I stayed in the city on Friday night and went with my friend and client Emily Greene to go see Lelia Broussard at Rockwood Music Hall. Here's Lelia at Rockwood that night. I really love how her blurry hand makes her look like she's "shredding" with her acoustic guitar. Maybe she WAS shredding. Look for her record, it's coming out in a couple of months.
I got up to the church on Saturday morning to meet with my carpenter, David and to shake hands, sign contracts and write checks with Thomas Dootz of Heritage Masonry to do the foundation repair and landscaping. I have a good feeling about Tom. When he arrived at the Church for his first site visit, he seemed to love the structure and site right away. Other guys had looked at me like I was a dumb city slicker who bought a money pit, and that bugged me. Tom had a lot of confidence. He said, "There shouldn't be any problem, this is a light house." David said "It has a slate roof." Tom: "It'll lift right up, it's a light house." After he left, I looked at his brochure that he left with me. I guess if this is one of your projects, the little church in Coxsackie IS a light house. Tom lives in a town called Feura Bush which is about 40 minutes away from Coxsackie. Feura Bush and Coxsackie. Perfect together.
So Tom will start this week. We've been approved for a building permit and are all legit and ready to roll!
Here's some of what happened at the Church this week:
The church at one point, and not unusually, had a steeple. Here is what is there up on the roof now.
It's a tar paper and plywood quick fix. David and I discussed it. It appears that to remove it and patch the slate roof is more labor intensive than finishing it off. So I'm thinking that we'll just clad it like the rest of the church and put either a skylight or solar panel up top. I am just starting to research that. It would be really cool if I could generate some of my own power in the church.
David put up two pieces of plywood on the east wall (where we did a little "premature demolition" in our zealousness and enthusiasm) so I could experiment with finishing and staining it. I would like the entire interior east wall, both upstairs and downstairs to be clad with stained plywood.
First, I gently sanded the whole surface, then I conditioned it, and then I applied the stain, very proud of myself for consciously thinking about going light to dark/top to bottom so I could stain over any of my mistakes. The plywood on the right is maple; on the left is birch. I happen to like the birch better than the maple and the bonus there is that the birch is cheaper. What I can't decide on is the color of the stain. I'm leaning towards the lightest "natural" but like the warmth of red except it's too red. I can't decide about the darkest stain. It's a little too dramatic for me but I can't rule it out. But floor and wall should be stained the same so it's a big surface area. If anyone reads this blog, I am interested in your opinion.
And here's where the L7 Bricks are Heavy opener comes in. Tom and his excavation equipment are showing up at the church this week so if there was anything that I thought I might want to save and repurpose, I had to dig it up and get it out of the way. So I did that with the brick path in the front yard.
I took up the bricks and at first put them in the wheelbarrow. But then, I couldn't push the wheelbarrow with bricks up the slope (this renovation is testing my logic and physics knowledge as well as the realistic knowledge of my own strength!). So I started to make "cribbing" (I learned this term from foundation repair parlance) with the bricks. Then, I could build the cribbing fairly tall so I didn't have to bend over and break my back lifting bricks. Exactly six at time, and I carried them up the slope and placed them by the cut maple logs. But mission accomplished... the path is clear for the equipment to come up on to the property and smash up all the concrete, haul it away and pour new concrete foundation and make a retaining wall on the south side of the church.
Here's a photo of the South wall of the Church. David started to do some excavation and found a nice slate walkway that has been completely overgrown. It will be nice to have the path excavated and curtain drains installed. After we do that, I should have a clean and dry basement.
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