12/28/08

Happy Holidays More Views
It's been a nice holiday with all my children home and several parties—all in my rather confined house. Many times I thought how nice it will be when we can have a big party at the shop with the overhead doors all open and access to the courtyard.

12/21/08

Graphic Views
I have been using some new display options in Sketch Up. I eliminated the outlines and carefully framed each shot sometimes adjusting the shadows to get just the right effect. Some of them are very interesting as graphic art.

12/18/08

New Slide Show-Lots of Changes

The new slide show to the left can be clicked on and enlarged. I have updated my Sketch Up model to reflect the final plans. Several changes can be seen—from the single entry doors to the revised clerestory. An interesting modification is the change to a transparent roof on the entry and shop door overhangs. This will be made of the same plexiglas material used on the clerestory. I have also added all the built-in cabinets from the plans. The architect provide complete drawings of all of these down to the joinery. He designed them to be built in MDF so I have colored them to reflect that—some may be built with traditional materials and we might paint or stain them to introduce some color, especially in the kitchen area. These updates have taken several evenings worth of work. My next step is to work on some shop drawings for the built-ins that we are responsible for. I'm not sure how to do them but I have plenty of time to figure it out.

12/7/08

Final plans—Studio & living areas
Looking at the Southwest wing—the final plans illustrate the changes we made to the original plans. The bedrooms and studio are located in this section.
The studio is a separate room with it’s own ceiling and roof at about 11 ft. The outer wall screens the building from the southern sun. The entrance courtyard splits in two around it with identical glass entrance doors at both ends. The original plans called for double doors. The studio has a glass storefront window on one side and five panel glass door on the other. The shared wall has as a built-in desk, book shelves and two openings to the living areas.
The open room includes dining and living-rooms, with a one step up to the galley kitchen. This floor is hardwood and runs back through the bedrooms. Along the kitchen wall are a row of built-ins housing a coat closet, pantry, refrigerator, dishwasher dish storage and a laundry The island has a steel frame and contains a built in cook top, oven and down draft vent— the work surface cantilevers over both sides by 36” so it can be used a table
You can also see the changes made to the guest bath. The door has been moved so it can be accessed with out disturbing the occupants. This required a finished ceiling—­the master bathroom has none. One interesting thing I failed to notice until seeing these plans is that the wall separating the bedrooms does not support the clerestory between them. It remains with the steal supports. The bump-out has a steel framed plastic transparent ceiling above it. This is hard to describe so I will illustrate it in Sketch Up.

12/4/08

Creative Financing - Painting site up and running
Thinking about the shop a bit today. I will have to be very creative to get this building going. Might look into state of GA, or White Co. grants for arts as a source of some funding. We could do print making or woodworking workshops or a combo of both. Space could be rented for events to companies or organizations like Highland Hardware or Atlanta area artist groups. Actually— this has always been part of the original idea for the shop. The bedrooms are only to give you the luxury of time—allowing you to sleep over and work on projects requiring equipment and space continuously while you stay for a few days—or as long as you need. The bedrooms could be used as offices or rooms for visiting artists. The shop part of the building is 930 sq. ft., the studio adjacent to the main room in the other wing is 247 sq. ft. . We already have the all the woodworking equipment. A Intaglio or letterpress could be set up in the studio. This facility is adjacent to most of North Georgia’s premier tourist attractions— Helen, the Chatahoochee river and National forest, Unicoi Park / Smith Lake, and Lake Burton is only 15 miles away. So there is plenty of inspiration and recreation near by.
This week we found some time at AutoMedia and finally published the bosses artwork on line. Please visit: EdCahill.com and enjoy the galleries —more to come. Contact me with any questions you may have at autoeac@mindspring.com.

12/2/08

Reality Bites/Life goes on
Yes, it’s been longer than just a few weeks—just about six months from the last entry. But I’m not giving any excuses —we all know what is going on right now. We stopped all work on the shop months ago. I made the decision that instead of risking more cash that I would suspend construction until things get a little more sane. None-the-less I have been busy finishing up the plans with the architect and also had the builder close up the shop to prevent any damage or safety issues. The final set of plans look very good and are ready to go. (elevations above) Bob and his crew did a great job on all the details and I’ve spent hours and hours going over them. It’s killing me, but I will use this time to get everything just the way it should be. It’s good that we did not commit to a loan before this financial crisis and now be staring at pretty hefty payment. 2010 or 11 is a long way off but I think that is what we might be looking at. Unless something wonderful happens.
I’ve decided to return to the blog and fold it into some of my personal interest—art, design and architecture.

