110 Year Journey

Hard to believe this all started 110 years ago!!!

The last blog posting was from January 18th and that was about the last time we worked on The Jerome.  I was in Amsterdam for three out of four weeks in February and Dale was finishing up the townhome project.  Now that things are settling down a bit, we're so happy to be back working on the building.

The first day back was March 20th and was a beautiful day outside!  I think Dale spent the day organizing inside; not really sure what he was up to, but I can tell you I was out priming trim.  Now I really enjoy painting, but this was not as much fun as I was anticipating.

The trim used on the windows has already been primed, but the little strips in the left-hand picture are still natural wood and that's what I have to paint.  As you can see in the picture on the right, those wood strips are now white (except for the very top outer corner because I am too short to reach it).  And the sills are also painted.

I thought this would be an afternoon project to paint all three store-fronts.  Uh, no.  It took four hours to do one.  And that just reminded me as I'm sitting here typing this on April 3rd that I still have two more store-fronts to do (and I was wondering what I could do tomorrow?!?!?!?).

After I finished painting for the day and Dale was done with whatever he was up to, we decided to take our chairs out back, and enjoy a beer.  All the sudden Dale jumps out of his chair and goes running inside...  only to find the container that he'd been filling with water from the bathroom sink had overflowed because we forgot about it!

This is what it looked like after we got it all cleaned up.  So all that hard work and money that went into putting a new roof on the building in order to keep everything dry didn't protect us from ourselves!  Boy, we are not back in the swing of things yet!

March 27, 2015:  To keep things moving along on the front of the building where most people will see our progress, Dale added the trim boards and flashing to the bottom of the windows.  And since I totally guessed on that terminology, I'll try to explain.  In the left picture, you'll notice a metal piece on the front along the sidewalk.  That's there so rain will stay away from going inside the basement.  In the picture on the right, a white trim board was added on top of the metal and then more flashing (metal) was added on top of the trim board.  Next the front panels will be added over the black tar paper.  So it basically creates a waterfall effect to get the water away from the building and prevent it from seeping in.

The panels I just mentioned also had to be primed and we found that it was much easier to prime them while they were laying flat on sawhorses instead trying to paint them once installed outside.  Here they are drying.  Now that's an exciting picture.  Remember, this blog is to chronicle all of Dale's hard work. :) I know he'll appreciate this picture 20 years from now!

The next two pictures will show the green panels added underneath the big windows covering up the existing black tar paper.

Black tar paper

Green panels with additional vertical trim boards added!  It's starting to take shape!  All the existing white-primed trim on the front of the building will all be painted green and additional trim detail still needs to be added.  Keep in mind that I'm calling the paint color green because that's how Dale refers to it. 

You can kind of get a better idea of the color in this picture.  I think it'll look really good with the brick.

Now we up-to-date.  Here's a picture from today.... Good Friday.  Dale finished installing all the stops, which I'm guessing is the wood trim to hold the windows in place.  To give you an idea of why these windows are taking so long, it's because there are THIRTY-NINE windows that had to be completed!  

I think we're heading upstairs tomorrow to begin more demo work.  We're planning to try a new method that involves team work.  So it'll either be an awesome day or potentially a very challenging day since we're both Type 'A's.  Keep your fingers crossed for us - we've got a ways to go!