One of the funnest things about old houses is the lathe and plaster that usually comes with it. So in the days before the glorious invention of sheet rock we used to have lathe and plaster. See all those little pieces of wood across the wall studs? There are hundreds and hundreds of them along a wall. Nailed to the studs then covered by, you guessed it, plaster. Which is really after a hundred years of settling just gritty dust that gets everywhere once you start pulling the little pieces of wood off.
There are a couple of ways, the slash and burn way and the pick and peck way to pull down the walls. The slash and burn is great if you've had a bad day and need to work off some steam, the pick and peck doesn't raise as much dust, is a bit slower, but still pretty effective.
So pick up that sledge hammer and break all of the wood down the middle in between each of the studs. Then you can just pretty much pull the broken pieces off. And wahla you have nice clean studs, but a huge mess that has to be taken out to the trailer.
Or pick up your handy dandy prybar, slip it between each of the slats and pull them off. It really goes faster than you'd think, just keep plugging away and before you know it you will have a wall down, then it's on to the next wall... and the next wall ... and the next....
This is a picture of the little room downstairs before the front room wall was torn out. You can see the chimney and the heater vent that ran along side of it. So really one wall down many many to go at this point. Outside of the peace and quiet little room you can see the mess that pulling off three or four layers of wallpaper, and lathe and plaster can make. This is a view looking under the stairs and into the kitchen. Just wait until that's all opened up when that wall disappears. Oh ya, things are getting interesting.
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