Finds of the Weekend

The weekend was full of many interesting finds.  The guys that helped remove the trim last week came across the following card.

It still amazes me how much light comes into the building through the skylights.  Every time I come in from the back door and head down the hallway, I think I left a light on.

This looked much better in person, but it was really cool the way the sun was hitting the studs along the wall.

Original, untouched brick on the north wall of the attic.  

One of the additional projects that has been added to my list is to remove the final piece of lathe from the base of the wall. The wall studs are going into the horizontal wood floor stud (Dale tells me it's called a plate).  In front of that is the final piece of lathe that needs to be removed.  As you can see, this piece is split.  There's about a one-inch gap between the floor stud and the hardwood flooring.  That allows enough room for the lathe and a layer of plaster.  Pictured are three of the five tools I have found useful for removal.

Along the left side is where I worked so hard to get the lathe cleaned out.  This requires one to sit indian style on the floor, which is a little more difficult than it was when I was a kid.  Check out the white wall.  That is styrofoam that was placed along the wall for added insulation at some point in the past.

And this would be a closeup of that styrofoam.  They used scotch tape to hold it together!!  And a little piece of duct tape.

That was the easiest time I've had so far of exposing the brick!!

Had to work a little harder in the closet to expose the brick, but we're getting that much closer!

The frame leaning against the wall came out of the door opening.

If you were to walk through that opening, the front stairs

would be to your right.  We're going to leave the frame out to make

one long continuous hallway.

We had heard that the Buck brothers owned middle two buildings and this confirmed it!

Today's job was pulling all the nails that I couldn't reach from the ground.  That obviously required a ladder and provided new angles to the building I had never seen before.  This was taken from atop the ladder in the hallway,  looking through one of the big windows into the back apartment of Deanne's building.  In case you forgot which is Deanne's building, it's the one next to Delano Floral owned by Deanne Shouts.  So we have Deanne's building, the Middle building and the Alley building.

Here I am on the same ladder, just a different viewpoint...  looking straight down.  This is also where I almost fell off the ladder because I had both hands on the hammer trying to pry loose a nail.  All the sudden it let go, I jolted and started to lose my balance so I dropped the hammer and grabbed a stud and managed not to fall.  I was a little more careful after that.

In the room next to the styrofoam wall, they used cardboard along the bottom of the wall behind the base.  Again, I'm assuming for added insulation.  When the cardboard was dropped down to the floor, there were posters!  They're in pretty rough shape, but it was still fun to find them.

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara.  January 7, 1940.  75 Years ago!

Some famous skater from the '40s.  If anyone knows who this is, let me know!

It's very tempting to put this back behind a wall for someone to find another 100 years from now!

Trim removed from the window and baseboard in the big hallway (9' wide hallway).  Soon this will be nothing more that studs with more nails to be removed!

This picture was taking as a snapshot in time so we can use it as a before picture.  The 9' hallway is in front of you and there are two bedrooms beyond the wall and then the back door to the deck.  Those rooms will be removed and this will be a main hallway to the back of the building.  Can't wait to see that!

Another pile of trim.  It's starting to really scare me the amount of trim they're pulling off.  That means all of it will have to be cleaned and varnished before being reinstalled.  Where will we find the time?!?!?!?

Dale spent the weekend foaming and putting stops in along the windows.  To make life easier, he set up a workbench on the scaffolding to eliminate going up and down the ladder every time he needed to cut something. 

He's pretty talented to work off of the skinny little plank!

He's got it all!  Even a place for the Coke!

Nailing down plans for the New Year

The year is starting off a few days (12/27) early with an old "acquaintance" turned "very dear friend", Jean Kunz helping to remove nails... and lots of them!

See the nails in the studs? They are on EVERY stud including up on the ceiling and EVERY one of them must be removed.    This is tedious, boring work... my least favorite of all the jobs so far.  Not to mention the fact that we don't have heat on the second floor, which hasn't been bad except for no matter what, my feet get cold.  We know it hasn't dropped below freezing up there because the bottle of Cherry PowerAid that someone left behind last summer isn't frozen!!!  

In case you couldn't see the nails in the previous picture, here's a closeup.  Notice that some areas have two nails on each row.  Grrrr....   Between Jean and I, we have 10 hours of nail-pulling and still have another room to go AND the upper parts of the walls and the ceilings.  Keep in mind this is for 3 of the previous apartments. And these were the SMALL apartments.  I hate asking for help, but may need to have a nail pulling party one of these days!

Another dumpster has been delivered in preparation for the remaining gutting activities to take place over the next couple of weeks.  If any of you have driven by and are wondering why Dale built a roof on the dumpster, it is to keep people from throwing their unwanted items into it.  Never fails, we're stuck pulling the items out and taking them to Randy's.  People just don't understand that this is a construction dumpster and only construction material can be placed in there.  That Dale's a thinker and a doer!

