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!

Tuck Pointing

I think this has been covered before, but I want to explain tuck pointing again because it is amazing the work that has to go into it.  We didn't know the INSIDE of the building would need the repairs it has needed, but we're very lucky to have had Craig Jones (Jonesy) come into our lives because he is doing an AMAZING job on the brick!!

Today Craig spent the entire day chiseling out all the old mortar between every brick. You can only imagine the dust!

Here's what an entire wall looks like after removing the old mortar.

Again.... Craig must go around each and every brick on the wall.

If you look closely, notice on the right side of the picture that new cement has been added back in around EVERY brick!  I don't know how he does this tedious work day after day, but I am so thankful he does!

Dale installed the new windows along the alley today.  Between the windows and Craig's work, it's really starting to look like the building we have envisioned for the past two years!  Can you imagine how beautiful these offices will be?!?!?!

Another shot of the work the Dale and Craig accomplished today.

You know that door that we always come in from the deck?  I've taken many pics from this vantage point.  I still can't get over the amount of light coming in from the new windows!

That bathtub still hasn't moved from the original bathroom.  And the new bathroom will still be located in this spot.

The brickwork in this picture has new cement and is complete.

This is a shot of the front corner.  It's the corner of the building that is closest to Vintage on Bridge.

I was very hard on myself thinking that I just couldn't fill nail holes properly.  As it turns out, the paint store led me astray, but thanks to Rich Gallus (Gallus Painting) I'm back on track and the nail filler material he recommended is a joy to work with!  Now I need to sand and touch-up so that it looks somewhat decent for the winter-- we don't plan on painting the second coat until next Spring.

I really thought we'd take Sunday off for a little R&R.  NOT.  Just saw the forecast and we can't pass up this incredible weather so instead, you'll find us out in front painting more of the building!

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"!!!