Doors, Garage and Otherwise

Appleseed finished pouring the concrete on the first floor of the garage and started building the forms for the second floor. They also installed the garage doors. Until they get that second floor completed, the door leading to the second floor looks like it is hanging in space, which I think is a lot of fun for some reason. Work has started on the freight elevator, too. The components have arrived and scaffolding has been erected to install them.

Work on my loft continues. Interior doors have been hung. All tiling is complete. HVAC is installed. New Heart Pine boards have been installed in some of the damaged areas.

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Embarrassing Geekiness and Its Application to Color Selection

I was pretty torn over the paint colors, so I decided to draw the space and try out various colors. I can't draw rooms at all, and I ended up throwing away the drawing. I decided instead to try something that I can draw vaguely well, use the wood and brick colors that exist in the space, and try out various combinations of complimentary colors. When I picked out the colors, I took the drawing to Appleseed. Mike and Whitney said that no one had ever brought them a steampunk cowboy for color matching. After some snickering they hung it up on their wall. We've put some variations of the colors on the walls to see what I like. Mike described the green color as being inspired by copper patina. The residence will have a combination of this green and a mustard yellow.

The tile is almost finished in the bathrooms. I don't like cleaning shower doors and especially hate cleaning shower curtains, so I wanted a walk in shower with neither of these nuisances. Some of the brick will be exposed, and covered with a sealant. Tile protects the areas that will get more moisture exposure and creates a ledge for soap and shampoo.

The guest bath is a more traditional setup, with the same tile on the floor, and "subway" tiles on the wall.

The final tiled area is a utility room for hosing down camping and scuba gear. This room's sheet rock walls will be painted with a water resistant sealant.

Finally, we've started to pour concrete in the parking deck. For those of you familiar with the grease trap hold-up, we decided to concrete around the proposed area for the traps, until we have a 100% confirmation that they will be needed. Hopefully this will help me get a Certificate of Occupancy earlier, and I can finally stop having to sit in 280 traffic for 2 hours every day.

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Self Storage Walls, Doors, and Lights

Last week Appleseed completed the self-storage walls, installed doors, and hung light fixtures. All that's left on the units themselves are paint and door hardware. Other improvements that will take place over the next month are the installation of a security system, rear stairwell, and finishing the customer bathroom. Construction for the freight elevator is currently underway. [gallery order="DESC"]

Revolving Television Design

When I bought The Counts Bros. Building it contained two freight elevators that were no longer functional. Actually, they might have been functional but I wasn't brave enough to try them out. The first picture below shows the lifting platform, looking down the elevator shaft from the 2nd floor. We removed the shafts and rotting platforms. However, the gearing and pulley wheel were still in great shape (not to mention GIGANTIC). In the pictures below you can see the them as found, and later removed.

We set out to find a creative way to use the elevator machinery in my residence. I suggested hanging it on the wall as art, but Appleseed had a better idea. A television and speakers would be mounted on a wall in the center of the loft, shown on the plans below. They designed the wall to rotate so that the TV can be viewed from the entertainment space, kitchen, dining area or office area.

The mechanism used to rotate the wall would be the elevator gears. In the conceptual drawing below you can see the television, speakers and receiver mounted on the wall. To the right of the Television the round gears are mounted on the fixed wall and connected to the TV wall with a belt drive that rotates the wall as the gears are turned.

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Knocking out walls

Appleseed knocked out the parts of the rear wall that will form the garage doors. Apparently this is dangerous and can collapse the building so I went to Chicago that day. You can see from the picture below where they installed a steel beam to reinforce the wall, and covered up the openings with plywood. They're also digging for the concrete floor footings. The digging revealed the original base for the wooden support beams. I thought it was interesting these were brick, but now that I think about it, I don't what else they would have been.

Finally, they've started building the forms to pour the concrete ramp coming down from the alley.

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Better Storage Framing Pictures

I had neither good light nor a good camera on hand when I first took pictures of the self-storage framing. These pictures are better. If you look closely you can see Melton lurking in the shadows. He and Roxane claimed to be measuring something. [gallery order="DESC"]

Residence Framing Complete

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Stairwell Framing

We've started to add framing,  which will enclose the staircase with fire rated walls.  I'm especially excited about this because now I don't have to climb the big ladder to get upstairs. This stairwell entrance will be accessed from a small front lobby on the eastern side of the building, seen in the lower right of the 1st floor plans.  The staircase leads to a second floor landing with access to the residence and the self storage units, seen in the lower right of the 2nd floor plans.

The self-storage freight elevator will be behind the staircase, and can be accessed from the garage or by walking past the stairs.

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"Just letting you know your building is on fire..."

Jeremy posted a comment on the floor fire which reminded me that I had failed to share a good story.  Two Saturdays ago I got a voicemail message from Jerry LaSuer. Here's the transcription from Google Voice:

Hey Wade, it's your nosy neighbor, Jerry, from across the street.  It is, oh, 8:15 or something like that and I was just going by your building over there and inside they're using flames to burn something off the floor and, I don't know, I'm just being nosy and just letting you know that.  You probably know that and it's probably all fine, but just in case, it seemed like, oh I don't know, I just didn't want your building to burn. So that's all.  Just telling you that.  No need to call me back but I'll keep watching over there. Talk to you later. Bye.

I was interested in the building not burning down, myself, so I ran next door to check on it.  Turns out there was just some red goo on the floor that was being stubborn and they had used a controlled burn to remove it.  Wish I had a picture!

The main thing I love about living in the Loft District is the sense of community.  Everybody knows everybody else and we all take care of each other.  Thanks, Jerry!

