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.