In which these are not windows

Attention everyone.  The small areas of wall where there is no foam insulation are not going to be windows...repeat they will not be windows

The areas with no foam, are simply that....areas of wall with no foam.

These areas of wall with no foam are not windows....they are areas of wall with no foam.

Thank you.  That is all.

In which we take a sun therapy break!

In which there is a mystery

What the heck is it?

I noticed this block of wood notched into the framing of the building yesterday.  I had seen it before, but never noticed it, so I investigated and then started pondering what it once was.  The wall where it is placed was, I think, at one time the main entrance to the grain barn that was added by the Farmer's Co-op.  This contraption is located on the side of the old entrance.  I wonder whether it was a grain scale or some other measurement device.  The block of wood is notched into one of the main supports for the building frame and one of the wall studs.  Whoever put the block and metal rod there certainly didn't want the device to go anywhere!  

 At one time, there was a large door here, and then a smaller door framed out later.  I think the rod was bent later when the new framing went in.  Still, not much evidence remains as to why this rod and the notched block are there.

In which we approach our first year anniversary of owning Slum and Blight

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of our wedding and Tuesday marks the first anniversary of owning our wedding present to each other...namely Slum and Blight!  Happy days all around!

Of course, we have hardly gotten the project off the ground in our minds, but the changes over the year have been significant.  Gone is the barn, gone are over 25 tons of debris from the building, gone is the old basement space and the hilariously dangerous original building supports and foundation walls.  Hopefully the next month will bring significant changes to the building....more fodder for this blog, which lately has become boring even to the writer.

I have been working on the interior of the first floor, taking down walls and removing more debris.

 Won't 3 x 8' windows look great here!!  The view from these windows is out over the harbor and to the bridge....gorgeous.

 Oops. gotta replace that sill!

The Christmas Ice Storm of 2013 left us without power for four days. Everything is encased in ice, including the debris dumpster at the building....which should weigh several extra tons by now with all the snow and ice in there!  We spent the days surrounding Christmas trying to keep our house warm and the pipes from freezing.  When the temperature inside got down to 44 degrees, it was time to decamp to the Bayside cottage for Christmas morning.

After having a pinched nerve in my neck, all this friggin' snow and ice, parties, and the ice storm, it has felt like weeks since I worked at Slum and Blight.  Yesterday I was back at it and took down the inside walls where the old barn used to attach to the building.  What I found behind the walls was disheartening and kind of gross at the same time.

 The boards sometimes just break into dust or are so dry that they crack the moment one moves them.  This was my first look at what was behind the boards....ugghh...100 year old grain left over from when the building was the farmer's cooperative grainery beginning in 1917 or so.

 The grain is tightly compacted here in the walls.  I took some of the grain out with our trusty shop-vac.  A lot of it is frozen.  It took me three hours to get all the grain out...the bags must weigh 50 lbs a piece.

The grain is all along the base behind this board.

So far the amount of grain I removed below filled up two shop vac barrels.

The old boards ready to be hauled out the door to the dumpster

In which I am back inside Slum and Blight

I have given up pick axing down below the building and have moved inside again.  I haven't worked inside the building in what seems like months.  I have been engaged in pulling down the wooden walls on the first floor.  I have taken down 5 sections of wall only to find that behind all of them is the last layer...plaster and lathe insulation!!  That makes four total layers for the walls.  Of course there is no heat.  Today is -2 so far at 6:30 am, so this means four layers of socks to match the wall layers!!  Actually, it isn't so bad inside, or it wasn't yesterday, save for that time when one of the windows fell out of its case and, thankfully, fell intact to the floor.  The wind was a bit wicked at that point.  

Enjoy the day!

In which I watch it snow and don't go to work

I am sitting here watching the first significant snow fall of the season come down in buckets.  It has been pretty cold lately and working at the building is a pain because of the wind and exposure.  I have taken the last several days off because I have "pick-axe" wrists.  Essentially, I have been working the pick axe so much that my wrists and hands are tired.  I cannot make a fist without my fingers hurting.  It is getting better though.  Someone asked "what do you do for that?" and my answer was "hire someone to do the pick axing and move onto something else!"  I have gotten as far as I can in digging out the basement and for two days last week, I left the hard work up to our contractor's guys, who were able to get through about 4-6 inches of very hard rock with their drills and saws.  It looks like we will get full height throughout the basement space!  With the added square footage from the addition, we may well have over 1500 square feet of useable space down there, almost double what we originally thought!

The crew starts closing in the basement space this coming week.  The new windows are ready and waiting to be installed!

In which we decorate

Merry Merry!