Drywall Coming Up!

First thing on Thursday morning, there is was. Stacks and stacks of the stuff.


When I left at 9:00, this was the scene.

Keep your eyes open

People in Washington have noticed that there are more openings on the second floor.



"Why?" they ask.



The simple answer is that we'll need a light source in each room when the drywall is installed, and we think/hope it's starting this week.

"Why don't you just take down all the plywood?" We need to wait until we can coordinate the removal of the plywood and the installation of the repaired window sashes. It's just a matter of (a brief) time before all the plywood will be gone!

Just a sample of the view

Taken on Tuesday from Apartment 1.

Friday Update

The picture tells the story. I won't say they actually got in each other's way, but there were FOUR crews at work on the building today.



Up in the apartments, Zager Plumbing was finishing the last bits of plumbing, and the plumbing inspector stopped by to see how it looked. Bob and Bill got an A +!

Higher up, in the apartment attics, Johnson Controls was working hard to finish the apartments' ductwork and return air vents.

The crew from Apex Construction returned today and wrapped up several small jobs - leveled one entry floor, added framing for the doorway arches in Apartment 2, and framed the kitchen walls and half walls.

Everyone working in the apartments is hurrying to finish their particular piece of the job before the drywall guys come in next week.

Meanwhile, down in the back basement, the concrete cutters from Iowa Bridge and Culvert were making a terrible racket with a concrete saw and a jack hammer. They're removing the existing concrete floor to permit construction of an exit hallway and restrooms with adequate headroom. More photos later when they're finished.

Back to Front

Back in Apartment 2, the furnace and ductwork are being installed. We chose a Hi-Velocity unit which provides continuous air circulation instead of the usual On/Off system. We understand this will be a benefit to both the amount of energy needed to heat or cool the apartment, and to the problems caused by having high ceilings.



The ducts are just about 3 inches in diameter, and come already insulated. To compensate for the small diameter, the furnace fan moves the air faster when it's adding heat or cooling, hence the name Hi-Velocity.




Up front, in Apartment 1, the rough electrical wiring is being installed. At this point, you have to imagine furniture and TVs and computer desks - people actually living in this space!

Bryson Week In Review

Rough plumbing in both apartments is almost completed! Seen above is part of the bathroom in Apartment 2; drains and feed lines.



HVAC equipment has been lugged upstairs and most of it has been moved into the apartment attics. I'll save you the trouble of asking 'Where are the attics?"
Here ~

This shows just Apartment 2's attic. The ceiling in the hallway and bathroom/laundry room is only 8 feet high. A similar treatment is being used in the same areas of Apartment 1.


In Apartment 1, the new ceiling framing is being installed.

Stage 1

Stage 2


Back at home, we're cleaning up the doors which will be used for the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen pantries. These doors have been here since 1876, and we don't see any reason to get rid of them now. They just need a little TLC and a fresh coat of paint. Under the blue and the green and the peach and the cream layers, we've discovered the original painted grain surface. Unfortunately, we don't have the skill or time to preserve it.




Down in the basement, the last piece a huge, HEAVY furnace is sitting quietly, waiting for Hercules to come back and finish ripping its guts out and hauling it away. This was a really awful job, but necessary to allow construction of a new exit from the basement. We think Hercules is quite a guy! Thanks, Ryan!!

No! Wait! Door Number One!

The entrance into Apartment 1 is a short hall with a large closet and a powder room on the left. Directly ahead is the back wall of the bedroom closet.



For reference, the arrows indicate where I stood to take the pictures. There is no Photo #5 in this set.





Photo #2 ~ The entry closet and powder room are on the left, the bedroom is on the right, and the opening in the center leads to the bathroom/laundry. The wall between the foyer and the kitchen hasn't been built yet.


Photo #3 ~ Again, the wall betweeen the entry and kitchen is missing. The post in the center of the picture is the only one that wasn't 'swallowed' by a wall. You can see it on the drawing as a little circle inside a box.


Photo #4 ~ We're facing the bathroom, with the diagonal bedroom closet on the right, and the bedroom doorway just beyond it, hidden by the closet framing. The powder room is in the foreground and the bathroom/laundry are behind it.

Bonus Photo



This was taken from the north west corner of the bedroom, looking toward the position of Photo #2.

Door Number Two

Photo 1 location, one day later

Don't Look Now, but …

… that's a carpenter, and those are walls!

This is a view from the top of the stairs showing the entrance to Apartment 2. (OK, so there's no front door yet.) Let's call this Photo 1.



Use this map to figure out where I was standing when I took the pictures. The arrows tell which way the camera was aimed.




Photo 2, taken at the end of the entry hallway facing the living room windows.


Photo 3 looking from the west wall of the apartment through the dining room into the bathroom.


Photo 4 looking from the west wall of the apartment into the small central hallway that leads to the bedroom and bathroom. The little jog on the left is a closet.


Photo 5 is a view from the northwest corner of the living room looking back toward the southeast. The bedroom is the area behind the wall.

We just switched from demolition to construction!

Super Saturday

I just hope that I can move under my own power tomorrow morning!

We started out just after 7:30 am by doing general clean up on the main floor, putting away the tools and removing trash. Then we carried several boxes of floor tiles out of the basement and started filling the dumpster for something like the 12th time.

