Culinary Quest

Just hot... 95 degrees today. Removing blown insulation from the "attic" was not fun.
More tomorrow.

Although this is a holiday, the crew decided that they would rather have the money than the free time so we worked. At least two of the four did. We put up plastic to keep the insulation dust from spreading back to the areas that we've already cleaned, tore down the drywall, removed the insulation in the walls, removed the radiators and took down the suspended ceiling. Tomorrow we bring down the 2nd ceiling (yes, there were 2 levels of ceiling). The 2nd ceiling is the one with all of the blown insulation heaped on top.

The architect finally came by with a preliminary floor plan. If he had listened to what I originally asked for, we would probably have a final plan. Not really, but his plan needed a lot of tweaking. Once tweaked, it looks a lot like my original plan that I prepared in Excel. He said that I should have a final plan for submission in a week. He also remeasured a few areas to make sure that the drawings were correct. (He did have to alter a few measurements.)

Tomorrow I plan on going to city hall to get information about the permits needed to get this place going... permits for signage, conducting business, etc.

Well, the project is moving on. The architect finally showed up on Friday, but without plans. He says that the problem is the CAD person's computer failed. We discussed ripping down the entire ceiling in the front portion of the building, tearing down the cinder block walls to the HVAC room and structural issues with the back of the building. We've decided to bring in a structural engineer to examine the structure of the balcony and to address some of the other issues in the back half of the building.

My work crew finished cleaning up the blown in insulation and other minor issues in the room that they were working in on Wednesday. We've moved my household items from the far back to that space and have begun taking down in the walls in the far back.

The guys finished removing the blown in insulation today along with the carpet pads and more fiberboard walls. I let them go early since it is very uncomfortable wearing respirators all day long.

It is a big improvement over yesterday, as far as looks go.

I've got people doing it. I'm talking about working on the extended part of the building. We tore down the ceiling and most of the walls find abundant supplies of blown insulation in the process. We've got about 1 foot of powdery insulation covering the floor of the place. I'm glad that I had the idea to put up plastic sheets over the openings before proceeding. I was going to take a picture but I really didn't want to expose my camera to all of that dust. We would work for about 20 minutes and then take a five minute break just to get some fresh air. (We all wore respirators, safey googles, hats and long sleeved shirts.)

Now I've waited for a while and the dust has settled so here is a picture.
















Also, we took 1,320 pounds worth of cast iron radiators to the scrap metal recycler today. I got a whopping $23.10 for them. It really isn't worth it, but since I need to get rid of them anyway...

On the architect front... JR called today and said that the preliminary drawings won't be available until Friday. The CAD person had an emergency and won't be able to finish the prints until Friday morning.

Future dining room at end of day on Friday.


Friday and today were fairly busy days. The architect says that he will have preliminary drawings to me by the middle of the week. I've contacted the metal recycling place and they will pay for my old radiators.

We finished up the main room in the front (future dining room) on Friday and started to work on the bar area today.






The future bar area at the end of the day on Friday. Boxes moved, 2 layers of ceiling removed, most paneling gone...

All four guys finally showed up today. Progress was great. We are 95% complete with the demolition on the front part of the building.
This is a picture from the same spot as the picture in the previous post. All walls in this area have been removed. Tomorrow, removing the last few remaining items and cleaning up. I promised the crew Negra Modelos after work.

Well, one of the two new helpers was sick today. We still made a lot of progress. I talked to Rusty today about removing the masonry nails from the plaster walls. I'll try his technique tomorrow. Notice that most of the radiator pipes are gone from the ceiling.

Or at least they say that they'll be back. Of course, I'm referring to my 2 new hires. I'm not taking down the help wanted signs until these two begin to show that they are actually willing to work for me.

Update... while I was typing this 2 more guys showed up and asked for work. I told them to start tomorrow at 8:00. I told them that I will only guarantee 2 weeks work for them. Now I have a bit of a safety net.

Today's work has involved removing the remaining drywall ceiling from the front half of the original building. There is still a plaster ceiling about 1 foot above where the old drywall ceiling was. I've also started to remove radiators and the associated plumbing. I've made 2 trips to the landfill today and will probably make several more each day until this project is wrapped up. At least I'll have some help.




Based on my demolition, it looks like the entrance to the building was once in the center rather than one entrance on each side of the front. This is a picture from the inside showing the front window and the outline of what I believe to the the original entrance way.

Well, my two workers decided not to show up for work. Now I've got to start my search all over again.

Yes, believe it or not... I can't do everything all by myself. I've hired two guys to help with the demolition and renovations. They start at 8:00 tomorrow (Monday).

Here are pictures of the latest (before I hauled the debris to the landfill and then after).

The photo on the left shows the large amount of debris from one room. The picture on the right shows the entrance way after removing everything, down to the brick outer wall.

Now that I've recovered from the trip to Spain I've started work on the restaurant. Demolition phase is progress the pictures at the top are before I started tearing down walls and such.




















This was the status at the end of the day....

We're back from a quick business trip in Phoenix and a short vacation in Spain. I'll post pictures on my photo blog.