Scary Basement; Part II - The Sequel

Moving from the spacious, well-lighted main room of the basement (previous post) to the scary parts of the basement takes just three steps -- UP!



Approximately half of the total basement's area has this higher floor level, which means that the ceiling is much closer to the top of your head. It's this way at both the front and the back of the basement. In fact, the beam shown below is located under the entrance to the store (under the tile floor and display windows). Not only are these beams huge, but they are installed in pairs.



The original building had a smaller footprint, and this wall, which shows the thickness of the foundation, was the rear wall of the basement at that time.



Bits of the 1927 remodel are still present, like the door handles on the doors leading from the main room to the higher levels in the back and front basements.



Then there's this lovely handmade vernacular wooden door. It's very sturdy, which is a good thing. We believe that this is where the bad dreams and nightmares were kept, and we don't need any of those!

Ground Floor - housewares, notions, and catalog department - Watch your step, please.

Most of our posts have focused on the main floor because there is just so much to show and tell. This time we're going downstairs to see the lower levels - I say "levels", plural, because there are two.

Many people remember fabric and notions, boys clothing, and sale items being in the basement. This is what it looks like now.



Kind of grubby, huh? This room has the same metal ceiling as the main floor, and is as large as the main floor back to the staircase. Speaking of the staircase, do you remember that it makes a classy 45º turn at the landing near the bottom of the stairs, spreading your view across the entire room? There's more of that elegant Art Deco railing, too.



One of the coolest things about the lower level is the native stone foundation. These stones came from Eckle's Quarry. Does anyone know where that was?



This photo shows the large footer stones at the base of the original foundation, and how the J C Penney Company's 1927 remodeling dug out the basement to allow a lower floor in the retail section. Below the orginal footers, the wall is concrete.

What is THAT?

This ghostly glow is one of the new lighting technologies we're considering. It's made by E-lite Technologies. In the photo above, it's stretched out along a darken stair tread. In the photo below, I've added a bit more light so you can see the stairs.




… and where might we be planning to use this cool effect?


In addition to defining the stairs, it might be useful stretched beside a handrail, or wrapped around one of the support posts, or outlining an architectural feature. Since it comes in narrow strips and/or as 30" wide sheets, and can be cut with household scissors, produces no heat, and uses almost no electricity at all, well …

Any ideas?

Welcome to the Chamber of Commerce and Friends

Washington Preservation LLC is pleased to share these preliminary sketches of the office suite which will be occupied by the Washington Chamber of Commerce. We hope they'll be able to move in by late spring next year, but there's a lot of work to do in the meantime.

See what I mean? This photo shows the current situation -- peeling paint, worn stair covering, and office walls made of masking tape.



Entry to the office suite will be from West Main Street. If you look at the north side of the building, you will see a ghost window with a window sill -- that's the location of the new door, shown on this architect's preliminary drawing.



There will be an airlock entry, located at the foot of the existing stairway, which leads into the main floor where there will be a reception desk, a work area for spreading out projects, a restroom, and a conference room.



Upstairs on the mezzanine level there will be four individual offices, another restroom, and additional space for small groups of people to meet. A second stairway will connect the mezzanine to the main floor.



Undoubtedly there will be minor changes to these sketches, but this is the general idea.

Goop Off … (you were waiting for this, weren't you?)

The goop drooled down the bricks for two days, and those were two warm days with temperatures in the upper 60s and low 70s, which is good for the chemical reaction that's needed to soften the paint.

On Thursday morning, I stopped on my way out of town to snap this photo. Rusty had just started removing the goop with water.




When I returned just before 5:00, this is what I discovered.



Not exactly what we imagined, but definitely a step in that direction. If you look closely, you can see the natural color of the cement hoods over the windows.

During the 1870s, fancy window hoods like these were often used on commercial buildings because someone had figured out how to make the molds and fill them with a high sand content concrete. This was new technology, and much cheaper and faster than having stone hoods carved by hand. In addition, it allowed more intricate designs to be made.
(source: Victorian Architecture of Iowa, Wm. Plymat Jr.)

With the change in the weather, this might be as far as we get with paint removal this fall. We'll have to wait and see.

Goop On …

Apply remover with a sweeping, side - side motion.

Allow magic to 'work' for at least 12 hours, avoiding rain, snow, sleet, freezing temeratures, etc.

Check progress on the following day.

(to be continued)

You're missing something!

and we're missing two front doors.

The modern aluminum/glass front entry doors were installed on top of the green metal panels that covered the façade. Most of those panels were removed a couple of months ago. However, because of the way they were installed, in the air lock entry between the two sets of front doors, the green panels remained until last week when the outer set of doors, along with the panels, were removed. Yep, you guessed it - yellow and black tiles all the way.

Someday …

… it might look a lot like this. The machinery for the old roll-out awning is upstairs, and the 'awning guy' tells us that it seems to be in working condition. How cool is that?! It needs new canvas, of course, but can be used again.

There are some details on this architect's drawing that have been tweaked since the drawing was made, so keep your eyes on this web site, or on the building itself, to see those differences as they appear in the coming weeks and months.

Whee-e-e-e!!!

Lots of changes are happening all at once, and we're excited to see them. In the near future you can expect to see some real bricks, a new transom, and open windows on the second floor. It won't all happen overnight, but it's already starting.

We hope there are enough warm days left this fall to actually use the pool. No, you can put your swimming suit back in the drawer. It's there to catch the goop and glop and water from the paint removal process.



At the same time that the paint is coming down Apex Construction is putting up a base to hold the transom glass and trim that goes just below the upstairs windows.



The other really cool change is ~



OPEN WINDOWS!
We can see out, and even better, there's enough light upstairs to navigate without running into the wall. We'll still need to repair the loose sashes, replace the old glass, and do some painting (eventually), but at least the Bryson Block looks alive. TK Enterprises is removing the plywood for us. Thanks, Terry!

Up, up, and …

away goes the old mortar! The joints between the bricks will be cleaned out, and after a section of the wall has been through that process, the paint will be removed. Once the paint is gone, the wall will be washed. Then broken bricks will be replaced, and new mortar will be worked into the joints.

What else has been going on?

It seems like we have talked with at least 1,000 contractors and skilled crafts people about their particular areas of expertise.

They have removed radiators and plumbing fixtures, flourescent lights and fans, sampled exterior paint and mortar, loaned scaffolding, and measured, sketched, and proposed.



We have ripped up over 1,000 square feet (no exgaggeration this time!) of plywood & tile to reveal a maple floor.



We've chopped into walls to see what's there, and chalked in proposed new openings for additional doors.



But the best news so far is that exterior paint removal and tuck pointing will begin, weather permitting, within the next week! and part of that process will include removing the plywood that covers the second story windows.

September Surprises

Through the summer and early fall, our main objective has been to remove the most recent layers of remodeling to reveal the earliest layers.

We ripped up carpet and sanded one of the the display window floors to see what they were like -- oak!



We scraped aluminum paint from the display window frames -- copper!



We removed plywood from the back walls of the display windows -- wow!



We talked about getting more natural light into the retail space at the front of the building by removing the plywood at the top of the paneled wall that separates the display window from the store.



The first pry sounded distinctly like glass, and we discovered that our 'new idea' had been there all along. Eventually those holes will be filled with frosted glass to allow light to enter, but to reduce the glare.