About 10:00, the crew grew larger. Everyone went to the basement and things began to happen! By 3:00, the floor tiles were gone. Four shelving units had been disassembled and carried upstairs. One wall and part of another had been taken down. Three pizzas had disappeared. Thirty feet of heating ductwork had been taken down. Half a mile of phone wire was coiled neatly. Twenty ceiling lights had been taken down and stacked in the back room.



On the north wall, all the loose concrete had been knocked down, shoveled into buckets, and hauled up to the dumpster. The not-so-loose concrete was gone, too.



Now the fun begins! Planning details are beginning to take shape. This soffit design, still under development, repeats the Art Deco lines used on shelving and trim by Penneys in the late 1920s.

"I'm puzzled by how the apartments fit…"

A number of people have wondered about this ~
"I'm puzzled by how the apartments fit - elevation-wise - with the mezzanine. Are they a third floor altogether? And if so, is there something west of them?"

~ so here's an attempt to explain.

Once upon a time, around 1876, the Bryson Block was brand new. It was two stories high, in the usual manner with a main floor, a basement, and an upstairs. When it was new, it was only 66 feet deep, so it didn't fill the lot all the way to the alley. It housed two retail shops - a grocery in the south half, and a dry good store in the north half. Gentlemen's sleeping rooms occupied the second floor. We know this information from reading newspaper ads and the Small Talk column in the Washington County Press

A one story brick ware room was attached at the rear of the dry goods store. However, there was no such room behind the grocery. Instead, the Sanborn Fire Maps show a small wooden storage building by the alley.


Sanborn Fire Map, 1885 (the oldest fire map I have) The numbers in the corners of the buildings tell how many floors; the little circles are for stove chimneys, the lines dashed through the exterior walls represent windows.

A two story brick addition was built at the rear of both shops, probably around 1894 or 1895. It absorbed the one story brick ware room and extended the building all the way to the alley. The date is conjecture - based on an 1895 news clipping that says the owner is installing a metal ceiling in his fine new building. The 1897 Sanborn Fire Map shows the addition, but the 1892 map does not.

At this point, the second floor is just like any other second floor - a layer of rooms above the main floor. The tall windows with arched tops are the second floor. That's where the apartments will be located.

In 1927, J C Penney Company arranged to move from their store next door into the larger building, and at the same time, remodeled to suit their needs. An article in the March 29, 1927 Washington Journal mentions that "a sort of mezzanine floor has been constructed to accomodate the office, which is equipped with the latest devices necessary, including ten cash carriers."

What did they do in 1927? Starting about 80 feet from the front of the building, the second floor walls, flooring, and joists were removed, leaving a huge cavern in the back of the building with a ceiling over the main floor which was about 26 feet high - all the way to the roof. Within that space, a mezzanine and second balcony were constructed, along with the staircases. The mezzanine floor was constructed lower than the second floor; ceiling height in the front of the main floor, under the apartments, is about 12 feet, but it's only 8 feet under the mezzanine.

One more clue exists -- the last two second story windows on the Main Street side of the building (west end) are not part of the apartments, but are now visible from the main floor, although they are unnaturally high in the wall, and are located over the stairs to the mezzanine.

What's west of the apartments is the mezzanine, but they are separated by a wall and by 15 feet of open air. On the apartment drawing, that wall is the west wall of Apartment 2. If we pulled the drywall off, we'd be looking at the mezzanine railing, just 15 feet away.

The Main Floor drawing shows a dotted line through the middle of Commercial 2 - that's the end of the second floor - its west wall.

If you are still curious, come in and see. Most afternoons, when the front door is propped open, we're there.

A Tour of the Main Floor

If you are walking along Marion Avenue, heading toward the Post Office, you will walk by the display windows of the unit we're calling Commercial 1. That unit is shown in light green, and is dedicated to retail use - no offices here! The unit has 1600 square feet of floor space, and over 500 square feet of display window. At this time, it is available.

Instead of continuing on to the Post Office, turn left at the corner and walk along West Main Street. Today, you'll pass a ghost window with a window sill. That's the approximate location of the first new doorway which provides a private entrance to Commercial 2, the Office Suite. In this drawing, it's the yellow one.

Commercial 2 has a reception area, conference room, work area, and restroom on the main floor. Remember those wide J C Penney stairs? They lead up to the mezzanine (not shown in this post) where there will be four private offices, an additional restroom, and an additional small meeting area. The Chamber of Commerce has dibs on Commercial 2, but it's contingent on selling their present building.

Continuing along West Main, you'll pass the entrance to Commecial 4. This is the blue area on the drawing, and leads to the lobby of the basement where Tim Johnson has plans to open a lunch room and night club. Only the lobby is located on the main floor, but you can see how the stairs descend. Again, we're using those nice broad J C Penney stairs.

The last of the new doorways on Main Street provides an entrance to Commercial 4, a small shop space, or perhaps an office, that's located under the mezzanine. Since it's less than 1,000 square feet, it's potential is more limited, but it could be 'just right' for someone. This unit is also available.

The bright green area at the southwest corner of the building will be rebuilt to provide a freight entrance and safe exit for the basement.