There's that bottle of Cherry PowerAid!  Kind of our "Canary in a coal mine"!

The untrained eye may not see any progress in the picture, but I'm here to tell you that there aren't any nails on these walls (at least from where I could reach).  And it has been swept again.  Still haven't figured out why I was so obsessed with scrubbing these floors last year.  That was totally fruitless!

Dale's creating more nail-pulling work for me!

It gets a little dusty working and need to protect everyone and everything!

I need to remember to take my camera with me instead of relying on my phone.  This is a really cool light fixture that we JUST noticed!  It's a keeper!

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a plastered wall looks like?  If you have an overly analytical mind such as myself you have.  And now you know!

This is a really mind-boggling picture.  I was standing at the front door on the sidewalk looking up the stairs.   There's a light on the ceiling and the wood stairs have been covered so they don't get ruined when we start dropping lathe and plaster.

Now here's the shot from the top of the stair.  Also notice the beautiful wood railing has been covered in order to protect it from any damage.  This is a BEFORE picture.

Another BEFORE pic.

AFTER!  Boy can Dale do some damage in just a couple of hours!

And we called it a day.  

I'm not looking forward to the brutally cold weather that has arrived and will be here all week, but I am thankful that we have some wonderful friends that don't want to work outside in the cold and are willing to come work in our 32ish degree building.  Thank you STODDARD guys!!! We really appreciate your help!!

November/December Updates

Finally!  We have updates to our progress.  I can't believe it's been 2-1/2 months since the last blog posting.  We took a bit of a break, but progress is still being made!

October 25

It was amazing how much stuff fell onto the floor from all the work on the roof.  More sweeping.

Finished clean-up!

The top of the building now has a new cap along the edge and is ready for the roofers.

October 30

Let the roofing begin!

November 2nd

This is what that new capped edge looks like from the new roof!  Look at the nice clean lines of the building! So exciting!

And SIX NEW SKYLIGHTS!!!  The inside will be so bright.

Dale admiring the new skylight and all his hard work.  What you're seeing is all NATURAL light on the second floor--no lights have been turned on.  This office space is going to be gorgeous.  Just imagine new white walls, beautiful wood trim and shiny wood floors.  In just a few short months, we won't have to imagine because our dream will come true and this area will be done!

Dumpster diving!

November 9th

It's been a long time since we've seen the back of the building without a dumpster or enclosures.  All the new windows and doors have been installed on the main floor.  MAJOR accomplishment!

Luckily, Jenny (Dale's sister) was in town and was willing to lend a helping hand in moving brick from outside down to the basement.  Our dear friend, Howard Glas, was also there, but left before we could get his picture.  It was quite the operation we had going...  there was a piece of plywood on the stairs and Howard would slide one brick at a time down the plywood, I grabbed them at the bottom and placed off to the side where Jenny took over stacking them.  I couldn't believe how sore I was the next day.  This was all in preparation for our first snowstorm.  Didn't want to have to shovel around the brick!  Thank you Jenny and Howard!!!  

Jenny mentioned that she never saw any pictures of the two of us with the building.  Thank you for taking this picture!

And another one in front of the building.

November 15

Now that the new roof has been installed, we no longer need the tarps to keep the water out.  Dale  could now fold up and store the 30' x 50' tarps.  I took this picture because when I looked up and saw him doing this I thought, how lucky we are to have a big building so he could fold these up inside where it was nice instead of out in the cold.  Then it dawned on me... if we didn't have the building, we wouldn't need to be folding tarps!  Doh!

Remember this ugly wall in the Alley building?  This is BEFORE....

And AFTER!!! Building has been painted with the help from dear friend, Laurie Langner!  Keep in mind, the plan is to remove the plaster on this wall to expose the brick.  This painting was nothing more than some much needed therapy.  Would like to thank Gallus Painting for providing the paint!!!!  You have no idea how much this helped our attitudes as we move into Winter! 

The goal for the day was to paint the long wall in the previous picture.  I was getting hungry and wanted to head to Dave's for burgers and beer.  But NOOOO....  Laurie looked over her shoulder, saw the ugly openings (shown in this picture), looked in the paint bucket and said, "we should paint the other wall!!"  I suggested eating first and then coming back to tackle the rest.  But NOOOO...  "It'll only take us about 45 minutes!"  So I did what I was told, we finished this wall, and it took more than 45 minutes.  I am REALLY hungry now and ready to head out for a bite to eat, but not before Laurie placed a broom in my hands and told me to sweep up.  

It turned out beautifully thanks to Laurie, but I don't know if I can invite her back.  She's a bit controlling. :)

December 5th

Decorated windows for the Annual Old Fashioned Christmas event.

Then we took the rest of the month off from the building.  Not so that we could get recharged, but because Dale had other jobs that required his attention.

It was a great year on the building and now that demo work is back underway, we'll start seeing some amazing progress in the next few months!