Tearing Out & Repairing The Floor 8-25-07

Hello again!
For some odd reason this weekend I started working on the first level floor to see what kind of damage was done when the building was leaking.
Let's just say it is better and worse then I thought.
This is a picture of the arch with the bottom removed.
Dad and I discovered that his floor level is about 4 inches higher than mine. I guess this is because I am on the downhill side of the street????
This is after I also removed the old water pipe located along this wall.


After removing the pipe dad & I decided to find out if there was a crawl space in the back of my building like he has in his building. We cut a hole shown here in the backroom floor and didn't find anything.
Oh well! It's not like I don't have enough holes to fix.
(See below)



This is a closeup of the backroom hole we cut.



After the backroom hole cutting we moved around to the front of the back wall to checkout the sewer pipe situation. This will be the main sewer for the the upstairs, so I was glad to find a clean out under this spot in the floor. This is really good news.



Here is what I was talking about earlier.
We decided to rip up the flooring on the West wall to see what might possibly be the problem with the springy floor boards.
Just more good times!



Well this is what we found.
Rotten boards, old fixes from who knows when & another discovery about the building.

This part shown here, we believe was a later addition. The boards were not built into the walls like the others towards the front of the building.
This is also where the apartment ends upstairs and you can see a difference in the brick color and a new brick starting point.



This is what we believe may be the older section.
Click on the photo to see how the boards are built into the brink and where also leveled with bricks coming out of the wall.



A final parting picture of the area.
I am glad we opened up this area as it was still very wet and moldy. This will allow some more air to move under the floor and hopefully dry it out.



This is a picture of what happens when a cast iron pipe is pushed from the ceiling rafters.

This was the original sewer pipe from the upstairs area of the building and I really needed it to come down so I could start running the new sewer pipe.

Don't worry though this was a well thought out plan and the important part is nobody was even close to this when it came down. Just another hole in the floor.




Well I will leave you with another picture of the pipe.
Next weekend is the Labor day weekend so I will have hopefully lots of pictures of the progress or lack there of.

All are welcome to stop by this Saturday and Monday as we will be working both days at the building.

Please stop by some of the other open stores that are already making the downtown area a better place to shop and dine.

I also thought if anyone would like to advertise their downtown business or soon to be business for free on this site just send me an email and I will put up an ad.

Also if you check us out regularly send us an email to let us know that you are checking us out.

Later,
Chris & Jen

Jen & The Little Restroom Of Horror's

Well here it is!! The last thing to demo on the main floor. The back restroom.

Pretty cozy!! Got the furnace next to it for added restroom warmth.

I really didn't want anything to do with this demo, so I let Jen go to town on it.



Another picture of the crap hole!!

Sorry bad joke!

But you had to know it was coming!










Nice!!!




















Real Nice!!

You don't want to know. It smelled so bad that bad isn't the right word!











The other side that shares the wall with the back glass.




















I don't think that works anymore. Just guessing???










Almost the end result! It took some time, but now we can make it better.















The back glass. Which we have an idea for.

The pile! Just another load to the dump!

I would like to say if anyone is looking for a toilet, just let me know.

I would sell this one cheap!!

Hey gotta pay for things somehow!!

Till next time, always remember to clean your toilets!

Treasure Hunting (Sort Of ??)

Today I decided it was time to crawl through a little hole in the wall. It is actually underneath the steps leading up to the second floor. I don't know why I decided today was the day, but I went for it.

This is me as I just gotten in.

This is a picture of the little opening I had to squeeze through to get in.

This was one of the first finds.

A 1926 rolled up newspaper from the Kansas City Star.

Pretty cool!!

Here is a close up of the text.

The second find was this old box.

I have never heard of this brand, so if someone knows something send me an email or make a comment below.

This was the last find. I believe it is a leg off of a mannequin, but I could be wrong???

We also found a Chicago paper that I believe was dated 1925, but I must have not taken a picture of it. I will try and get better shots of the text and post it later for all to see.

Upstairs Demo Part 2 07/07-08/07

After the back bedroom I had to take apart the scaffolding and move it to the front room.

I then started scraping the ceiling trying to remove all the loose wallpaper and plaster.

By this time it is around 90+ degrees at the ceiling height.

I would have been down to my underwear had it not been for people stopping by to check out the progress. This is no lie!

Still scraping!

Taking a break.

Decided to move to the other side of the divide and remove the last of the plaster on this wall.

Taking a break again.

This was all I could take of the heat so we went home!

Till next time!

Later

Upstairs Demo 07/07-08/07

Hello again! I know it has been sometime since the last post but we have been very busy lately.

We moved the scaffolding upstairs and started removing the plaster and bad lath hanging from the ceiling in the back bedroom.

This is a picture of me finishing off the dining room wall between the kitchen. I decided to remove it before starting in the back room.

Wanted to open up the doorway somemore between the two rooms.

In the meantime Jen got to work on the upper part of the dining room walls removing the plaster.

This is a picture of the back bedroom after I removed the plaster from the wall between the kitchen.

As you might remember there was a wall that divided this room and I also removed the furnace area also.

Our intent is to recover the wall with drywall and go from there.

We also finally got all the windows to open. This was great because it has gotten very hot upstairs.

This helps to get a nice breeze going through and also move the dust out.

Picture of the ceiling with almost all of the plaster removed.

We are going to also insulate above the remaining lath and then put up drywall here.

This is a look towards the front of the bedroom.

We will also cover the existing plaster on this wall with drywall also.

This is a look towards the back from the dining room area.

Jen working on removing the loose plaster and wall paper.

Most of her day was spent shoveling and bagging the plaster from the ceiling.

This is her pile she made it is about a half a ton.

Grandpa West stops by for a brief pose and

inspection.