Day 2

It was a busy Day 2 at painting with Jean Kunz!

Jean Kunz doing a might fine job of painting!

I wonder if that smile says, "sure... I'm having loads of fun. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!"

Laundry hanging from a building a half block away from where I stood atop the scaffolding.

Jean never got off the ground! But she made friends with EVERYONE that walked by!

Two store-fronts painted and new windows up above!

Just need to paint the alley building now.

The Jerome is becoming a little more polished.

Can't wait to see The Jerome with the decorative metal on top of the building again.

One window short.  Only because we decided to use that window above the doorway at the left of the building (not pictured).

All the white still needs to be painted.  Waiting for Jean to finish pondering the color!

Still making progress!

The last couple of weeks has been a lot of fun at The Jerome because we really feel like we're making headway!

There are only four windows left to remove on the alley side of the building.  Dale needed a little break so he continued removing plaster from brick.  Now you can see all the exposed brick along the alley-side of the building.

Dale can't wait to rip out that wall with the lathe on it!

Another time consuming task is recycling what we can out of the building.  The aluminum pile came from all the screens that were on the second-floor windows.  The wood pile behind the aluminum will be new window frames upstairs.

Since Dale was bored with windows, he decided to take on the back roof over the deck since it too was leaking.  Notice that the far right side of the building still has shingles on it since we don't own that section.  All the shingles were removed and Dale is working on patching in the bad areas of the roof.

Geeze.... I hope he's careful up there!!!!!

Our friend, Al Utsch, came by to lend a hand.  See all the cracks where the wood joins together?  This is the BEFORE pic.

And this is the AFTER picture.  All the cracks have been filled in with caulk!  Now if only my nail filling looked as nice.  I have found that I SUCK at filling nail holes.  I'd like to say it's the material I used, but I have a feeling that isn't the case.  Haven't decided how to address this issue.  

With the help of Jean Kunz, we managed to get a start on painting.  The lower left is now painted.  That same green color will go all the way up to the metal beams above the first-floor windows.  Only the wood will be painted.  The brick will go untouched.   I went back to the building today to paint around windows since it's so tedious.  One large front window takes 20 minutes and to paint along the brick pillars takes another 10 min.  Jean is coming back tomorrow and Tuesday to give me a hand with the painting.  I'm taking a couple days of vacation to get this kicked out.

In addition to the painting, Dale will start installing windows!  The building should be looking pretty amazing by the end of the week!

Vacation....

So many of the previous posts talk about all the work that Dale does on The Jerome.  And he does.  It's his full-time job (when being Mayor doesn't get in the way).  But I really do help and finally have a picture to prove it!

I'm STILL filling nail holes with my favorite green ladder mentioned in other posts.  

I must stand on my tip-toes to reach some of those holes.  And I have bruises on my shins from holding on so tightly with my legs.  After the nail holes are done, the painting begins.  At that point the scaffolding will go up and Dale thinks we'll need "two sections" (pretty high), but to reach those windows above to paint everything that's white we'll need "three sections" (REALLY high!).  It's exhilarating thinking about it!!!!  

While I was working, three ladies stopped to ask what was going in the building.  I explained that we don't know and that we just enjoy working on the building.  She gave me an odd look and asked, "well are you going to make a lot of money when it's done"?  And I gave her an odd look back and said, "NO!!!!  Are you kidding?!?!?!  This is our vacation and I hope it lasts forever!"  Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, 

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don't need to escape from.”  ― Seth Godin

My sister and nieces from Colorado are coming in for the weekend, so we'll be taking more time off from the building.  So excited to see them and so excited that life continues to slow down our "vacation"!!!