6/13/08

Materials and Systems—Daikin VRV-S A/C System
I have decided to start to review some of the more important systems and materials we intend to use. This is provisional but I will try to stay to the things we are most likely to stick with. The HVAC is perhaps the most costly and important of all. The climate in North Georgia dictates that cooling and heating be given just about equal emphasis. It’s cooler in the mountains and can freeze-up and we are also well south of any hope for summer comfort without A/C. This said — it would be possible (and cheaper) to go with wood heat and passive cooling but on a remod we would be really challenged to make this structure work in a passive cooling mode. I also believe that the likely use of the structure by others without my supervision might make these methods impracticable and uncomfortable. The only caveat is loss of electricity during storms. Most of the old-timers in this area have a propane heating, but electricity has and should continue to improve in reliability. The system will be capable of both heating and cooling so will eliminate the use of two separate systems and double the hardware. Daikin is a Japanese company that has loads of experience in Asia and Europe—they are now expanding over here. The Variable Refrigerant Volume System (VRV-S) system uses one compact outdoor heat pump teamed with individual units in each area. It’s more of a commercial type unit but will work well in this application and is outstandingly efficient. It allows us to control individual areas and minimize wasted energy. It is single-phase, has a space saving design, is quiet, and highly reliable. The interior units vary in size and design - some are wall mounted others ceiling mounted. The controllers are wireless and can be programed for a variety of needs.

5/30/08

Property line -Quick response
A few weeks back we had a setback that I should have chronicled. The questions about the property on the north section of the building which has been such a source of hope and frustration finally came to unequivocal end— Be it a negative one. Mrs. Henry, who I have never met returned my request for a easement to overhang her property by all of three feet with a registered letter and a resounding lawyer backed denial. So I had to go back to Mr. Cain and have him shave the roof off and consequently decided to do it on both sides for appearances sake. I don’t like it, but I’m not fighting that battle. I then contacted the original surveyor up in Cleveland to find out our exact clearance on that side of the property. $150 later we have a grand total of 6 inches to play with. On the bright side my e-mail to Mr. Cain about our slow progress resulted is an immediate reply and some release of stress with his updating on the progress of estimates by builder Jim and his plan to review and adjust materials and detail as needed to come in on budget with the proposal. I’m a pushover and just the slightest bit of light brightens my day.

5/28/08

The Waiting Game—Sketch Up Dreams
For the last month all I have done is wait for word from my builder on cost estimates. I need them to go to the bank with before I can get the loan. In the mean time I've been paying the design fees out of my own pocket. I've called him several times and still have nothing to review and no progress to report. I have reached the end my patience but in reality with the economy the way it stands I may be better off taking my time before I commit to taking on a lot of debt. Still I feel taken advantage of and I will email the architect this week for suggestions.
While waiting I have taken the opportunity to do a completely new Sketch Up model—this one vastly more accurate and with more detail. It's almost like living virtually in the structure and has helped me review all the changes made and the new materials. I now accept a few of the decisions that seamed wrong made by the designers after working through it in the model. One example is the bathrooms which are small. I now see that the tankless toilets save quite a bit of space—even thought they cost quite a bit more. I was even was able to download exact tile samples and use them to do the layout in the colors and finishes I wanted. I was also able to ad the plot in with approximations of the contours. I can now illustrate and investigate just about any aspect of the current plans from the basement to the roof. As we progress with more details I hope to update the model to show plumbing, heating, and furnishings with as much acuracy as possible. The slide show has been updated with views from the current model.

4/15/08

Kid in a candy shop—Detailed plans
The day came and it was time for the first serious meeting with everyone involved at the R. M. Cain Architect office in midtown Atlanta. My builder Jim Johnston, Carmen Stan, Bob Cain and myself. The revised plans were enough to keep me captivated for days. They now contain much more detail and incorporate some of the changes I requested. Most importantly access to the second bath without having to enter the guest bedroom, a fireplace, and a slightly larger master suite. I was delighted with most of the ideas except the fireplace. They suggested a free standing alcohol fireplace between the dinning and living room areas. I thought a traditional fireplace would work work along the studio wall — they want that space for art display. The problem is two fold — space and money. This is a minor issue and overall the plans are now more tailored to my needs. They eliminated one door in the shop and came up with an initial lay out for the woodworking tools. The new plans now also include the basement. I was overwhelmed with all this information and have taken several days figuring things out. Carmen has since sent me an entire set of details on materials, doors, windows and more that I will review in additional postings.

3/31/08

Robertstown - wouldn’t you know, named after a guy named Roberts
No entries for a month —then two in 24 hours. Easter Sunday I was in Robertstown checking on a few things and taking some photos when I bumped into a few locals who told me you could see Robertstown from a grave yard across the river (Chatahoochie). So I decided to check it out and drove across the bridge and up a road on the opposite side, up a hill and found the entrance to a graveyard that I had not noticed before. Sure enough when you walked to the edge of the yard you could see down to Robertstown and the square. I looked around a bit and came upon a grave that looked to be the oldest in the yard. It was very unique in that it had a carved tent like top of fine marble and on the sides was inscribed : To Charles Roberts Born Weedon Beck Northhamptonshire England, Died at Atlanta (22 May 1907) aged 44 years.
When I got home I did a search and found a historical society in Weedon Beck and emailed the photo above to them. Next day came the response:
Dear Ed Many thanks for the photographs and details. I have found Charles on the 1871 census age 8, living with his parents in Weedon. His father is a builder. He was not found in the 1881 census but in 1891, he is recorded at his parents home (now at Gayton, about 8 miles from Weedon) as ‘son, visitor’ and his occupation is given as asst engineer, DPW India (DPW seems to be Department of Public Works). Also with him was another engineer, born in India who was presumably visiting home with him. I cannot find out anything about him in Robertstown, other than it was named after a Charles Roberts who apparently owned the land on which it was built. The Ellis Island website has him arriving in New York on Feb 18 1895 on The Servia. again, he is recorded as an engineer. Hopefully, someone else may be able to add to these details and if so, I will let you know. Once again, many thanks for passing on this information. With kind regards Angela Northants FHS

So this is the guy who Robertstown is named after. Interesting in that he was only in America twelve years before he died at a very young 44. He must have been fairly wealthy and if his grave is any indication some one well respected. I have searched for more information on the web without luck — I’ll see if the locals can fill me in.

3/30/08

Final design meeting set—Property mystery solved
It's been quite a while since entries. There is a meeting at the architect’s this Friday after a delay of a week to review the plans. My builder will be attending too. They should be close to done on the design side. I’m sure there will be some changes but I should have enough to go to the bank with—I’m very excited to see them. This might be the formal start of construction.

I did some detective work on the Methodist church property. I e-mailed White County’s mapping office and they were very kind to provide me with a satellite map of the area. It does not show any additional property the other side of my building other than the lot owned by Mrs. Henry. I then e-mailed the assessors office and after a few back and forths got this in final answer:
“After talking to a co-worker who is familiar with the properties, we realized that our mapping was not correct. We show you own the old Robertstown school house on .33 acres (plat book 58, page 72) and the little house south of you belongs to Mrs. Allison. So that means your property IS ADJACENT TO Angela Henry’s property at the end, near Elrod St. She owns the last 50 feet between your building and Elrod St. We have corrected our maps to show this arrangement. Previous tax bills have been verified as for the correct acreage and buildings.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
The parcel we showed as being owned by the Community Evangelical Methodist Church does not exist, and the parcel records have been deleted to correct our records.
So, now, parcel H04E-039 is Allison to your south, H04E-040 is your property, and Ho2e-041 is Angela Henry on the corner.”

So this clears up the question of ownership and my hope to pick up some room on that side. Mrs. Henry owns all that land and I must now get her permission for the roof overhang. I called her but she is elderly and I’m not sure if she knew what I was talking about. I will send her a letter like I did with the Allisons to see if we can get a written easement. I am still worried about access to our building though her lot and possible damage to her property.

2/27/08

Basement Plans-Wine Cellar?
Mr. Cain sent me over his plans for the crawl space—now officially a basement. Certainly looks nice to me, with plenty of room for wood and wine. The basic idea is to poor a slab with a wall inside the existing wall supporting a shelf. He’s giving us some options on the entrance—minimal or expensive. One with an full height door—the other with the stoop down, step down traditional root cellar thing. I’m leaning toward the later. We will need to get some cost on this but in my mind it’s already done. Jim might be able to get busy on it and that is my intention, if affordable.

2/17/08

Recycling Lore-Wide Shot
It was not quite as nice a day this Saturday as last. - but still warm. I rode up to my father-in-laws and we took his truck down to the shop. I got to work loading the wire an copper pipe. Bob and Bonnie helped. We were told that all the soldered joints must be cut out to get grade #1 or $3.45 lb. - so I hacked them off. It was much harder bundling up the wire and it took several hours to get it all loaded into Bob’s old Ford pickup. We started out about 3 p.m. for the re claimers up GA 384 25 miles away in Cornelia. It turned out to be quite an adventure. We had only about a quarter tank of gas and bad directions - finally after an hour, a few anxious moments trying to find a gas station, and cell phone call, we made it to Bobby’s Recycling. It turned out to be a treasure trove of mountain personalities fulfilling all your wildest stereotypes. I gave a hand getting all the pipe and wire out and weighing the different grades. We had a 197 lbs. of wire plus the pipe. They wouldn’t give me anything for the wire inside the metal pipes so strip it out if you get a chance. They gave me a slip and I took it to the office, a young lady wrote me out a check for $497—Not bad.
I took a few nice shots using my wide angle - two stitched together for this picture of my entire world on Center Baptist Church Loop.

2/9/08

Heading to Helen-Window shots
Sautee Nachoochee Valley can be about as pretty as a place gets. The weather has been great for February and I was looking forward to the drive up—put the top down—brought the dog. I took pictures with my digital all the way up, and when I got there at about noon I took a lot more—160 or so.
For some reason they left two windows in place in the courtyard area - plus the eight boarded up ones in the shop. They cleaned up the glass pretty well but we now have a pile of twisted window frames adding to the mess outside. Next week I want to gather up all the copper wire and pipes and take it to the re claimers.
Bonnie and I hung around and bumped into the neighbors. We ended up talking to them for a while —they have a scotty too. Took a few more shots and headed up to the Wurls to check in. I went home the long way via Dahlonega and Dawsonville- got back about 6p.m..
For some reason only the last 40 or so pictures came out—Dang, cause the ones that did were very good. I added some to the demo slide show. The light was brilliant all day. I’ll be going up again next weekend.

2/7/08

Windows pulled out today Midtown meeting?
Jim & Co. pulled all the windows out except in the shop today. They ended up busting out the masonry fairly easily acording to him and pulling them out with the truck in most cases. I'm going up Saturday to see and do a survey of the block damage. I would guess it must repaired before we go to much further. The entire back right corner might have to be rebuilt along with a few headers along the back windows. Jim was thinking we could bring it down and get a bobcat in there to dig out some of the dirt in the crawl space. Then put it back up.
Sounds like it might be the easiest way. Bob Cain wrote to me that he had some ideas for that area so I want to check with him before we go much further.
Might be time for another midtown meeting. This time it would be good to have Mr. Johnston in attendance.

1/27/08

One jump ahead - not with out a few questions.
Loaded the wife and the dog in the truck and headed up to the shop Saturday morning. It was supposed to snow but the clouds gave way to clear skies. We got in about noon and took a look around. Huge change in a week. The roof was completely gone and they had cut the slab floor out in the back section. I was shocked! — It’s a huge volume when you see it with no floor or ceiling! I don’t know why, but I thought they only needed to cut the slab back about 10 feet. The floor was such poorly supported that they had to pull everything out. It exposed a very large crawl space that could be exploited for quite a bit of storage. I would like to be able to access it from the inside — even a trap door of some kind would be great. There is also a staircase going from the back that was covered with the shed that housed the air compressor. No one had ever noticed it in all these years. (Check out images in the demo slide show)
The process has revealed quite a few areas that will need the block rebuilt, most noticeably the rear right corner. This is the section of the wall that was forced out by the slumping slab. Jim pointed out some separation of the wall from the slab along that northern face of the building. The bobcat also hit the wall near the double door doing some damage.
This was big job - one that I had underestimated in both impact and costs. It ended up being 3 times my revised estimate. Plus we have quite a bit more to do. We need to take out 33 windows. I gave Jim the OK to take one out and give me an estimate on how much more that will cost. It might be something my crew could do. We also could dig out the cellar a bit more and power wash the walls - if we have water access.
On the lighter side they found an odd assortment things in the crawl pace. Parts to an old wood stove, fire bricks, a fifties smoking pipe, and a strange pestle shaped rock (native American?) that might have been used for grinding corn. The also kept quite a few sections of slab we might be able to use for stairs, walkways or possibly the fireplace hearth.

