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!