The Million Dollar Building

Tony on the ladder

2010-08-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

Tony finds himself up on a ladder very often. The downstairs ceilings are 13', the upstairs ceilings are 10'. We have a collection of ladders including a 6', two 8', a 10', a 16' extension ladder (for getting on the roof through the upstairs hatch) and a 30' extension ladder (for the stairwell and elevator shaft).

Being on a ladder is NOT his favorite thing, it's tiring and painful to him, but he perseveres. Here he is finishing the last corner of the great room. It couldn't be completed until the utility room on the other side of that wall had some old plumbing removed, the door moved from where Tony is standing to the hallway around the corner. This corner will now become the breakfast nook. Finally, we see paint in our future...and trim...and flooring...and on it goes!

It's the end of August, we are getting cooler evening, nighttime and early morning temperatures. The local vinyards are harvesting their grapes. Our local vintner, Calaboose Cellars, has encouraged anyone with a sunny spot to install a vinyard, even a micro-vinyard, and they buy the grapes. I tasted their latest offerings at a recent gathering, and it's getting better all the time!

Safety note: wine and ladders do not mix, so if you're going to work on a ladder, wait until you're done to drink your wine.

The Elevator - Part One by Guest Blogger Tony Powell

2010-06-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

We all have our ups and downs but mine involved our elevator. I can't make this stuff up!

Ever since we started living in our money pit I had been thinking about where to install an elevator and how to acquire one that was priced reasonably, under 18K.

I started researching at a home improvement show. I ordered manufacturers catalogs and asking for price quotes. We were about a year and a half into our efforts to make this place a home when we discovered that we were at the end of our resources and needed to regroup. The elevator was quickly put on the back of our priority list.

I continued to drag building materials up our 21 step stairs. I quickly discovered how to make carrying chunks of firewood easier. I strapped a plastic trash container to my hand truck and pulled a very heavy load of fire logs up the stairs (clunk, clunk, clunk, ….).

Though the elevator stayed on the bottom of our list, I found myself checking out various elevators on eBay. I came across many types, the most common were lift systems used in warehouses. I just could not justify using any of those devices or one the many chair lifts that mount and travel up and down stairs. I found web sites that offered people with health issues a way to move around in their homes.

Residential elevators seldom came up on eBay but I kept checking and dreaming. It was December 2004 that I came across two MATTOT elevators in the BUY NOW category for 2K each. They were completely dismantled. The seller was a contractor in Phoenix, Arizona. I had a catalog for this brand and had considered one of their models. I got the serial numbers and a little background information.

The home the elevator came from.

They were installed in two new homes that were under construction. Something happened with the financing and the bank made the decision to remove them. The contractor got a price for removal by the company that installed them. It was unacceptable so the contractor got instructions on how to safely dismantle them. There are many delicate sensor switches and a master controller that must not be damaged. I was given the persons name and phone that installed the elevators. I call him to ask a few more questions. He told me that the elevators were never inspected and certified for use because the phone line had never been activated and the elevator phone was a necessary item that had to pass inspection. The elevators were moved to the basement of each project. The contractor asked what he was suppose to do with them. When he was instructed to get rid of them he any way he saw fit so he took pictures and had them put on Ebay. This sounded rather fuzzy to me but if I could acquire a 20k system for 2k!

This happened during the Christmas season. I never was able to speak with anyone at MATTOT. I called my buddy Don Rawlings who was once an elevator maintenance person that was hired by GSA to oversee elevator projects. He reviewed the systems for me and told me that they were very good systems especially for that price. The auctions were coming to an end and I had to make a decision especially when one disappeared. Jeanne had given me the go ahead after I came up with how to pay for it. After all, we told ourselves, we got lucky buying our Subaru on eBay.

Not long after the first one disappeared I found myself nervously buying the last one. I started to figure out how to get that elevator to Andrews. This issue turned out be be very difficult. I contacted shipping companies and settled on one that made it sound like they would make it happen. This turned out to be such a total miscommunication mess that I made other attempts. The contractor agreed to load the elevator parts into a shipping container that I tried to arrange to have shipped, but that fell through.

The electronics, cable motor and rails - in pieces.

I called my ex-step-father-in-law Douglas to ask him if he could help out. He lives in Las Vegas, which is a few hours away from Phoenix. He said he would try but that he would have to get assistance from his brother. It appeared that this plan would work but several days later that fell through. These attempts lasted almost two weeks. I was asked by the contractor to try to remove the elevator within a month, the sooner the better.

