We've been busy painting the loft. We bought a power paint sprayer and I'm in love with it! I could paint the entire building. It works as described and fast enough that one coat on 2,500 square feet - including all the pipes - took 8 hours. Another 8 hours for the second coat and all we have to do now is trim out the edges. Next up: Building walls...

This is the last post about this beast. I will not talk about it any more. I will not post pictures any more. I will not even think about it again. I was able to get it down from the ceiling alone on a Saturday afternoon (my friends thank me). Some rope, some head scratching and a little ingenuity and I'm done with it. Do you want it? It's free. Really. Take it. Please.

This is what happens when you try to remove gas pipe by yourself. Next time, I'll bring out the saws-all and chop it up first.

I really don't want to move this. I disconnected the gas lines, with the help of the gas company, and even that was a chore. It's bigger than it looks, and it looks big. It's attached to the ceiling by two rods sitting in eye-hooks. I guess I could strap the heater to the ceiling with ratcheting tie-downs and then remove the bolts to the eye-hooks. But then what? I could also use rope like I did on the first floor. Only downstairs we had poles to tie the ropes to. Here, we have nothing. And if the heater weighs more than I do, I'm going up as the heater comes down. I also have a ratcheting cable mechanism, but it ratchets tight, not loose, so I couldn't slowly ratchet it down. The guys at Adlers Hardware suggested finding old mattressess and just dropping the unit. Maybe. Still seems sketchy. So if anyone wants it, it's yours. You WILL have to take it down yourself, but it's free. And it heats. And it's called Reznor.

I've taken time off again from the renovation to concentrate on my day job. Despite the mess in this picture, there's really not much left to do before we can begin framing:

• Remove the heating unit from the ceiling
  
• Finish the little bit of paint removal off the brick wall
  
• Scrape the last bit of ceiling paint
  
• Move two electric lines
  
• Fill in the hole in the floor
  
• Build up the half walls up to the ceiling
  
• Frame out one last wall and install door
  
• Finish ripping up linoleum flooring from the old kitchen
  

I can do this quickly, right? Then we can paint. We're painting the ceiling white, two coats of Kilz then a coat of a warm white. One of the brick walls is getting paint, the other polyurethane. And then we're ready to begin framing. Our architect is doing a wonderful job, we couldn't be more pleased. He's also been patient with me as I bop from one project to the next. More soon. Or maybe not so soon, but eventually. We have our first snowfall outside today. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

We tore down the last wall today. The staff kitchen was behind this wall so we left it for last. The staff are now using my office for the break room. The wall was originally built with 1 x 12 tongue & groove slats for the bottom portion, 1/4" plywood for the top, and drywall on the other side. No studs. Even so, it was more difficult to take down this wall than the other walls which were standard drywall with studs 16" on center. The lighting guys are coming today to remove the fluorescent lights. Now we can finally see the space in it entirety,

Why no updates in a while? If I were to update every day or every other day even, the posts would all be the same: Scraping, scraping, scraping. We're more than 75% complete. The ceiling is finished and we're just working on the brick. We need to start thinking about wall finishes. I tested a few spots with paint, clear-coat polyurethane and a pickling finish. It looks like either Poly or nothing.

Picked up the refrigerator today - we found this on eBay. It's not as large as it looks, only 50" wide, larger than a common residential unit, smaller than a commercial cooler. Sort of inbetween. And again, the sellers were very nice and accommodating. We had to hire movers to get it from Franklin, Mass to Pawtucket, Rhode Island. That cost an extra $200.00 but was well worth it. They moved it in a small pickup truck, like a Ford F150. I was concerned when they didn't show up with a box truck and lift gate. But the guys who piled out of the pickup truck were really big guys. Basically they gently man-handled the unit into the bed of the pickup and again at our end onto our dock. Not a scratch. Though now we have to hire a rigger to get it up to the second floor. I'll take lots of pictures when we move in and hoist it up through the barn doors on the second floor.

The scraping continues. We're about 75% of the way through - I say "we" but I mean Taylor really, who is taking over some of the hard work while I concentrate on design and the business. Once the scraping is complete and swept up, we can think about painting. And building.

Another Craigslist find - a Viking cooktop with four burners and a griddle, you know, for grilled cheese and such. The family we bought it from were really sweet, they helped carry it to the car and even offered cleaning suggestions. They have five children and needed a larger unit, one with six burners. It's cleaner than it looks in the picture. Heavier too. Next up - we need a refrigerator...