Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

Progress!

We have been making loads of progress on turning the second floor of our building into a wonderful apartment. The wonderful part is still a ways off but it is taking shape. The second floor was three rooms with the doorways right in the middle of the walls. So we had to rethink the space and how it could work better. We are going for loft style and wanted to open it up more. We opted for having the doorways to the right making the spaces more livable and in the process created a sleeping nook.

As luck would have it we had some incredible damp weather right after the drywall was installed. Nothing was drying. Then as I was sitting at my desk in our first floor gallery, Monkitree, I heard a stream of water behind me. It was raining but this sounded closer. Sure enough I turn around and see water running down from the ceiling. I ran to get a bucket, then ran to get Peter upstairs. He came down and helped me move things out of the way then we turned our attention to what the cause may have been. Peter had just taken a shower in our living space on the third floor. Could that be it?

Newspaper Found In Ceiling

We called our plumber. He said, "I hate to tell you this but go turn on the shower again." Sure enough we had another stream of water. He came in the morning and yet again asked me to turn on the shower so he could figure out where he was going to need to open things up. I don't know why it made me feel better but we didn't have to tear into work that was just done. Of course we had to open something and ended up opening  the ceiling on the second floor landing. Our plumber, Jered, made quick work of fixing what turned out to be the drain of a very old shower that had decided to let loose. (Oh and in the process found a piece of newspaper from the 1940's, I'm still waiting for the hidden treasure). So know in addition to the wet weather we had extra water kicking around. It was time to buy a dehumidifier.

As we speak there are people upstairs working. Things have finally dried out. I have dreams of moving into the 2nd floor space by the end of October so we can begin tearing up the 3rd and 4th floor in preparation for adding the sprinkler system up there and renovating those two spaces into two more loft style apartments. Phew! We will see how long that will take us. What has it been... 5 years to get to this point? But it will be amazing when it is done.