Up against a brick wall

I've been meaning to post some pics of the crazy weekend we had tearing down a plaster wall in our house to expose the brick underneath, but I'm not quite sure we knew what we were getting into and it's been a busy (and very messy) few days! I haven't had my computer on since last Friday, and for me, that's craziness!

Things were going really well and we were enjoying our family camp-outs in the basement trying to avoid (unsuccessfully) some of the dust while I cleaned up the house, when yesterday I got talking to a neighbour who dropped the words 'asbestos', 'plaster', 'your house' and 'likely' in the same sentence. For those who don't piece together my cryptic messages immediately, he said that when our house was built 100 years ago or so, the builders mixed asbestos in with the plaster and horsehair (which there is a ton of, by the way) to apparently help make it stronger. I was out with the baby in the stroller when this guy told me this. NOT something you tell a mother with a young child! Needless to say I was on my phone within seconds to Cam totally freaking out saying something like this: we've been poisoning the baby (and ourselves) and I've been cleaning all wrong, basically just spreading asbestos around the house, and I'm really sorry for dragging you into this stupid project and I'm the worst wife and mother for shortening everyone's life and what are we going to do? 

Not my finest moment!

We'll never know for sure if there is/was asbestos in the house, but let me tell you, I've been cleaning as though there was/is! I don't think our house has ever been this clean. EVERY surface of EVERY inch of it has been cleaned. It's all I've done since Sunday. It's been a total bummer, but, I'm happy to say that now, I'm typing this in my clean house staring at my new brick wall. As soon as I have a second I'll post the before, during and after photos! What a mess it was!

If any of you are considering a similar project, be warned that it's super labour-intensive and insanely messy, but so, so worth it.