Of Walls and Wallpaper

While we're not changing much of the interior layout of the Wedding Cake House, there were a few minor areas that had to be framed out to enclose egresses or make accessible bathrooms. Here are some pictures of these walls in their raw state! Also we've been documenting wall papers as they are uncovered on the walls. The first room to have wiring run through it (and correspondingly some holes poked in the walls) revealed FIVE layers of various kinds of wall paper!

hero of the Lowes Parking Lot

Sometimes when it's hot and you have to load 2 million 2x4 into your Subaru, a well decorated cargo van can really make your day.

Readymade installation art with 100 year old panty hose

Some people might call it "ceiling demo" or focus on the part where the slime scenes from "You can't do that on Television" are reenacted with a type of ancient insulation that bears a striking resemblance to kitty litter falls on your head while you grin and bear it... But nahhh...what's going on here is the discovery of amazing installation art made by time traveling visionaries of a hundred years ago, strategically shoving old pillows and panty hose in between attic rafters in such a way that when our crowbars pull down the plaster and lath there is a veritable hanging garden of used ladies leggings dangling with the dust-mite fauna of disintegrated feathers and woolen scraps. This pop-up installation was for a limited time only as it's kinda creepy and our electrician already thinks we're a little nuts. But please do not hesitate to be in touch if you would like to view further photographic documentation of this important art installation. (we totally took a lot of pictures)

Shocking!!! Gratuitous Brick Pic!!!

So it's been a while since our last post & mostly that's because we've been up to our eyeballs getting things in order to get contractors going...Last week we were literally up to our eyeballs with bricks. Check this out... Once upon a time the house had 3 chimneys running up through the building. A quick glance from the outside and it's clear that only one remains. What happened to the others? Well that was a mystery that we solved when cleaning out the attic...I was just innocently crawling around with my head lamp on sweeping up petrified squirrel droppings and assorted scraps of rubble and I look over into a corner and do a double take...is that a giant pile of bricks? I crawl over to investigate...who decided that putting a brick pile in the attic was a good idea I wonder? And has it had an effect on structural things? I figure out where on the third floor the bricks are and low and behold that part of the ceiling has totally been sagging... Now in all fairness...most of the 3rd floor ceiling was sagging and falling apart, but generally this was happening from water damage. In Room #7, where the brick pile was stacked above, the was actually no water damage...all of the warpy weird ceiling was caused by, you know, stacking a ton of bricks onto plaster and lathe. The long and short of it is, that it's kind of a miracle that no one got knocked out by a rain of bricks, and it was a good lesson that not all contractors do things the "right" way...by right I mean, not creating the potential for skull crushing type hazardous situation. We took the bricks out one by one and are currently moving them downstairs.  Bricks have varied greatly over the years in terms of how much they each weigh, so we're not certain if our approximately 400 attic bricks add up to quite a literal ton...but we think it's close. Also for the record, we did totally nerd out and research the history of 19th century brick production in RI, and the report is that most RI bricks were made in Barrington...

Steam Dream

After much research and thinking, we're sticking to what we know in the realm of heat. Which is also to say sticking to what the building's already got: Steam! Poor steam gets a bad rap. Ok, it can be a little confusing, but after years of running a building with a steam system (O'ville Sq) we've come to love it.  Though 90% of the Wedding Cake House's radiators are in good condition, we will have to replace a few. This morning I went up to Boston seeking this gem! Can you believe the design work on this piece! The bonus prize of the day was learning about a cool org in Boston that redistributes building materials that could otherwise end up in the waste stream - they're called Greengoat.  We're already big fans!

THANK YOU!!!!!!

THANK YOU to all the amazing volunteers who came out on Sunday and LITERALLY helped us move over 6 tons of rubble!!!!

OVER 6 TONS OF RUBBLE!!!!!!

Sorry... I had to repeat it because it is bonkers.

Hi fives all around!!!
Stay tuned for another Heavy Lifting, Gardening, Gin and Tonic Workday!!!

HEAVY LIFTING!!!!

JUNE 25th! 1:30 - 5:30
514 Broadway