Beautiful Floors

A strange reddish vinyl goo, which I hesitate to call paint, covered the retail space floors when I bought the Counts Bros. building.  Even worse, Bhate Environmental told me that the goo most likely contained asbestos, so I was thrilled to see the goo removed.  Underneath were the original wood floors.  Although the dust hasn't been cleaned out, you can already see how good the sanded floors are going to look. Some of the old wood had been patched with metal plates.  We replaced these metal patches with wood recovered from rear of the 1st floor, which was taken up to build secured indoor parking.

Appleseed has also started digging the new elevator shaft.  The freight elevator will allow self-storage customers to move their belongings from their storage space to the secured parking area.  Customers will also be able to access the elevator from the street-front lobby.

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Rooftop Views

Believe it or not, I had never been on the Counts Bros. roof before this week.  I knew the roof would have to be replaced, and would have a similar view to the Rhodes-Carroll building, so I never bothered looking at it during the due diligence process. Although the weather delayed some flashing and sealing, Appleseed has almost finished installing the new roof, so Tuesday I decided to climb up and look at it.

The original tar roof was heavy causing the ceiling joists around the skylights to bow.  The guys replaced it with a lightweight energy efficient roof.  There is a foam insulation layer covered by a membrane to shed water.  The light color reflects light to save energy during hot Alabama summers.

Unfortunately budget constraints prevent me from building a rooftop deck.  Hopefully there will be a phase 2, because I'd hate to miss out on all of these great 2nd Avenue views.

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Original Wallpaper Uncovered

We removed the newer drywall-like wall coverings to get to the original plaster.  Interestingly enough, there is wallpaper on a small portion of the plaster at the front of the building in the display window.  I set the wide picture as my computer desktop background. [gallery columns="2"]

I've Got 8 Windows, One for Each of Ya

I haven't been on the 2nd floor since Mike took out the stairs.  I naturally assumed that since I hadn't been there, nothing of significance could have possibly happened. I discovered I was wrong last weekend when my friend Jonny was in Birmingham visiting his family for Thanksgiving.  We stopped by Counts Bros. for a quick tour.  I've never been able to resist a tall, unstable ladder and the construction crew just happened to have left one inside.  It reached all the way to the 2nd floor, so Jonny and I spent the next 30 minutes laughing about old times while he filled out the legal waivers.

We climbed to the 2nd floor and discovered Appleseed had already taken out the center wall at the front of the future loft!  So now, for the first time you can see all 8 windows together, despite my photographic ineptitude.

The Roof, It's Been Reported, Is Not on Fire

Got some good news from Mike this morning: "We have completed 95% of the demolition and trash removal.  We have restructured the skylights and the roofing material is being delivered tomorrow [11/24/2010] to begin roofing, which should be complete by Friday."

Update: The roofing material is on the roof:

Parking Construction Underway

We're building parking inside the building to accommodate tenants and mini-storage customers.  There are also seven extra spaces to lease to loft residents or local businesses looking for secured parking.  The lower floor will be split into two levels each with 6 spaces.  There will be a concrete safety wall dividing the parking from the retail space. Cars will enter from the alley with doors secured by codes or wireless ID devices.  Unfortunately some of the original windows will have to be removed, but they were mostly gone anyway so it's not much of a loss; on the other hand we'll be able to keep and incorporate the brick arches over the garage doors.

You don't think about Birmingham being so hilly when you're downtown, but the alley is about 6 feet higher than street level.  The green door below is at alley level.  This door originally entered into a small platform for loading and unloading.  We took out that structure in order to put two ramps from the alley, one to the bottom floor and one to the second floor of the parking garage.  Both parking floors are actually contained within the 1st floor of the building; the ceiling is 17 feet high, and we will have to lower the bottom floor slightly to make two complete floors within a floor.

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Plaster and Brick Restoration

We took the newer sheet rock walls off to expose the original plaster from the 1910s.  I love the distressed look.  It will be polished and sealed to preserve it.  If you've ever been in Pat's office, I'm hoping it will look similar to his walls. There was water damage in the plaster on the western wall.  A lot of the plaster simply crumbled off to expose the brick underneath.  However, Once the plaster is cleaned up, I think the brick peaking through will add a lot of character.

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Construction Started on Counts Bros. Building

Construction on the Counts Bros. Building started last week.  First we removed the awnings.  These windows that had been covered by the awnings are made from a beautiful textured glass, and will restore the look of the front to the original condition.  The windows had been painted over from the inside, but we are removing that paint.  When we're finished the windows will add a lot of light to the retail space. [gallery]

The Plans

Mike's been working diligently on the 1st draft of the renovation plans.  The first floor will have a split level parking deck in the rear with 12 spaces.  There are 3200 square feet available for lease to one or two retail businesses.  The right entryway will lead to a staircase and freight elevator, as well as an office space.  The left entryway will open directly to a retail business.

The front 2000 square feet of the 2nd floor will be my living space.  2 bedrooms, 2 baths.  The space behind the master bath is a large walk in closet.  The washer/dryer is in the closet for easy access.  The circle in between the master bedroom and the entertainment room is a spinning wall for a TV to move between the two rooms.

The back 5000 square feet will be self storage units catering to the neighborhood loft residents.  The basic unit is 4x8; the walls are modular and the spaces can be combined to accommodate larger requirements.  Units are secure and climate controlled.  Customers will have garage access to park next to the rear entry hall on the first floor, and can move their stored items to their unit via the freight elevator.

Appleseed's Doggie Day Care Project

Appleseed just finished up the Doggie Day Care ( @DogDays_Bham ) live/work project on 112 18th St N. The grand ribbon cutting is at 2:30. I'm going over there to congratulate them. http://ow.ly/2E9pR