What's behind Door #3?

It figures....  the Crow River is the highest it's been in 40 years and Dale's been focusing on that, but somehow managed to get a lot accomplished at the building.  He rocks!!  Thanks again to our friends at J&J Glass for installing the new back door!  And I hear the windows are coming tomorrow!  So exciting!  I headed upstairs to begin prepping for the demo work that is about to begin.  I know Delano doesn't need anymore water, but if I can be a little selfish, I would like a rain-day (or two), so we can pull in some of our friends that work outside.  Instead of heading home with nothing to do, they could come to the building and give us (me) a hand at the demo work! :)

So now I'll try to describe with the pictures what we've been up to lately (with more commentary half-way through).

New back door next to Delano Floral and it has a transom window just like when it was built.

Windows had to be boarded up, but rumor has it, they'll be installed on Monday, 6/30!

Here's a shot from the inside.  We are SO EXCITED to see what it looks like with windows!!!

You can actually see from the back door all the way through to the front door!  I wonder how many years it's been since that could be done?  Maybe never, since those used to be solid wood doors on the back!  Our favorite part is seeing all the finger and nose prints on the windows!

The pieces of plywood are up on the structure.

The structure is complete as of this morning (6/29)!  Dale is getting smarter and it may be the last structure he has to build (YAY)!  He was able to cover the Alley building plus one window on the middle building.  As you can see in the picture, there is one back door and a big window.  If all goes as planned, he'll be able to take out the door and window and have J&J Glass install the same day.  So cool!

Back of the building 6/29/14.  We also secured the upstairs deck because with all the demo that will be going on, we don't want anyone wondering in and getting hurt.

So what's behind Door #3 you might ask???  I'll show you since it will be awhile before this structure is removed.

We have a lovely, private, courtyard.

This will be Dale's workshop for quite awhile.  I don't know how long, but it'll be awhile.  I like that I watch over him from the deck to make sure he's not slacking!

Every wonder why Dale is so trim?  All he does is move sheets of plywood around all day.  Anyway... to explain what needs to happen here....   Each building has a door and two large windows.  At one point the alley building had the door boarded up and a large metal door was installed where there was once a window.  This was an exciting day for us because we've never had the back of this building opened up.  We can't get the metal door open, but Dale tells me that he can remove it.  mmmm.  

This is the back door that was boarded up on both sides.  It's an original door.  So cool.  We're going to have to find a home for it somewhere in the building, but I haven't run that idea by Dale yet.

Again, I actually do more than just take pictures and blog, but not much more.  This weekend I was to spend time upstairs labeling the wood trim so that we we pull it off before starting the demo work, we'll know how everything goes back together.  I don't think I've ever procrastinated so much in my entire life!!!  How hard can it be to put blue painter's tape on the wood and number it?

Well, we talked and determined that I should clean all the wood trim before doing that so that it's clean when we put it back up.  So now my one-day project is turning into a multi-day project.  And that means a lot of time spent on the floor scrubbing baseboards. So... I procrastinated a little more... I can tell you that it is 147 steps from the apartment I started in down to the main floor bathroom for water.  Finally, I started working on a door and the trim.  I had the green scotch pad and my spray bottle of water and Dawn dish soap.  The grim I was pulling off about did me in.  Ugh...  this hasn't been touched in FOR-EV-OR!

Okay... done with that project for the day.  Need to figure out a new strategy.  I better go home and take a nap so I can think more clearly.

I'm rested now and ready to shift gears.  Head back to the building and I'm going to mark the trim with blue tape.  I don't care that it's not clean.  What's the priority?  It's to make sure everything is marked in case it rains and we have a bunch of guys here to help.  I started on the back apartment/office on the alley building since it was the sunniest.  I needed all the help I could get.

So cruising along, but never realized how many pieces of trim it takes to finish off a room!  Over thirty pieces of tape later... and I realize I just numbered everything with the wrong suite number. :(  I thought I would start at the beginning (#210) and then decided to start on our office, which was not #210.  Not my day.

So I head back home to regroup.  I am not into this today.  Back to the building because I WILL get through this!  So I had tagged our office 210 and started on the next one labeling it 211 when I caught the error.  Each building has 6 offices so if 210 is in the front then obviously our office in the back would be 216.  Easy enough to turn a zero into a six (30+ times).  I was getting ready to change the numbers in 211 when I decided I better check the plan.  Not my day.  If you have 6 offices and it starts with 210, that means it only goes up to 215!!!!!  So, they're still numbered wrong.  I don't care.  Those will remain number 216 and we'll see if anyone can figure it out when we put the building back together.  Time to head to Dave's Town Club.  That was my Saturday.

Sunday, I headed to the store to get the biggest, fattest Sharpie I could get my hands on!  I am writing on the walls so I know where the heck I am!  Dawned on me later that I could've bought spray paint - how fun would that be?!?!?

I tagged every room with the number and the direction of the wall so I'll know exactly where the trim belongs.  The thing I forgot to mention is that I really haven't been up there much since last fall.  I had shorts on today, and was walking through so many spider webs.  My skin was just crawling.  There's one room (#222), I just couldn't bring myself to go into.  Just not my weekend.

See what I mean?  Spray paint would've been so much more fun!  I may go back and tag all the walls.... because I can!!!!

I really need to complain to someone about these working conditions!  P.S.  If any of you have one of our plans, you'll know exactly where this picture was taken.  Maybe I should try to figure out how to upload a plan...  another day.

So this is #215, which is labeled #216.  Do you see all the blue tape?  Not a fun job and one I thought would take a half day!!  Honestly....  I'll be lucky to have everything tagged in 2 DAYS!!!!  That would be solid days and not procrastinating days.

And then I see what our friends at Google do to pictures when they upload them from my phone.
I LOVE THIS PLACE!!!!

Two new doors on the front and new sidewalks.  The street will be finished this week.  We're finally getting there!

P.S.  I heard that back in the 70's, the top of the building was painted to look like a circus bigtop.  Well they accomplished that!