All cleaned up and painted. We still have some minor accents and the top is getting “Wilson 1881”. Overall its looking good!!!!
Ready for Paint
Everything outside is finished and ready for paint. Inside I mounted wood on the backside with trim pieces and caulking. This week our painter will start with the outside and hopefully work his way inside. We are looking forward to finishing up the front of the building.
Store Front Repair Part 2
The repair work is almost complete downstairs. Everything is buttoned up and all that is left is the false louvers above the windows.
Half of them are complete. Our painter will then clean everything up and paint the complete front. It will be the same yellow with white trim as above.
Inside we still need to mount dry wall and have it painted. That will be in the next two weeks also.
Flooring Saga Continues
This weekend we continued to work on the downstairs flooring. This is the before on the West side. We have been working with no air conditioning. The front has holes where our contractor is rebuilding the windows. There is no sense in turning the AC on until the front is complete. Today was only 101 degrees:)
And the after. It’s still wet. It will dry with a satin sheen.
We are almost complete downstairs. Once the store front is complete, we will finish painting everything, mount the baseboards, and cleanup the center columns. Stay tuned for what’s coming next:)
History Revealed
It’s been a few weeks since the last update. A lot has happened since then. History has been revealed in the front of the building. For right now we are rebuilding the area above the existing store front. We will be reusing the existing glass/doors and repaint everything once its complete.
One incredible item uncovered was the original steel column on the North West corner of the building. The new design will have the tops of the columns above the glass exposed.
While the front demolition/rebuild is going on we are finishing the floor.
The floor after the repairs and sanding.
And now here is the floor with the first coat of stain and sealant.
Store Front Repair
Just when we thought we were almost finished. The front window leak is a lot worst. On the West side, all the wood is rotten. On the East side, there is old termite damage. It looks like we have to replace the windows and framing all the way up to the steel beam holding up the bricks in front. We should know the schedule this week once all the quotes come back.
Here is where we removed the outside tin to find out where it was leaking.
Upstairs is still coming along. Newly polished floors:) We finally purchased a new couch.It is scheduled to be delivered this week. We love the open concept!!!!
1st Floor Flooring
The 1st floor is almost complete. The floor joists have been replaced, the original flooring relaid, and everything has been rough sanded. All that is left is to fill some rough areas, final sanding, and then a clear sealant.
We want to keep the original look. The plan is to just apply a clear sealant.
There is one issue we did run into this past week. We had some heavy rains and detected a leak above the front windows. At one time there were windows above the store front. A long time ago they closed them up with wood and mortar. Years of neglect and termite damage is causing water to seep in. We have a contractor starting this week. They are going to remove all the damaged wood, rebuild the facade, and then paint everything making it look new.
1st Floor Brick
We are almost done with the brick work downstairs. All that is left is to brush the brick, vacuum everything, and then seal it.
The floor is still coming along. This week they should finish the subfloor and continue to relay the original flooring back down before sanding and sealing.
Slowly it’s getting cleaned up.
Brick Restoration
The 1st floor retail area restoration continues. Here is the East wall brick repair and repointing.
The bricks are three levels thick. Notice how some of the bricks in the middle level are collapsing.
An overview of the East wall restoration.
The West wall restoration.
And finally the floor restoration.
Here is where our contractor is tying the restored floors into the original flooring.
The brick work should be completed in the next few days. The flooring restoration will be at least another week. Afterwards we will seal the brick, stain/seal the floors, and finishing painting the walls and ceiling.
Floor Joist Replacement
This week they delivered the new floor joists and started the replacement.
Here are the new 2×10’s going in.
Notice how far they are having to jack up the floor to replace them. In the last 100 years the floor settled at least 6-8 inches in some areas.
Here are the replacement footings.
While all of this is going on, we had the windows painted over to add suspense to what is coming:)
