You know it! This house I've been calling home for 4 years now was built in 1957! Ranch style house with plaster walls and shingles over tongue and groove roofing ! So much more durable with the tongue and groove as apposed to 4x8 3/4 plywood that likes to blow off in 90 mph winds!
And with the plaster walls I feel 100% safe from anything Mother Nature wants to conjure up! I just hope the 4 storied 2x4 framed condos, they built down the road, never end up showering my house with 100 mph pine projectiles!
On the downside I can't even put a small nail in my walls to hang a picture! I have to drill a pinhole and slide the nail in! We too busted out a wall and exposed our kitchen to the living room! Being the cabinetman/carpentor I managed to trim everything out without resorting to drywall which I would rather not have delt with anyway!
Here's where we stand today! You see I still have to finish the plint blocks and complete my antiquing of the faux beam covers! I made my own gluelam beam then made that beam cap you see there! the cieling in the original kitchen was 4 inches lower and smooth finished. See the textured cieling and then there's the smooth in the kitchen. We are going to install those decorative antigued brass panels to the kitchen cieling. The two walls I took out were where the beams are now! Lathe/wire mesh/stucco demo nightmare!
Below is the original kitchen looking in the doorway that is not there now. The doorway was under the beam to the left in the above pic!
See the drop in stove and the pantry oven? In the old pic?! I moved them to another wall completely. Made this with them: