My Dream Nightmare

We ordered a big heap of lumber, pine flooring, made right here in Arkansas. Picked here, milled here, delivered by a dude. With a small dog in the cab of his big old honking diesel truck. This room has required some diesel to build, I confess. Zac wanted to lay the flooring at an angle, to take your eye off the general wonkiness of the room. It isn’t terribly wonky, but there are few less than right angles. The floor compliments the walls, the walls compliment the ceiling, the ceiling compliments the brick. Then the brick compliments the flooring, and it is an endless cycle. You can imagine how great it makes you feel to hang out in there.  Check it!

The floor and the trap door.

Our friend, the blaster.

It was time. We could put it off no longer. We wrote checks, we bought sand, we tried to prepare the space for a sea of dust like we had never known before. Our now friend Mike was so easy going about all this. He didn’t really want to do the work, he is retired, but he agreed to do it, and to let Zac be his right hand man, which really reduced the price of the whole operation. We had to get this monster of a compressor, which had to sit on the sidewalk outside, we had to buy lots and lots of sacks of sand, we had to cover our entire selves with respirators and clothing, goggles, and space age head gear. We had tin on the ceiling, tin on the ground, and people dropping stuff off to be sandblasted.

Mike and Zac took two days to sandblast, and I tried to stay away. It was a nasty mess, and surely, if you didn’t have to be around it, one should not. It was so exciting to watch the ceiling come alive, in front of our very eyes. Pictures tell it best!

The sand pot.

Giant belching compressor. Eats diesel.

This is what it looked like when I went in there. Like the moon, on a very windy day.

But the results were so exciting!!

However, the mess was not so exciting.

Almost done!!!

Once we had uncovered the brick, we saw in the room the other plaster wall. This wall had always seemed, well, “beautiful”. Or “rustic”, or “age appropriate”. We had always thought we would restore the oh so beautiful historic plaster, we always hoped we could call the fourth generation plaster guys whose family probably did this wall in the first place. (Poole Plaster, FYI) We always thought we could enjoy the “WHITE DAIRY” sign from when this room used to be Speedy’s Cafe, but in a  moment of brute honesty, we had to admit that if we patched those walls, the secrets behind the cracked plaster would remain. The wood wouldn’t get a hard lookin’ at, we would never know what lurked in those walls! Not to mention we’d reduce our chances of finding a tremendous amount of cash that was stowed away during the war, so we just had to look. And actually, although the work was dusty and gross, the plaster was so loose and compliant in our hands that it only took a little talkin’ to for it to get the hint. Come down off those walls.

Another convenience was that the walls are twelve feet tall, which is exactly the measurement that sheet rock comes in! So big giant tall sheets of drywall, and wa-bang!! You have a new wall!

Here is an example of why we thought this wall was kinda pretty. Is that a mural peeking out???

Here is an example of why we had to tear out the plaster. I mean, what is happening behind this stuff??

Antique!!

Looks like hell, doesn’t it? Days like these….

But in no time at all, the plaster is on the ground, AND we could skip our trip to the gym after work.

And a few trips to the dump……

This is a view from the next room over, where the header/doorway is going to go

Zac is right proud of this header!! His brain made this!!!

This is a cross cut of the wood that this building is made out of. You can see how OLD and slowly grown it is. The pine we are replacing this wood with has inch wide lines it was grown so fast. Just breaks my heart!!!

The ceilings in this building have been a constant source of controversy. We were advised by Mr. Davis to rip them out because they were “worth a fortune.” The next asshole will come in and tell us to just put in a drop ceiling. Then there is the historical advocate, you MUST restore these. And then the steady stream of advice on how one would “restore tin ceilings.” I mean, YOU google that. You can’t believe how different the advice is. But the bottom line is, if we WEREN’T going to restore the ceilings and make this building glorious once again, why would we even have bought this property? We could have built a beautiful metal building on one of the endless vacant lots in Hot Springs.

Glorious TIN!

I assure you, I told the neighbor, there is no lead paint in this building. There is no way in 1920 they were using lead paint on the ceiling. There are only 17 layers of paint on this tin!!

What color was Neptune first???

Look at that green? That room was funky! If those walls could talk…… Well the middle bay (pictured right) is the room where the kitchen is going to be. The kitchen/brewery/back bar. AND as kitchen health code would have it, one cannot have a textured ceiling in a commercial kitchen, SO we are removing this tin to help replace the other tin in the other rooms, where the restoration will occur. That almost sounds biblical. “The Restoration Will Occur”. Watch out, we are gonna get out of restoration purgatory yet. Then it is gonna be pizza armageddon. Watch your waistline. So the project while we wait for the bank to decide whether or not we are small business loan worthy will be to remove this tin, and patch the other rooms, and if I can sell some of this other tin I have on ebay, we might have enough funds to refinish it before the bank gives us their blessing. The removing is very slow, it is put up on wood slats, with tiny little nails. Then it has been gobbed up with paint paint paint over the years, and it is above your head, so this job is in the running for some of the grossest work I have ever done. Did I mention the dust, rust, leaves, dirt, and animal scat that is resting on the underside of the tin? Hell, we could grow mushrooms up there. Not a bad idea. Okay, I digress.

What are you lookin at?

Once we remove all the tin, then we can repair what rotten wood we find, then we can start working on some of the other famous holes in the ceiling in the other rooms. Like here, in Exhibit A. (left)

We met our Tin Ceiling Guru. He had shown up to the shop to buy a two legged (supposed to be three) cast iron cream separator, and looked up, and we started what is usually the annoying conversation about tin. EXCEPT this dude actually knew something about tin. He actually had something to offer. Like sandblasting services! And experience! So, he was right into it. I gave him a great deal on the cream separator, and took his number. He came by later and took a piece of the tin and sandblasted it, and you can’t believe just how darn pretty it turned out. You just wait. You wait till this whole ceiling looks this pretty. You’ll be sorry you ever laughed. You’ll never use drywall again. And I’ll be a tin expert, an advisor! I’ll finally have something to talk about at the dinner table with my distant relatives when they ask me, “what have you been up to this year?”

I call this guy in the tin Neptune, but lots of people have had lots of opinions. I welcome yours, but I will probably ignore anything you say. He looks like the kind of guy that needs a good beer after some pillaging, but that’s just me. He could be a kindly old man, too. A kindly old man that used to pillage. If I were you, I wouldn’t say another word about salvage.

Neptune took a bath!!

You know that song by Tom Petty, where he says, “The waiting is the hardest part?”  Well, he wasn’t lying. Zac and I are waiting. We are waiting to finally be smart enough and to have gathered enough information where we can take these perfect plans for our building, and shop them around! We have a pretty good looking floor plan, and have come up with a good name, and have a great concept, and have some believers. What is the concept? You better believe it! Radio. Pizza. Beer.

THE PLAN!! THE PLAN!!!

Let’s have a board meeting!

Things are looking a lot neater, most of the things that are left in the building are actual building supplies, tools, and various things that might be used as decorations. Or light fixtures.   The engineer had a go at the plan, and seemed to miss some key points as to our building approach, so here we are now again waiting to meet with him, then to wait for him to redraw up the plans, and then start waiting on contractors to bid this project out. Then! We can go to the bank, and get some money money money!!   Construction will start just as soon as we get said money money money!!

Thinking. And waiting.