Radiators and floors

The contractor left us a nice surprise that we noticed this morning.  They removed the paint on the three radiators in the office space.  We weren't planning on having the paint removed till a future phase, because we assumed we would either need to have them sandblasted while in place or we would have had to remove them and get them dipped, like we did the doors.  

Pre-demo image showing radiator with old paint

 Radiator from previous image with paint removed

The old linoleum has been lifted off the floors, exposing the fir wood floors beneath.  The linoleum came off fairly easy in the back office and the hallway leading to it, without leaving mastic or residue.  In the front retail space, though, there's mastic stuff that we'll need to remove.

Front door paint removal

We think the two front doors are original to the building and we would like to find ways to strip the paint on the doors to expose the wood doors with some stain.

We have a black and white image of one of the doors from the 30's that shows it painted white with a window on the top panel.  Ideally, we'd like to put the glass back into both front doors to bring in more natural lighting and connect the exterior with the entry space.

Front doors look like this with paint

Rick started experimenting with a product to strip the paint off the frame.  He started with a test spot and after some trials, found a technique that removed most of the paint, requiring some sanding afterwards to cleanup the remaining spots.

After some sweat equity, paint was removed off of both door frames.  The do-it-yourself paint stripper may be too time intensive and laborious for both doors, so we're investigating possibilities for taking the doors for the paint to be removed using commercial paint stripper. 

Front door with paint removed from frame

Once the paint is removed from both doors and frames, we'd like to sand and stain the doors to show the natural wood next to the brick.

Front Lamps

The electrical inspection has passed and now we're looking ahead at the type of light fixtures for the front entrances.

Originally we were thinking of goosenecks lamps on top of each door, like in this rendition.

After some thought we decided to put one light on each side of each door because we liked the idea based on seeing examples from some of our neighbors, like the Village hall and a few restaurants in the area.  

We paid a visit to Klaff's, a home design store in town with an extensive lighting section, and chose lamps with yellow/orange glass to suspend on each side of the doors.  Rick printed the image of the lamp to the building scale to help us better imagine what they would like.

Printed image of lamp

Printed paper lamps on building for perspective

Roof Replacement

Rather than replace the entire roof, to save money Rick and the contractors marked off areas that needed to be selectively replaced.

The week the roof was being replaced, we had unusual torrents of rain and thunderstorms, so the project was done in fits and spurts.  With signs of a storm, the contractor would wrap up the roof and come back during the next dry spell.

Protection board being fastened on

In addition, the masonry parapet wall at the front of the building was in bad shape.  The contractor finished off the wall with stucco to protect it.

The contractor also added a nice cap to the parapet roofing edge.

The roof is now in good condition to protect the building from bad weather and the pesky squirrels that would occasionally visit.