The best and most affordable option was to do a road trip. After all my researching was done I hired my brother-in-law Mike, to help with the driving to Phoenix to bring it to Andrews. We departed the car rental place in Atlanta on the Sunday that was part of the three day holiday weekend for MLK, which I did not realize until several hours later and seeing every state trooper in Georgia, Alabama, on into Mississippi, where we spent our first night in Meridian. The next night was we stopped in El Paso. We arrived at the Phoenix airport to trade the rental car for a rental truck and arrived at the job site mid-afternoon. We were actually in a neighborhood at the base of the Camel Back mountains. The elevator parts were loaded and secured in the truck and we were back on the road in less than two hours.

The truck with the elevator loaded.

We stopped in Vicksburg, Mississippi where I bought Mike a birthday dinner at one of the gambling casinos. I gave Mike the balance of the money that I agreed to pay him for the assistance. I felt real bad after hearing he lost all of his pay in less than an hour.

The road trip route was I-20 to I-10 and returned the same route. We had unbelievable weather conditions for that time of the year - no rain, no snow and mild temperatures. Mike refused to let me drive so I just sat back and enjoyed the trip. We arrived back in Buford, Georgia, where Mike was living, late Thursday evening. I unloaded the elevator parts into the building next door Friday morning and returned the rental truck in Murphy. The elevator system was safe and sound and remained next door until I could put together the installation process which will be told in part two of our elevator story.

What a road trip! I can't make this stuff up!

Desert views - Arizona

How I Became a Performance Artist

2010-05-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

"Fire and Art" Performance

Jeanne on the left as "The Supplicant",

Melissa on the right as the "Priestess of Fire"

Some of you ("Is there anybody out there?" - Pink Floyd) may be wondering why I included "performance artist" in my personal information. Here's the story.

Last fall (2009) I was talking with Annette Rawlings, the director of our art museum, at an art opening. Somehow the conversation came around to performance art, and I told her about a movie I had seen, Legal Eagles, with Robert Redford and Debra Winger. Daryl Hannah plays a performance artist in the movie who does a great bit with fire as her medium. "That's great!" Annette enthused. Later, I got an email from her that said something like, "I hope you will be able to do your fire performance at our spring opening."

I said to myself, "Say what?!"

Then I sent the youtube clip (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRNZmdb8w9I ) to her, thinking, "When she sees this, she will know that I don't have the technical expertise or Hollywood pyrotechnic backup to do this."

So Annette looks at the clip and emails back to me something like, "That's great, can't wait to see it."

"Whoa!" I say to myself, "No way! Now what do I tell Annette?" Well, while I'm wondering how to respond, an article appears in our local paper, The Andrews Journal, saying that Jeanne Powell will perform a piece called "Fire and Art" at the spring opening. I send an email to Annette:

"Hi. I have to say I was a little surprised to see my name in the paper saying I was going to perform "Fire and Art." I actually thought that when you saw the YouTube clip I sent you would realize how complex that particular performance would be (not to mention fire department objections). However, I'm sure I can come up with something for the opening."

And I did come up with something for the opening. I enlisted the help of my sister, Melissa Watson - Priestess of Fire, and my friend, Tom Jurekovich - Torch Bearer, and a little Fire Sprite, Savannah Horton, and managed to do a pretty good show. Film at eleven.

Tom, Savannah and Melissa

Restoring or Repurposing?

2010-05-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I received this encouraging email from William Perkins of www.mysavannahmoneypit.com :

"I just saw your comment about your project and have happily started following your blog. Heh, it is very helpful/reassuring/justifying to see that others out there are probably a little unstable all for the love of old buildings. Your building is absolutely lovely! Good luck on every step of the journey. It is like I tell each homeowner who comes into the architectural salvage shop I work at "Just think how happy you will be way way way down the road when you can stand back and say 'this will live on beyond me'". After all, preservation and restoration are the tools that common people can use to impress their thumbprint on the pages of history. Keep up the good work!"

He sure hit the nail on the head when he talked about the instability of those of us who tackle these huge jobs. I promise, I had no idea of the scope of it when I started it. Will is also correct when he talks about the feeling that we are preserving a piece of history to live beyond us. That is one of the things that keep us going on those days when the pipes burst or the electricity is out (again!). And what a smart move he made by working in an architectural salvage shop. I admit, that fills me with envy. However, I have a different viewpoint from Will when it comes to the following statement he made in his blog:

"I always found it curious that someone who is "restoring" a building would need an interior designer, architect, decorator, consultant, and other members of the parade. Old buildings do not need these people under ideal settings. Their bones and their history are all we need to direct their change. One hundred years ago, someone already did the hard part. It is just up to the "restorer" to dust it off and fix it back up."

If I were restoring a fine Craftsman home, I would probably agree with Will. But our 100-year-old building required more than just "dusting off and fixing up." Our vision was not just to restore the building, but to completely repurpose it. It had been built to serve as a commercial building and through the years has housed the Chain Grocery, a Peachtree Industries sewing factory, doctors' offices, a photographer, the phone company, a dance studio and various other enterprises. It has actually served as a residence a couple of times, when the owners installed makeshift apartments. But our vision is quite different.

