What is it, what you gonna do with it?
Here we go again…
It was a dark and stormy night. Well, no, not really stormy. Or even night. But it was dark. And wet. My son was with me, along with my dad and daughter, in October of 2018 to discover and salvage whatever millwork we could find in a 135 year old commercial building in a nearby town. The brick structure was slated for demo; the roof had leaked for years, all the windows in the rear were bricked shut decades earlier, and the upper floors had been vacant at least a couple of generations. One part of the middle floor was rotted through. It was safe, but caution was the order of the day.
After finding a unique door and claiming it, my son spotted (via the flashlight app on his iphone) a bar, or counter, along a back brick wall. Think something like this:
Only, not as nice. Here's the only (bad) picture I took of the piece when it was still in the building.
At that point, it was already upside down. And that pic is of the end cap that survived. Now, I can't say "Let's start at the beginning" because, well, this blog post is the first. What I'm saying is, it'd be nice to show you more of the counter together, but I can't. We got it out from under bricks and other building detritus, and got it to the door. Then we got it partially out the door and into the hall. But only one end. Too long to get into the hall and stand up, for the trip down the stairs. So we had to take it apart. Beat it apart, really.
Oh, and did I mention it wasn't complete? One end was there, the other was cut off and the 'return' was nowhere to be found. Not complete, and rotten in places. Yep, wet and crumbly. But there was something about it that captured my imagination. After the beat-up and take down, the parts were carted across town to my dad's shop space. And there it sat for over a year. In early December of last year, I resolved to do something with it. And that has "something" has been proceeding to the point a blog was in order. So, here we go.
Next installment, pictures of the pieces as they sat in dad's shop space, waiting for their turn in the sun as it were. And, more talk of what to do with this thing. In other words, maybe answer the questions in the title of this installment?? Yeah, I know. But these things take time. Until then, thanks for looking.
Here we go again…
It was a dark and stormy night. Well, no, not really stormy. Or even night. But it was dark. And wet. My son was with me, along with my dad and daughter, in October of 2018 to discover and salvage whatever millwork we could find in a 135 year old commercial building in a nearby town. The brick structure was slated for demo; the roof had leaked for years, all the windows in the rear were bricked shut decades earlier, and the upper floors had been vacant at least a couple of generations. One part of the middle floor was rotted through. It was safe, but caution was the order of the day.
After finding a unique door and claiming it, my son spotted (via the flashlight app on his iphone) a bar, or counter, along a back brick wall. Think something like this:
Only, not as nice. Here's the only (bad) picture I took of the piece when it was still in the building.
At that point, it was already upside down. And that pic is of the end cap that survived. Now, I can't say "Let's start at the beginning" because, well, this blog post is the first. What I'm saying is, it'd be nice to show you more of the counter together, but I can't. We got it out from under bricks and other building detritus, and got it to the door. Then we got it partially out the door and into the hall. But only one end. Too long to get into the hall and stand up, for the trip down the stairs. So we had to take it apart. Beat it apart, really.
Oh, and did I mention it wasn't complete? One end was there, the other was cut off and the 'return' was nowhere to be found. Not complete, and rotten in places. Yep, wet and crumbly. But there was something about it that captured my imagination. After the beat-up and take down, the parts were carted across town to my dad's shop space. And there it sat for over a year. In early December of last year, I resolved to do something with it. And that has "something" has been proceeding to the point a blog was in order. So, here we go.
Next installment, pictures of the pieces as they sat in dad's shop space, waiting for their turn in the sun as it were. And, more talk of what to do with this thing. In other words, maybe answer the questions in the title of this installment?? Yeah, I know. But these things take time. Until then, thanks for looking.