Deja Vu - 2 months later

Started the day off fairly easy as you can see below.  Not feeling very ambitious today so grabbed a screwdriver (not the drink!) and with coffee in hand, started chipping the plaster away from the grooves in the wood.

I thought it was going to be a day of taking plaster off the wall with my very-own-brand-new respirator!  But NOOOOO, it's 40+ degrees and sunny outside and we're heading to the basement AGAIN!!!

I just looked back on an older post from October 27th, titled "More than just a Photographer".  It was 2 months ago that I was in this exact basement cleaning it up.  And now Dale made a mess again.  He's tearing down all the stuff I couldn't (or didn't feel like).  The next couple of pictures may not appear that bad to the untrained Dale-helper, but I'm here to tell you... it was HELL today!  My first clue that it would be a tough day was seeing those two sawhorses in the middle of the room.  That meant Dale wasn't done yet.

Yep... That green wall came down, those strips of wood on the ceiling (95 feet of them) all came down, too.  And as you know, I'm not the tallest girl in town, which means I get to bend over and pick everything up.  Then, up the 12 stairs, around the corner, out the door and into the dumpster I go.  Over and over and over again.

I was standing in the same place for the picture below as the one above, only I turned to my right.  The stairs would be off to the left.  In front of me is a wall of pegboard and some weird two-foot box built along the wall.  And of course, it also needs to come out!  As quick as I was able to carry garbage out, Dale was tearing into more.  In case you were wondering, pegboard is really heavy.

That would be a sump-pump in the middle of the floor with a nifty jury-rigged (and yes, that's the correct spelling.  I looked it up) hose making it's way outside.  I'm sure it'll be used this March when the floods come because it won't warm up enough for any of our snow to melt so we'll have some "moisture" in the basement.

More useless wood stripping to come down off the ceiling (and for Lynn to clean up).

 Oh look...  why use the sawhorses when you can save time and get down on the floor to cut wood into little pieces!!!!

Are those knee-pads he has on?!?!?!  Hey!!!!  Oh wait....  shhhh.....  don't say anything or I might get those for Valentine's Day! 

Now you see it... Now you don't!

The pipes on the ceiling came down!  It looks so clean!

BEFORE - look far right at pipes on ceiling and running down the wall.

AFTER - Pipes are history and in a pile on the floor!

A gift from a friend

 What a way to start off the day!  Our neighbor, Deann, of Delano Floral gave us this beautiful Poinsettia plant and gift of goodies!  We live in the BEST town EVER!  I just love everyone here!

The next picture is the space under the stairs.  What's interesting is that the left side was completely clean and the right side had a bunch of scrap material thrown in there.

Before

After Dale cleaned out the rubbish.

Found this really cool shelf under those stairs!  Yep... it's a keeper!

This picture was taken while standing at the front of the building.  The post in front is a support beam between Deanne's building  and the center building.  From this angle, you can see all three spaces.  The alley building is through the openings on the right.

Dale is know for making nice piles of trash so they're manageable once he ready to get everything into the dumpster.  I don't know what he'd do without that wheelbarrow!

Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of material is hauled out to the dumpster.  But it is not just thrown in there willy-nilly. No siree.  It's stacked up once again!!!  Only an anal German can do this!

Another bathroom gone.

Project 1 for the day completed.  Removed the plaster from the stairway wall on the Alley building.  Now onto the other side of the wall.

Now the other side of the wall is also completed.

The pegboard has been removed from the center building and now it's time to remove the plaster to expose the brick.  I did the lower parts and that's where I called it quits for the day.  Dale just arrived home and said he finished everything up to the big chimney.  I think he's referring to the big chimney on the left.  Can't wait to see it tomorrow!

getting pretty hazy in there!

Holidays.... too much going on!

It's been a MONTH since I've been able to work on The Jerome!!!!  We went there last weekend and I captured the following pictures.  While we were there and Dale was busy shoveling snow out in front, I grabbed his hammer and knocked off some plaster (it's an addiction).

So here's where we were at last week.  Dale is sitting here covered in dust and said he's made major progress.  I can't wait to get there to take more pictures.  Christmas shopping will resume on Sunday - I need a day of good, hard physical labor on Saturday!

Before - notice the wall near the "For Lease" sign where the sheet of plywood is leaning.

During - a picture of the innards. 

