Do you see it?!?!?!

Pink ladder...  Mine.... It's just my size.  Still need to convince Dale.

Green ladder off to the right,,. It has an additional step that screws me up EVERY time... Do you see the magnificence of this building?  I wish I could covey my love for these ladders, which seems really weird, but true.  I love The Jerome!!!!

Skeleton

This totally looks like a skeleton!!!

Any suggestions?!?!?  Feels like the door needs to go away!  It's so little!!!!!  And while we're at it, there is no rhyme or reason to the window placement!  No way are those windows symmetrical!

One Man

I know this picture has been on a previous posts, but I still can't get over what Dale has accomplished over the past two years and we still have another year or two to go.

Hopefully the next three pictures will show everyone the magnitude of what he's doing.

Dale is 6' tall and is standing in ONE of THIRTY THREE-plus windows.

He doesn't look so big in this picture!

Now imagine Dale standing in ONE of the windows above.   Again, 1 of 33-plus windows.  So if you come across Dale one day and he's a little crabby, just imagine the work at hand....  I'm very lucky to have him in my life and on board with our (my) dreams!  Please don't let him know it's really just my dream and he's along for the ride!

Straight edges

So this is hard to see to really appreciate what has been done.  The light coming through (that's really annoying on my cell phone picture) is where Dale has temporarily enclosed the windows.  The blue tape is protecting the window frames (I think).  So what is being visualized here is the fact that Craig has done an incredible job of squaring up the windows in brick.  Cool.

Brick between two windows.

Again, windows are covered, and nice straight edges around the windows.  There's a lot of tuck-pointig going on!

Wrong camera on hand.  This is Dale.  6:00 P.M. on a Friday night. Chipping away at plaster.   He was home by 6:20 so all is good in the Graunke household. :)

Sorry about the round, super bright light omitting from the hole in the plywood covering up the window.  And the poor cell phone camera.  What I'd like to point out here is on the right, we have a beautiful, straight, window edge.  And on the left, you can kind of see all the brick work that needs to be done in order to make it as pretty as the right side!  That's what needs to be done to EVERY window on the second floor!!!!  I really didn't sign up for this... but I have to admit.... we are having the time of our lives!!!!

11 Left to Go

The front and alley windows are out!  22 out of 33 of them!  The third and fourth windows from the right are even covered with some of the originally panelling from one of the apartments we demo'd.  Dale has managed to keep the useful stuff on hand.

This is an interesting shot that Dale took.  It dawned on me that I don't think I've taken a picture from this angle before.  The Jerome looks a little "Plain Jane" right now and we clearly need to do something with that old door opening.   

While Dale waits for Craig to catch up with him on tuck-pointing the interior brick, he's back to removing plaster from the brick along this alley wall.  I hear there's quite a mess upstairs so my guess is a dumpster will be coming soon!

I have about a half-days worth of work to finish filling nail holes on the front (this weekend) and then hopefully Al can come help us out to caulk the windows.  Then, I'll be able to paint the front!  I'm very excited about this and thought I had planned properly by timing this project for the Fall, but now realize I picked BEE SEASON to paint outside.  This will be interesting!!!

At least we still have some great weather ahead of us!

Why I love him....

What this pic represents....   he's sporting a 'color run' headband (oh yeah, because he's game for anything), he  has  the watermelon hill  t-shirt from our Michigan bike ride... the pouch is all Dale...  and the pink ladder.... well... that's mine, but we'll let him think it's his.  I love him.

Check out the white headers...   how come they're not semeiotical?  Check out the window in the middle ( between the removed windows)  that is still existing.   it doesn't match anything on the building!  Why??  Please respond if you know the answer!

Prepping for new windows.   And I'm married to the most amazing man!!!

Five windows removed....  26 to go!

Need to get Craig there to fix the interior brink before we remove the middle window.

Just a shot of the window.  :)

I'm working on filling nail holes, which you can't see see, so how boring is this picture!

Plywood on the bottom window to protect anything falling from up above.

This is totally for me.   I filled the nail holes.  This is one of those pics that I will appreciate down the road and means nothing to anyone else. :)

More Windows!

I can't believe it's been four months since the last post.  We have accomplished quite a bit, but had to take a two month break in order to move into our new home.  Now that everything's unpacked, it's back to work!

Here's a quick rundown of what's been going on upstairs.

MAY, 2015

This used to be two bedrooms.  We tore out the walls and now have an extended 9' wide hallway all the way to the back of the building.

Then we started removing the lath and plaster.

Step 1 - Remove plaster, shovel, then start in with the lath.

Same process, different room.

And another room.  Remember, we have 18 rooms to demo! Can you imagine the weight from the plaster that's been removed so far!

And now it's all cleaned up!  We still have a few more rooms to tackle, but I'll be we have 60 percent of the upstairs demo'd!

About a month ago, Dale was getting ready to remove the windows, but on closer inspection, it appeared the windows  were holding the building together.   So we had to enlist the services of Craig to come back and tuck-point the interior of the building.  Like I've said so many times before, we just keep uncovering things that need to be repaired, which is why we can no longer attempt to meet any deadlines!

I can't wait to see the hardwood floors with the brick!

 August 14, 2015

Now that the walls have been tuck-pointed, it's time to start tearing out the windows.  This is the before picture.

And here's the "After" picture!  Dale said the new windows will be about 6" wider than the original windows.  More light! And as you can see, more repairs required by Craig around all the windows.

I found it interesting that there are three layers of brick on the building!

This corner office will look amazing when it's finished!

So that's what we've been up to for the past four months.  Tomorrow, Dale plans to build the window frames and I will be out in front filling nail holes and prepping to begin painting!  Feel free to stop by and say 'hi'!!!