1/23/08

Land Developments — The plot thickens or thins
Jim told me this weekend that the lot on the right was actually two lots split length ways. One is owned by Angela Henry the one adjacent to us by the Community Evangelical Methodist Church. Well, this is not good. The land area has just been reduced by 50% and I'm sure the price for procuring it has not.
Jim also gives me a few copies of the info from the White Co. tax office along with our building permit. Among them is this tax map of the lots. There are four lots - not three?
#39-through #42. 39 is Harrison Allison. 40 should be Wurl Wood and then there are two more lots...41 & 42. It gives the lots width at the road of 60'- 60'-60'- 45'. The math does not work because that is 165 feet and my building is 99' and according to my plot plan the lot the left is 50' and Allison's is 68' that's 217ft.
Obviously something is incorrect here - I need to do some more investigating.

1/21/08

Snow in Georgia—Stranded in Robertstown
Headed up to Helen on Saturday during the major snow event of the last past years — most would laugh at the idea - less than 2 inches. But it did not stop anyone from buying milk and bread and not going to work. I braved it and got up about noon or so. It was very cold but nice to see the snow on the square. Met Jim and settled up with the first payment on the demo. We sat in my truck (with the lights on) for about a half an hour or so and went over what he and his crew had done. Then we took a tour and reviewed a few trouble spots on the block that might need some attention. Actually it looked good with no additional damage that I could see. He used a lot of heavy lumber to shore it up — I hope we can find some use for it in the building stage. He has been sending me a few pictures via email and this is one from the cherry picker he is using to pull off the roof.
I got ready to go and jumped in the truck —clik, click. Dead battery! I went to three houses around the square and no one was home. Finally caught Mr. Elrod coming in from the store and he gave me a jump and I headed back to the ATL.

1/15/08

Roof Off!
Hey—now that's some progress. Jim sent me some shots of the demo. Looks like they have part of the roof off already after some basic shoring up. It's been in the 30's all this week but this is the kind of work that should keep you warm. I'll be going up Saturday myself to check it out.

1/12/08

Back to reality- Demo in progress
It’s been a long time since I’ve made an entry but really nothing has happened. Everyone is coming out of the year-end coma and I am no exception. Nice to know we are officially in a recession. Business is very sketchy and expenses are out of control. 2008 is not starting off to well. Only interest rates are moving in the right direction. Thursday I got the easement letter back from Mr. Allison, so we are good on the overhang on the right side. My second opinion lawyer Keen will not call me back so I will call Don Furgeson back Monday and see how much he needs to get going on the corner lot.

Friday, Jim my contractor started demolition. I already have talked to him twice. His estimates on time are good—a week. His estimates on costs are depressing—10-15gs just to bring it down and cart it off. I’m not sure my nerves can take it- I’m a buyer’s remorse kind a guy.
He’s already gotten the one side shored up. I need to call GA Power Monday for him to get a power pole set up for the equipment.
He had the engineer over to tell me that the foundation was OK and that—yes, it was a good idea to shore it up before taking off the roof. $500 for something we already knew. Interesting note is that according to him the original building did not have the double door entrance on the right side. Someone added on the lower front of the structure at one time. The White Co. paper recently published old photos of the area. One was of a school from the 1950’s - saying it was the Helen school. Looking at it we thought this was wrong and might be our building, but the front was higher and had a stairs. In fact this most likely was a picture before the addition I’ll see if I can get a copy.
I’m heading up end of next week or sooner to see how it al looks without a roof. I'll post a photo then. This is a google earth shot of Roberstown GA.