After - the wall is gone and now the two buildings are becoming one!

Another stairway wall that requires my attention.  More plaster coming down!

Close-up of the stairway wall with a business card that was uncovered.

1937 business card!

Carpet came off one post and now we have one more to go!

This is in the middle building looking towards the back.  See the structure on the right? It's holding up the furnace, which will hopefully be moved within the next few days.  All the pegboard on the wall to the right was removed today (or so I'm told--that's his story and he's sticking to it!).

Again... middle building.  Check out this window!  Once the furnace is moved, Dale is going to take the plywood that is fastened from the outside to let LOTS of natural light in!  I can't wait to see this!  On the floor is the air conditioner that came out of the spot above the door (that used to be a transom window).

The Unveiling

We just got back in town and Dale has had "Building Withdrawal" for the past couple of days so he headed over and took down the protective wall.  He had planned on changing out the middle section this coming weekend, but the weather forecast is showing a high of 5 degrees.

In addition, Saturday is Delano's Old Fashioned Christmas.  So bundle up and come out to enjoy the festivities!

And he wonders why he hurts!

On Friday, Dale came home and said that he was tired and couldn't figure out why.  His next sentence was, "I broke the crow bar today".  Geeze, I wonder why he hurts!!!!!

Building-front #2 was completed on Saturday with the help of our good friend, Al.  What would've taken three days for Dale to build was completed in one day.

I started removing plaster from the alley building on the stairway wall.  This is the building where we changed the first store-front.  I had to quit at noon to go home and take a nap.  Al and Dale were using the big ladder so I wasn't able to finish (not that I was even physically capable!).

My goal was to get the gold removed, but I just ran out of steam.

Trash was removed and now another pile begins.  

Remember... this is where all the ceiling tile were piled up!

This is the first wall that I removed the plaster.  The wood is finally drying out on the left side from the leaky sink upstairs.

The ceiling tile and grid have all been removed.  The ceiling looks different on the right and left sides because there is ceiling stripping on the right where the extra ceiling was fastened.  The white walls are peg-board that will hopefully be removed in the next couple of weeks.  

This picture was taken with my back against the wall of the building front we just changed.  I don't think I have this shot in previous pictures.  

The wood panels on the bottom of the windows will be removed.  They're there only to keep people from easily accessing the building through the plastic.

Amazing Progress!

I'm leaving town more often!  Major progress in 3 days!

Ok... so I'm frustrated... I can't get these pictures to move around so I'm just going to post them.  I'm back home and would rather spend time talking to my hubby than trying to figure out the blog.

Enjoy!



Another building front removed with the help from our good friends at J&J Glass!

If I had a hammer...

Spent 9 hours hammering the plaster off the stairway wall.  The good new is that instead of the lathe we were expecting, it's more of a tongue-and-groove material.  As you can see, this will now require removing the plaster from the grooves with a screwdriver.  That'll have to wait...  I'm so tired.

The left side of the picture is the stairway wall that I'm working on.  The ladders are in front of the brick wall where Dale is working.  As you can see, he has completed one section!

Halfway there!  See the darker wood on the left?  That is wet wood.  And how did it get wet?  Well, remember the kitchen I cleaned a few weeks ago?  All that water I sent down the sink ended up on this wall.  :(

You can see by the  lighting that it is night time.  We completed the entire wall except the small section behind the green ladder.  For some reason, this section was very difficult to remove.  At 6:30 p.m., we called it quits for the night.

Screwdriver work for another day!

This is in the same building as the new store-front.  Out of eight bathrooms in the building, this is now our only functioning bathroom.   Well.... you have to pour a bucket of water down the toilet to flush it.

The enclosure is ready for glass and a new door!  This may be revealed to everyone by the end of the week!

The Wall

Here's the progression of the front of the store.  I'd love to show you "after" pictures, but it's after 6 p.m. and Dale is still there.   So here's what has happened since Friday.

Some upper wood-beam thing had to come down.  Not sure why, but I think it was to make way for the new framing for the store front.

Then there's this granite front on the bottom of the store front.  I've never heard Dale get concerned about anything, but he had us clean everything up in case he had to make a run for it when it started coming down.

Instead of dropping the wall, he decided to take a maul to it.

This is what his front side looks like! :)

This is what 3"-thick granite looks like!

Here's the wall from the inside.

And now the wall is gone!