Although we have served as our own interior designers, decorators and consultants (because we couldn't afford to hire them!), our vision is to turn the upstairs into a high-end "loft style" residence while keeping the downstairs as a commercial space. When there are no closets or baths or kitchen in the original layout of the building, and you plan to live there, then those things have to be added. When the "appointments", such as window trim, are strictly utilitarian and very battered, then why not change them? No, I see nothing wrong with changing what must be updated in order to repurpose, and save, a wonderful old building.

Of course, where there are beautiful things worth saving, such as the pressed tin ceiling in the downstairs gallery area, we went out of our way to preserve them. In the case of the ceiling, because we needed more light, we added track lighting which we were able to install with only a few eyebolts at the junctures of the tin ceiling plates. The HVAC duct is visible for the same reason. We also needed more wall space for pictures and such, so we designed the crazy gallery partitions to divide the space up and add interest without interfering with that tin ceiling.

So we're continually making decisions about what can be saved and what must be changed and balancing practicality with preservation. We hope that we're doing a good job and that whoever is lucky enough to be in this building next will appreciate what we've done.

Kitchen Evolution II

2010-05-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

This is the "his" side of the kitchen - counter tops and cabinets are making a huge difference, but there are still a lot of details to be completed.

The cabinets are two-toned, darker on bottom, lighter on top on purpose, so are the countertops, although you can't tell in the photo above. We still need the exhaust hood completed above the stove - must put a hole through the wall before that can happen. No paint, no floors, but we're getting closer.

This is the dining area side of the cabinet divider. Dishes, flatware and linens are stored in these cabinets.

The "hers" side of the kitchen. Tony is the primary cook in the family. In our old kitchen, the microwave was above the stove and the sink was just around the corner from the stove. Tony would always get annoyed when I just wanted to stir up a sauce, make a salad or put something in the microwave while he was busy with some major production meal. So now I have a mini-kitchen of my own, a place to work that is well out of his way. And about things that are never really finished - the built-in coffee maker that is shown above has since been moved to the left - neither of us liked it in this particular spot, but it seemed like the best spot at the time it was first installed so that we wouldn't have to saw through a wall stud.

I believe in having his and her kitchens and his and her bathrooms whenever possible - it sure keeps a lot of territorial disputes from ever arising!

Kitchen Evolution I

2010-05-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

This is the way the future kitchen area looked when we bought the building. Just some appliances lined up against the wall. No counters. The big white wood-burning stove was used for heat, not cooking.

This is just after we moved in. There's a new refrigerator and stove, but we're also still cooking on a propane burner sitting in front of the white stove. Maybe the new stove wasn't hooked up to the gas yet.

Here's another view of our makeshift kitchen with the new stove in place.

Then we graduated to the custom layout for the cabinets - this is the "her" side of the kitchen - two-eye electric burner and a deep "salad sink."

The best-laid plans....

2010-04-21T18:33:00.000-07:00

It's a shame to waste the title of this blog when it could be sooo good for so many things. However, this particular plan was my plan to do a nice pictorial feature on the kitchen evolution - starting with the photo of the appliances lined up against the wall and a folding table as the only work surface and ending with the latest shot of the built-in coffee maker being moved, which was completed today. Note: If you decide to put in a built-in coffee maker, it's a good idea to put it where you really want it the first go-around.

However, yesterday was a bad electrical day in Andrews. The power was off - on - off again - on again, etc., ad nauseum. When one of the ONs happened in a big sudden surprise spike, our online computer fried. This is the computer on which I usually write these words for posterity, because that's where Picasa and all the pictures are stored and the email and online shopping take place. Took place. So, no pictures today. Looks like we try to recover the data on the hard drive and move it to a new ($$ouch$$) computer. Hope we recover those pictures. This blog might be pretty boring without them.

Our commitment to the building is cemented

2010-04-16T16:03:00.000-07:00

It was a very big deal the day the concrete was poured in July, 2002. We needed a ramp for the garage - the makeshift wooden planks just weren't cutting it.

We also had the base for the steps (to be completed at some future time with marble tiles) leading into the residence stairway entrance poured.

The entire gallery floor sloped from the back wall to the front windows about 11". We still don't know why the original concrete was poured that way. At one time the building was a wholesale grocery and produce market, so someone suggested maybe that was so they could hose the place out. But then the water would just flood in front of the windows, so I still can't figure out what the sloping floor was about.

Anyway, we leveled it so that we could put in the display cases and shelves for the gallery. However, there was another problem at the front door. How to resolve the fact that the floor was now higher than the threshold to the doors? We could either have the concrete men make steps or a little slope leading up from the door or a step at the door and cut the bottom off the nice, old, original doors. We opted for the slope so that the gallery would be handicap accessible.

