Second Floor Updates

The second floor will not be completely finished out, but it has been cleaned and prepared for a new sub-flooring, energy efficient windows, and spray foam insulation between the floors and in the ceiling. In the future, we plan to turn the second floor into an open space with bathrooms and a small catering kitchen. Our intent is to use the second floor as dance studio space and rent the facility out for meetings and small events.

Exterior Work

The new stonework on the front of the building is creating a complete transformation. The front of the building had a section of brick that was not original, which was somewhat of an eyesore. The new sandstone matches the existing stone base and creates a beautiful new look. Although the exterior of the building looks like a train wreck, we can really start to see our vision taking shape.

We began taking down the center staircase. Our hope is to salvage as much of the brick as possible, to use for the new bathroom addition on the back of the building.

The beginning of the atrium

The framing for the interior office space is complete and the atrium is beginning to take form. The structural support for the atrium is done, and the floor supports have been cut. Now, the staircase in the center of the building needs to be removed. The hole in the first floor will be surrounded by a half wall, which will finish off the space between the first and second floors. The second floor ceiling will have a large skylight to let in large amounts of natural lighting. Once the staircase is removed, we should have a grand entry!

Halloween!

The Windsor Chamber of Commerce hosted a "Trick-or-Treat" event during the afternoon of Halloween. Even though we don't have a business open yet, we still decided to participate. We set up a nice display of straw and cornstalks and had a large supply of chocolate eyeballs. To our surprise, the event was a huge success. Other businesses estimated between 800 and 1,000 kids in attendance. The sidewalks of downtown Windsor were packed with cute costumes and happy kids. We had a great response from the participants. A lot of people asked when we intend to open, some people were curious about the renovation project and we even had a few tell us that they were excited to come see us when we open up.

In the process of preparing for concrete work, we found an original coal shoot with a huge beautiful piece of limestone. Unfortunately, it was surrounded by structural stone, so we were unable to take it out. We covered it with dirt and plastic before the concrete was poured in an attempt to salvage the limestone. We are hoping to go back in a some point to undermine it out of its current location to use for something decorative in the building.

The sub flooring almost complete in the first floor. It is nice to finally have progress that makes the building look better.

The steel columns are in place. Now we just need to place the beams across the top and the structural work on the first floor will be complete. We also finished framing out the new bathroom on the back of the building. This bathroom addition will be surrounded by matching red brick with a copper metal roof to match the other accents on the exterior of the building. We started to lay subfloor today.

Downtown Windsor Creepy Crawl

The Windsor Historic Preservation Committee hosts an event called the "Creepy Crawl", where the community is invited to tour downtown historic buildings. Unfortunately, our building is not fit for interior viewing. We took a picture of the couple sharing history about the Yancey Building. Brent is already planning big things for next year's "Creepy Crawl".

Vision Expo - Las Vegas

We left for Las Vegas this morning for the Vision Expo. The plan is to make all of the important equipment purchase decisions in the next three days. Brent will have the opportunity to test all of the equipment to determine which pieces will work best for his practice. We will also have the opportunity to view all of the latest fashions in frames and optical goods.

Blocks Come Tumbling

The excavation team came to the site today to take the white structure off the back of the building. It's amazing how much better the building looks with that addition gone.

One Window Down!

Brent got to throw a brick through the front window today. We had to break one of the front windows to allow the concrete truck to pour front footers. Check out the set up at the end of the video. They made a triangle out of wood, which was placed up against the window to collect all of the glass ... pretty creative!

Second Concrete Day

The forms are built and the cement truck is ready to pour into the west side basement. Anchor screws will be imbedded into the concrete, which will be used to secure our structural steel beams. We used the concrete shoot again, but still got seriously splashed with wet concrete.

Progress continues in several areas of the project. The brick is clean, but still needs to have the dust blown out. Once the blow out process is complete, the brick will be sealed. The east side concrete will be completed within the next two weeks. The structural steel erection will start very soon, which will lead to framing and mechanical systems installation.

First Concrete Day

There were a couple of large holes under the building. In order to provide more stability and strength to the building, we brought in flow fill cement. Tom created cement shoots to allow the cement to run straight from the truck to the hole. They worked pretty well, but we have a new respect for cement workers. The flow fill concrete was complete, which allows us to move forward to building forms for our next cement project … foundation footers.

We hung our “Coming Soon” banner today!

Moving Dirt

Today we brought in the backhoe. We dug a hole to expose the gas line so that the local utility company could cap the gas line. Once the line is capped, we no longer have to worry about hitting a gas line and can move forward with our demolition. The intention was to have the hole ready for the utility to come to the building in the next few days to complete the capping process. The bad news … while the excavator was digging the hole, he hit the gas line. The good news … we got the gas line capped and the hole filled back in today.

Ready to Sandblast!

The tin is gone from the ceiling and the walls are free of plaster. We finished removing the tin ceiling tiles on the other side of the building this week. Now it’s time to sandblast the brick. I am so excited to get the brick cleaned up and ready to seal. The tin is in pretty bad shape, but we are going to do everything we can to salvage as much of it as possible. We may try to sell the tin that we don’t use to someone who wants original antique ceiling tiles. The demolition process is getting close to conclusion, but we still have a couple hard days ahead of us.

Check out my little helper!

Better View from the Back

We spent some time this week cleaning up the back of the building. We removed gas pipes, an old satellite dish, a big white venting piece and cut down a tree.

The bidding process is still presenting challenges for us. I have made a few changes to the architectural plans, which required second bids from several of the contractors. It has been fun working with the vendors to select lighting, flooring and the other finishes that everyone will see.

Tin is falling from the sky!

We removed about 2/3 of the tin on one side of the building and exposed a nice surprise. It looks like we will be able to leave the beams exposed to display the natural wood and countless hours of hammering that took place over 100 years ago.

This has been a big week for the project. My construction manager, Tom Baldwin, started this week. Our final plans arrived on Thursday, which were quickly delivered to the city for evaluation. We also began subcontractor bidding. We have requested numbers back next week.

Progress continues!

Windsor Beacon Article

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009907180313

Windsor Now! Article

The front cover! The report did a great job.

http://www.mywindsornow.com/article/20090717/NEWS/907179998/1040&ParentProfile=1001

Progress!

I spent the week chipping plaster. I figured out that the best way to remove plaster is using a reciprocating saw with a “spider scraper”. My hands are worn out by the end of the day, but it gets the job done. We experimented with various ways to clean the plaster residue off of the brick. It looks like we are going to sandblast the brick and then use a dust collection unit to vacuum the remaining dust from the brick. Once the brick is clean, we will seal it and leave it alone for another 100 years.

I also started pulling the tin off the ceiling. This is going to be a bigger task than we originally thought. The reciprocating saw will see a lot of hours in this process as well. We will have to cut a lot of the tin, while being careful to preserve as much of the tin as possible. I am pleased with the appearance of the tin under the layers and layers of paint. Restoring the tin will be the next experimental step. We have several methods to try. I’ll keep you posted!