Time for some pictures!

It's been a month since I posted anything here. We've had spotty wi-fi at home, so when I do get online it's usually brief and just to pay bills or some such. We haven't done much to the place since the last post, though we did have a lovely new year's eve party. That meant the place got whipped into shape, which was nice. My work schedule got really hectic right after that, so I'm not sure how much sweeping or putting away of laundry has been done this month.

I did start on my first light fixture. I'm using a bike tire rim and a bunch of clear/white reflectors. My next step will be to construct a hanging mechanism and wire it. I haven't decided how the lights themselves should be oriented. But at least I have a work area set up and I've organized most of the reflectors we salvaged from the neighborhood bike shop. It's nice, too, because the work area is next to my 8 year old's desk where she keeps all her screwdrivers and disassembles things like adding machines! We can keep each other company while we work.

The kids haven't been working much on things like those adding machines lately. They've been learning to use Google SketchUp and building and programming robots with the Lego Mindstorm system. Very very cool. Soon we'll graduate them to some of the salvaged CNC machinery we have in the basement. They'll be building who-knows-what by the end of the year.

I finally took some pictures of the building.

Here's the rear alley view (see my little Tibetan Prayer Flags flapping around under the upstairs windows:). The door at the far left of the picture is  the side entrance and it's the one we generally use for coming and going. The stairs go from that door and wind up behind those glass block windows. The second story windows you can see at the back are the rear mezzanine that the former owners (the Fraternal Order of Eagles) built to be a men's room. We took out a urinal and spare toilet and installed a claw foot bathtub and electric tankless water heater, which also supplies the kitchen sink. The top floor is our main living area, and the windows you see over the alley are the stairwell and our kitchen.

And this is the front of the building. Gosh it's big. Some of the windows need to be replaced, but the place is STRONG! The internal framing is huge steel I-beams. The main floor has about a 16 foot ceiling! The arched window you see above the front door is  actually a mezzanine level that the previous owners installed as a ladies' room. It's a nice space with that window going floor to ceiling; I covet it for my painting studio, but I think it'll be a guest room. It has toilets and sinks, obviously, and we could put in a hot plate and fridge and longer stays could be comfortable. We have a nice claw foot tub we can install in place of an extra toilet, but we don't have hot water plumbed to that end of the building yet so it'll be a while. You can see the sign for the Eagles still sticking off the corner of the building. My husband has permission from the city to replace the lettering with his own messages, as long as they're not for commercial purposes. He has great ideas and has even gotten his hands on some of the plastic materials he'll need to make his own signs! And it lights up!

Finishing off today's tour is the side of the building. You already know the door from the alley view picture. A close-up shot would reveal decades' worth of graffiti on the reachable bricks. We find it endearing and don't plan to clean it up. I think that now that the locals have noticed someone living there there's not likely to be much new graffiti, and cleaning it off tends to encourage new works of art, which are then undoing hard work instead of just already being there. Plus, we don't look at the outside much. This photo makes it look like the bricks are wavy, but that's just an optical illusion. You can see the original windows that have been bricked in, leaving about 1/3 of each on the main floor (and about 1/3 of every other one on the top floor) as glass block. So we get natural light but no view. Granted, the view's not much, and some of us (my husband) think it's better to have the block. I wouldn't mind being able to gaze out a window at the neighborhood, but I don't mind the block. We have plenty of privacy, replacing the windows would be outrageously expensive, and I can always set up a chair near the front or back windows. Because that mezzanine will be so good as a guest room, I've been thinking of making the front landing upstairs into an art space. Then I can gaze all I want and I'll have nice morning light. That may develop this spring or summer.

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us. The inside is decent (OK paint, functional kitchen & bath, etc.) but we'll be puttering around here for years. At the risk of repeating a previous post (I'm too lazy to go back and look it up right now) Our big plan for the next couple of years is to insulate the walls and then build side walls in the living area that divide the space into sort of dollhouse rooms. The floor plan up there now is basically one big room. It would look approximately like this once we do the side walls:

Instead of walling these side rooms off completely (which would require operable replacement windows in order to meet code) we could have curtains for decoration and privacy. With the curtains all open, the rooms would be like a dollhouse when viewed from the living room/ dining room side of the place. If we're interested and able to switch out windows and build fourth walls later, we can without undoing much work.

So that's the place so far. Now we just need to start our indoor vegetable garden. I want fresh herbs and veggies! I'll definitely grow lettuces and tomatoes. I'm also thinking about edamame. I think it would fit in a reasonable sized container. Time for some research!