Holy Guacamole, Batman!!

It is unbelievable what has been accomplished in the past 5 weeks!!  Dale's comment yesterday was, "I want to live here."

So without further comment, it's time to start uploading pics to this blog and comment on each picture.  I don't really even remember what all has happened since mid-December.  I only know what I just saw.  :)

December, 2016

The bathroom floor was prepped for the new tile going in.  I'm so glad that our dear friend, Terry Taberry, could make time in his busy schedule to take on this job.  He's the best! :)

This was the sample we picked for the bathroom floor.

I finally finished stripping the two front doors.  They are SO beautiful!  The outside of the doors were stained something red (probably to match the brick).  So we decided to also stain the outside only.  I picked up the stain today.  Colonial Cherry.  Oooooooo.  The doors and stain are getting delivered to Gallus Painting so Steve can work his magic.  We plan to keep the original hardware on the doors and just add a modern push-plate for unlocking the door.

No clue what kind of wood this is, but it's pretty.  Dale wanted to put a kick-plate on the doors, but I think we should keep them as-is.  They've been this way for over a hundred years--why change them now?

Picking out stain color is so stressful!!!

Another new window installed!!!  Now just imagine the doors that were refinished installed!  They also have a window so there will be tons of light coming in!  On the ceiling, you can see where the really cool light, that still needs to be picked out, will be installed.

Ceiling insulation was blown into the two middle buildings.  As you can see,  half of this hallway needs to have hardwood floors installed.  I still don't understand why Dale had to pull it up, and don't think I'll ask because it might be perceived as a challenge.  Better to leave that one alone.  What I can tell you is that in the room off to the right, Dale has almost enough flooring to take out of there and put back into the hallway.  As if it's not enough to remodel this humungous building, apparently it's necessary to move hardwood floor around.

Picture's a little dark, but here is Terry installing tile on the wall.

This doorway for the lunchroom had to be cut in because it was originally just a window.  That means Dale had to fill in the threshold with hardwood flooring.  Any guess on where he got that from?!?!?

The lunchroom used to be two iddc-biddy bedrooms so once again, more flooring had to be added.  I guess I should be very thankful that I have a 'Dale'...  and he can do it all!

Once a day, he's had to go down to the basement and scoop pail-fulls of water into a big bucket to haul it out of the building because the river has been so high.  It just seems odd that he's doing this in the middle of December!  This man does, on average, 35 flights of stairs a day.  I need to get on that fitness program!

This is the hallway where we always enter the second floor.  It was at one point a bathroom with a very rotted floor.  For the past few months, it's just been plywood.  And now Dale has hand-selected only the perfectly colored boards to be installed. 

And yet another two rooms combined into one.  The floor had to be filled in.  This is the back corner office that overlooks the deck and Dave's Town Club.  It was a kitchen on the left and bedroom on the right.

And the walls are done!

I've been busy (really busy) cleaning trim.  We were so excited to see what it's going to look like that we ran these two pieces upstairs to hold them up and go "oooo, ahhhh".  I better get cracking on cleaning because my procrastinating is catching up to me.  Ugh.  But what a great way to end 2016!

January 7, 2017

As the floors are removed, every piece is cleaned--by an anal German.

This is some of the hardwood flooring that has been uninstalled, numbered, and ready for a new location.... by an anal German.

Anal German hard at work... UNINSTALLING!

And he's so happy!  The man needs his head examined.  

January 12, 2017

Now the hardwood floor has been reinstalled all the way to the door.  Looking good!

Middle building.  Back office still needs a new floor, but there's more insulation ready to be installed and the sound channel (metal strips) have been installed on the walls.

You really need to see these offices in the late afternoon with the sunlight coming in.  The picture just doesn't do it justice.

And the tile is done!!!  Terry did an amazing job, as always!

There was a lump in the floor from all the water damage where the new plywood has been installed.   The flooring was stolen from other spots and a new top-stair piece of wood has been purchased.  Keep in mind, most of these pictures are taken when I get home from work.  So Dale's been working for at least 10 hours and he's still smiling! Crazy!

Different angle of the stair work.

Hallway sound channel (metal strips) are being installed in addition to the wood base strips needed so that there's something to nail the baseboards into.

Construction picture.

 January 14, 2017

Floor done!  Another major item off the list.

And he even cleaned up his mess! 

Construction picture, but all cleaned up.

Where did he learn how to do all these things?!?!?

I'm cleaning trim!  It just doesn't seem like that big of a deal after looking at all of Dale's flooring pictures.    And I have to scrub all of that paint off the trim with Goof-off and steel wool.  

 January 16, 2017

It's happening!!!  Loren Bjornrud (hope I spelled that right) showed up to sand the floors.   First pass, go all around the edges.

Then sand away and then cover areas with filler to be sanded later.

The difference is unbelievable!  He can tell that these floors have NEVER been refinished in 112 years!

Lunchroom looking good!

Loren will come back and finish the middle buildings at a later date.    Just working on the Alley building for now.

January 18, 2017

The floors should be getting the first coat on them tomorrow!  Can't wait to see these finished!  We're really getting closer to having offices ready to be leased!  And an Open House, of course!  :)