Studio Underfoot...

The studio portion of the plank floor has been completed, or maybe "constructed" is the proper description. This took quite a bit of time and work but should be easier than when we begin work on the gallery alley floor.


The gallery alley slopes for a much longer distance than the studio floor did. The studio floor dropped 1 3/4" from the entry end to the transition end (15 feet)...the gallery alley is probably 25%longer...and will drop at roughly the same rate.


I'm kinda partial to the salvaged condition of the floor (once roof) planks. They're as big as life with their knots and cracks, and "patina". We'll toy with the different ways to finish them, but I - for this moment - am leaning towards their present "character".

The only thing neither Georgie or I are not 100% positive of is whether or not there's enough salvaged planks to complete the entire gallery alley with? It'd be a nice bonus if there were, but after cutting out the unuseable parts of each board, we may end up short.

We'll start the gallery alley floor after the next 3 stages are finished (electrical, furnace, insulation/ceiling).

Back to it!

Well I'd never guessed we'd be flooring already, but what can you do while there are no contractors around?!


We framed in the front floor yesterday and today, and sheeted it and just started laying planks. I'm amazed we're getting this done so soon. The roofing planks that we salvaged are really doing the job, but its slow going once we got to them...have to be fairly innovative to fit things together when they're old beat up, knot holed and cracked planks. But, hey this is really fitting for a project representing what the building once was.


This could go on a while, but once this east end is floored, we have to do the tricky gallery section...tricky because the level drops so much...the building is roughly 4" lower on the east end than the west! We don't want sudden "step down or ramps", we have to go gradual so as not the create a weird walking experience.

The furnace has been delivered but not yet installed. The electrician may show in a couple weeks...

...we'll just forge ahead while we have opportunities.

All Buttoned Up!

We're now all ready for the elements outside...got the studio finished and trimmed out for winter. Georgie painted over the siding repair work yesterday with the temps in the 60's and a 25mph wind to dry the brush work.


I spent yesterday painting and putting up trim boards around the south windows and finished up the small "feed door" and trimmed the front door and east and north sides today.

This may be the last post on the building for a while, at least until we can once again get moving and make some progress. Wish us luck!

A Pox on the Studio!

The studio building looks like heck from the outside right now. Georgie has been filling cracks and holes to help seal up incidental damage which occurred while removing and re-attaching the old siding.


I spent the day yesterday going through salvaged roof planks and cutting trim for windows and the door. Felt like the old days when I was working at the old Lumbermen's Millwork in Ft Dodge...standing behind a rip saw, eating sawdust!


Then we set up the trim boards for priming, which we'll do as soon as the inside temp reaches 50-55 degrees...have a ways to go at the moment but it should make it by noon.

Keep Warm!

East End Redressed

We managed to get the east end redressed today...30-35mph winds driving us nuts, but that's par for the course here. It's not easy to reattach old siding to an aged building, but Georgie's pretty good at sorting that stuff out, and I had tried keeping everything in the right order.


We have now put in all 9 windows and the front door! We're fast approaching the time to get the electrician back in and wire the place and the furnace! We have only the west end to finish first, then we'll be ready for the weather! It was actually snowing (flurries) here tonight around 5:30 p.m.! Good grief...but it is that time of year!

The place looks in bad need of trim and paint...we'll try and address the trim issue in the next week or so...the paint may well be waiting for spring, as I've mentioned before.

Things are shaping up!

East Side Story

The east side of the studio building was "Typared", "Windowed, and "Doored" today. (Please forgive my new version of proper grammar.) I'm finding it hard to do the blog because I'm spent.

We started around 8 a.m. and worked through 5:45 p.m....no breaks or stopping. Too many things to work through and wanted the typar to be on before morning as we're not into high winds and hanging light weight sails in a gale.


First we got the siding off in fairly good order...Georgie doing the removal work and I trying to stack it in a sequence that we could later reverse when re-applying. The old building looked like an old reptile that had just shed it's skin!


Once we exposed the outer planking we removed an old loft door, that had been covered for many years by the siding. From the inside, it was really obvious to us both that this old loft door space would have made the coolest window over the doorway! But, it's no time to throw the project behind by weeks waiting to get a custom window made and put in! So back to the original plan...we're taking that door inside and reapplying it where it will stay...on the inside wall.


The typar work took some doing and the wind had come up more than was helpful, but we finally got it finished and then got the windows in.

We just started re-applying the siding when it just got too dark to see what was going on...goodbye daylight savings time...more work tomorrow!