All Jacked Up Part 2

I left NYC for the church on Saturday morning of Labor Day Weekend. When I drove up the driveway this is what I saw.

The church had it's crumbling foundation ripped out and was completely resting on the cribbing that was made in the now non-existent, soon to be the brand new, dry and clean basement. I had a balance beam to navigate to get inside.

So I walked down to the "basement" to have a look before testing the strength of the ramp. Here's what's happening underneath. It's really impressive how it all works.

The rock that was in the crawlspace and nudging one of the foundation walls was broken apart to alleviate the pressure which now won't threaten the new wall that gets built.

When I got inside (thanks to yoga, my balance is good!), I saw that David had been busy dismantling the ceiling in the East loft. I was really happy to see the peak of the Church. It looked so much better to me.

Of course, when you rip things down, in this case the sheetrock, you have to make decisions about what you are going to put back up. We had to rip the sheetrock down because it was moist, smelled like it was moist, and parts of the Church had clearly suffered from various infestations while it was unoccupied for two years and thankfully I did not have to witness what had been living in parts of the insulation. So now the questions are: 1. How do we handle the horizontal beams? Wood? Metal rods to mimic the large tie rods? 2. What material do we use for the ceiling? I am leaning towards wood. William wants the wood to be painted white and I am leaning towards it having a clear varnish. My feeling is that if you spend that kind of money to clad the entire ceiling end to end with tongue and groove, you kind of want to show it off. I'm sure a lively discussion will ensue.

I started to go a little crazy thinking about all of these decisions and decided to do something sort of mindless and relaxing. So I cleaned, sanded and primed a few of the large storm windows that were brought up from the basement when I still had one. 

And finally, after many modifications and bids, I  have ordered the windows and doors for the west elevation. That's the side with the view of the Hudson River. They should arrive from Andersen in 4 to  6 weeks and hopefully they will be installed before November 1. So, in one of my most favorite improvements, we go from this:

To this:

The church has no plumbing as of this moment. I had a working toilet but it had to be disconnected when the foundation work began so I can't camp out there anymore until it gets hooked back up. Check out the view of the house I stayed at on Sunday night. This is why there was a Hudson River Valley school of painters.