"You look like a chimney sweep."

(At least he didn't laugh.)

After spending an afternoon cleaning the sooty apartment-to-be floor, with occcasional breaks to scoop up loose plaster, I was greeted with this observation. He was probably quite right. To imagine the amount of soot I was wearing, you have to see the floor.



This photo shows the difference between the clean(er) floor and the truly sooty floor.

Changing it from 'before' to 'after' is a four step process. First, we used a mechanical buffer to loosen the top layers of soot. Then we vaccuumed (yes, Mom, I wore a mask.) The third step was to buff again with a little non-flammable cleaning fluid. Fourth, we wiped up the wet soot with rags. Each rag lasts about 2 minutes - then it's full of black slime and has to be retired. At the end of the day, the rags and my clothing go through the washing machine - twice! and the floor buffer pad and I go into the shower.

I wouldn't say that the floor is ready for finishing after all this, but it's certainly close!

Christmas Window

For those who are not right here in Washington, here's another view of our north display window. (see Dec. 2 for an evening view)

Before ~



After you-know-what ~





Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Going Up - Second Floor - Soot, Plaster, Lath, and "Great Potential"

Yes, we know that when a visitor says, "Wow, this place has great potential," what they really mean is something like, "What were you thinking? This is unbelieveably awful!"

Yup. We know. Check it out.



This view is from the rear apartment area, looking toward the front of the building and into the front apartment. If you think it looks dark now, you should have seen it before the plywood came off the front windows and we knocked holes in the wall.

This weekend we have been salvaging doors and trim pieces (more about that later), trying to remove the soot from the maple floor, and hauling boxes of plaster down to the dumpster.

Washington residents will probably remember that the building next door burned in about 1990 or so. Soot from that fire covers the floor in most of the upstairs. We're attacking it with face masks, a floor buffer, and a shop vac. Progress is slow but encouraging. See?

Before ~


After one round of buffing and vacuuming ~

OK - I've Changed My Mind

Time has been well spent!



Yesterday we uncovered the last bit of maple floor - wheew! This shot, taken from the mezzanine, doesn't show all of it, but you can see that we made it to the front doors. I'd need one of those panoramic cameras to show the whole 40 acres, and I'd probably have to hang upside down from the heating ductwork to get the photo. We all know THAT isn't going to happen, so if you want to see it in person, you're welcome to stop by.

~ Other Good News ~

We have received the structural engineer's initial report, and nearly everything looks fine. Some of the 'Mr. Fix-It' type repairs in the basement storage areas need to be upgraded, but we expected that. There is still some research* needed to verify a couple of things, but overall, we're feeling pretty good about the report.

*research - the act of crawling into dirty little spaces with a camera and snapping pictures into dark crevices to find out what holds things up in certain areas. Evidently the answer is 'steel I-beams'. Thank you JC Penney Company!

Does Time Seem To Be Standing Still?

Or is it just me?

For the longest time, it seemed like there was too much to do, and there were too many decisions to be made, and the phone call list just got longer and longer. In between the planning and the measuring and the meetings, we did what we could to remove the tile flooring, sand the display window floors, and remove aluminum paint from the copper.

Eventually, we succeeding in contacting the structural engineer, and the capenters, and the building inspector, and the architect, and the plumbing inspector, and the HVAC guys, and the paint removal guy, and the tuck pointing guy, and the electrician, and called to get the dumpster emptied (again!).

Then we met with each and every one of them, sometimes more than once. Then we waited for each person to do their special thing and get back to us.

While we waited to hear from the pros, we kept ripping up that old flooring and pulling the nails, refilling the dumpster several times.



This closeup of a small section of the floor will give you an idea of how many nails I've pulled. There are ten nails in four linear feet. I know - I counted them. One hundred nails every forty feet (the width of the room). And the next row of nails is only about 4" or 5" away. Each time we removed one 4 x 8 sheet of plywood underlayment, I pulled over 200 nails. I KNOW it was over 200 because each time the installer guy bent or broke a nail, he smacked it flat and put another one right next to it.
[I've never understood the theory behind nailing underlayment so thoroughly. Gravity is usually fairly reliable for holding things down, and the walls on each side of the room ought to be able to control any slipping. I'm sure there's a reason.]

Things are about to change! Today we reached the front door, but only on half of the room. The other half is still a couple of days away from finished, but we're expecting to finish this week. It's worth a visit, folks!

Looking Back

View of the north end of our block.

This view was scanned from an undated postcard. Using clues in the photograph, we know that the original photo used to make the postcard was taken before Stewart Pharmacy remodeled the buildings that today house Simply Spa, Advance Employment, and Washington Realty (1908).

Iron balconies, older style awnings (retracted), and original store fronts can be seen in this photo, as well as a few folks who were going about their business when the photographer captured this scene.

Looking Out

View inside the north display window at night, as seen by Craig Swift's camera.

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.