We got our building permit so now it’s time to get the party started!

This week we hope to sign up our first subcontractors and get some of the long lead time material ordered. Once we have some starting date commitments from subcontractors then we’ll be able to concentrate on some of the “sweat equity” jobs that we’ll be doing to get ready for the subs; things like dismantling some zealously installed shelving units and uncovering some long forgotten interior trim details.

Shawn is particularly looking forward to working on the windows. There are five windows on the upper floors that have to be replaced (to provide some uniformity and to ensure emergency escape access) and the first floor windows on the Wiseman Avenue side of the building need to be uncovered and restored to their original configuration (well, almost original – since the sidewalk that used to be there is now part of the street, the original door cannot be restored). We’d love to be able to restore the entire façade of the building to the way it looked 100 years ago, but we’re not able to do that right now. Maybe in the future though…

We’ve come up with what we think is a great idea to save the beautiful interior hallway door trim and transoms. Since the Fire Marshal is requiring that these openings have fire rated doors and frames, we were afraid we were going to lose this important interior detail. We’ll share that plan in another blog post after we’re sure we can accomplish it satisfactorily.

The one daunting task ahead of us is cleaning out the basement. We’re not sure for how long, but for many, many years now it has been used as a catch-all for who knows how many tenants of the building to store whatever they thought they might want to keep for someday. It is now just jam-packed with piles and piles of who-knows-what that have to come out to make room for plumbers and electricians to do their work. It’s going to be interesting to see what we find down there. Anyone know how to get in touch with American Pickers?

Lots of hard work ahead, but really, this is so much better than the waiting game we’ve been plaing for the past two months. So as we said before, let’s get it started.