Every day was some decision like this, trying to balance practical concerns with aesthetics with the budget.

You don't own your home, it owns you.

2010-04-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

That's me looking into the bottomless pit into which our money is going.

My husband, Tony, has been keeping a spreadsheet on all that we've spent since we bought the building. That's my source for the data to do the "bottom line" page of this blog.

Above is the old wooden hatch that covered the roof access when we moved in. One of the first things we did was to replace that with a clear plastic bubble hatch. So now the building has three skylights - this small one and two big 4x8 skylights.

This is an 8,000 square foot building. The front is 40 feet wide and it's 100 feet long and has two levels. When we moved in there were two complete baths upstairs and three areas that had been partially remodeled and a makeshift kitchen. All that was good, because it meant we could live here while we started our renovation. There were two wood stoves for heating, but no HVAC.

Even though the upstairs was only barely livable, we decided to put most of our efforts into the downstairs for the first few months, so that we could get the business up and running and open the gallery. The gallery was my whim. Mainly because everyone we met in town said, "Oh, we are so glad there will be another business on Main Street," and we didn't have the heart to tell them that our business of cutting picture mats was not one that the town could sustain - we would still depend on our Georgia, Florida and other out-of-state customers.

We did have a tenant, Sierra Springs, in the downstairs corner shop already in place when we moved in and they have remained with us all this time.

Here is a quote from my December, 2002, Christmas letter: "I have a vision for this town, as do many of the other residents. We see Andrews becoming a center for arts and artists and a destination point for tourists."

That hasn't happened yet, but we're still working toward it.

Social Butterfly

2010-04-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

No work today. I spent the entire day connecting.

First of all a photo op at the Valleytown Cultural Arts Center http://www.andrewsvalleyarts.com/ to show off some architect's renderings of renovations to the old First Baptist church building that is now the Arts Center. That's me in the hat behind the left poster. Tony volunteered to be the photographer.

Then Tony and I decided on a rare treat - breakfast (well, brunch) out together.

In the afternoon, Lisa Scott and I attended a community connections tea party (NO, not a political rally! Tea and scones, actually.) at the Gleanings Foundation http://www.gleaningsfoundation.com/ in Robbinsville. Fabulous mountain views!

Finally, in the evening, a Phat Trout get-together of our Andrews' friends and neighbors to welcome spring. There seemed to be a lot of dogs and puppies at tonight's gathering. Luckily, they were all pretty well behaved. The humans managed to behave themselves, too.

We are more connected to our town and neighbors here than we ever were in Atlanta. Small town living has its advantages.

One of the reasons we're here.

2010-04-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Today my friend, Cathy, and I hiked Bartram's Trail from the Nantahala River Gorge up toward the Appalachian Trail and Cheoh Bald. It was a perfect spring day with cool breezes and warm sunshine. There are several beautiful waterfalls up the trail. Yes! This is why I love living here, sore knees and all.

Our total hike was probably only about 5.5-6 miles, but a lot of the terrain is steep and rugged. It took us about 6.5 hours, but that includes lunch and stopping to rest and admire the views.

This was partly penance for the extra peach and berry shortcake with real whipped cream I ate last night.

Tonight I feel tired, sore and happy. No problem sleeping I'll bet!

It's good to remind myself of all the positive reasons we're glad we're here, in spite of roof leaks and high electric bills. Sometimes you just need a break from the building.

It took six months to get moved - can you say demolition?

2010-04-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

This picture of the building was probably taken around 1904-1910.

Before we could get moved in and even think about re-doing, there were things that needed un-doing. Like the so-called studio apartment (complete with waterbed) in the area where we wanted to put our shop.

Like the not-to-code stairs that led from the first floor to the very center of the largest room on the second floor.

Like the heavy metal lath and concrete walls that lined the upstairs hall. We just removed the side on the hallway. We did this to take away some weight from the supporting walls downstairs and to make it possible to run wiring through the walls for outlets and switches without a jackhammer.

All this before we actually even moved into the building.

Wish we had known then what we know now

2010-04-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

We were such innocents.

Our objective: Get out of Atlanta, the traffic is murder.

Our criteria: To find a two-story building on the Main Street of some quaint small town in the North Georgia mountains where we could live in a loft-style residence upstairs and have our business, and perhaps some rental space, downstairs.

Our business, by the way, is cutting picture mats for artists, photographers, interior decorators, etc., or anyone who needs picture mats in volume. Our website for mats is http://www.picturematdesigns.com/

We started our search for the perfect location in 2001. Our search went farther and farther north until we wound up in North Carolina. We found this building on Valentine's Day in 2002 and finally closed on it in June.

It's a great building. I thought so then and I think so now. But I never suspected my vision for it would be so hard to realize. When we first walked into it, I said to Tony, my husband, "It will probably take at least ten years, but this could be a million dollar building."