Outside!

It's only been a couple of weeks since the last post, but I've been taking pictures along the way.  I was just reviewing them and realized how much we're accomplishing right now as we try to take advantage of this gorgeous weather we've been having!  Our goal is to have the entire front of the building painted with the first coat before the weather turns.  I've been using vacation time to work on the building and you'll find me there the next couple of afternoons.  This is so exciting!!!

This is one of two front doors as it has looked for many, many years.

Now the doors have been removed and temporarily replaced with plywood so that we can strip and refinish them.

The trim around the door was also removed and some of the paint stripped with the heat gun.

At one point, it looks like the trim was painted red to match the color of the brick.

Many people have asked if we were going to replace the ugly white doors on the front of the building.  If they had only seen the other side!  Look how beautiful!!!  Our goal is to strip the doors down to their natural beauty and leave them the natural color.  I sure hope I like doing this project! 

The first of the "pillar" is getting a new color.  I'm not 100% sold on it, but the nice thing is that we have all winter to think about it before the final coat goes on next Spring.

One the left side of the picture, the white beam above the new main-floor windows has been sanded.  As you can see the right side still needs to be completed and there there's a third one after that.  

Close up of Dale's sanding job.  Can't wait to see it painted the same color as the trim below!

The alley windows are in!!

I wonder how much time Dale has spent cleaning!

Now all the beams have been sanded and are ready for primer. 

The door and door trim have been painted to match the lower windows.  In addition, the white paint on the "pillars" above the door have been covered!  Yay!  Just waiting for Dale to fix the concrete pillars that are at ground level before I can paint them.  He could probably get that completed tomorrow if he weren't GOLFING! 

All the metal beams have been covered with white primer and are looking so clean.  Need to wait 48 hours before we paint them.  I think that's tomorrow's project.

Upper corner trim. Check!  And Dale painted the beams.

Dale asked me to paint these trim boards before he cuts them to size to put in the space below the main-floor windows to add a little pizzaz. Cool.  I can handle that.  Whipped those right out this evening.  Check.

Just as I was feeling like I checked a lot of items off the list today, Dale points over to the wall and says, "there's the rest of the trim that needs to be painted."  Well That's Fantastic.

We're thinking a deep burgundy for the top of the building.  And we may leave that to the professionals.  That is WAY UP there!!

Poor Dale has to tear down the scaffolding after every time we use it.  Which has been a lot the last couple of weeks.

Random thought as I was painting the window above the door today...  I looked in the window at all the cobwebs and dead bugs (eeeeww) and realized there will come a day that I'll be on the inside looking out because I will be painting in there.  Never a shortage of work.  Thank goodness!

And look what appeared!  We have a vine that just sprang up recently and it has flowers!  And it's mid-October!  

Tomorrow (did I mention that Dale's GOLFING?!?!), the window sills on the second floor will be painted and if that gets finished, maybe it'll be time to start stripping the doors.  We'll see what the day brings!