the contractors we'd talked to about getting in our new furnace and toxin-free duct work, wanted a fortune to get these antiques out! Those who would do it (and not all of them offered) wanted in the ball park of $1,000 for the removal. Ouch. Because Ben and I foolishly believe that nothing is impossible, we figured we'd take these out ourselves. That would have been so awful, I don't want to even think about it.  Lucky for us, Kim (who's been saving us constantly during this process), knew a guy who knew a guy, and boom! We are free of the tank and furnace--FREE--they just wanted the scrap metal. Mysterious, metal gathering angels.

Above, notice the tank cut in half in order to get it up the stairs.

This is the delicious-looking interior or the drained and split oil tank.

And here is the place where the once-mighty Hercules stood (with attractive basement crawlspace in the background).

And now, let's check in upstairs!

So, the upstairs bathroom-to-be has been enjoying a good demolishing as of late. On the days where it hasn't been too hot or we haven't been to crazy busy, we've been working at clearing the room.

All that broken plaster on the drop cloth is a heavy, dusty mess! It's all the worse in such a small room, because you just don't have space to move--it's constant clean up. 

Our chore for after work tonight is to remove the remainder of the molding (door and window--we got all the baseboards out, pretty much). Then we start demo of the entry walls. (I swear, this never ends!)

Isn't the old wiring terrifying? Aren't the fixtures illuminating? Can't wait until this is a bathroom. Ben and I bought a bathtub on Tuesday, it's living in the back yard for now. Pictures of that to follow!