Dave Chance Downtown: Renovation Update

Dave’s been hard at work with renovating his new studio. It’s going be used for business activities today, so he had to get the project to an adequate level of readiness.  Still lots to do, but it’s looking great!

Here’s what his wall framing and floor moving projects look like:

Wall with rigid insulation and furring.

Wall with rigid insulation and furring.

Wall with electric lines, batt insulation, and wall board.

Wall with electric lines, batt insulation, and wall board.

Wall taped for spackle and painting.

Wall to the right taped for spackle and painting.

Floor moved for today's auditions.

Floor moved for today’s auditions.

Dave’s Handiwork

Our new porch floor!

Dave has made a lot of progress installing a new floor for our porch back home.  What a wonderful gift it will be to return to this at Christmas!

This is the most recent phase in our very extended porch renovation project.

Previously, Dave installed a new foundation and then hired bricklayers to install an entirely new brick foundation and new brick pillars.  He placed new limestone steps and limestone caps for the piers.  Then he framed in a new structural system for the porch floor, and primed, painted, and installed the tongue-and-groove floorboards.

Much earlier in the renovation process, we replaced the dilapidated front door with one we bought at Caravati’s Architectural Salvage in Richmond. It got a new limestone threshold. And someday, we may actually install a window in the transom opening.

The green wood siding and the yellow wood columns are original. At this point, they need quite a bit of scraping and painting.  I was in charge of the scraping the first time and I did much of the painting as well.  This go around should be much easier.  The last time we had 100 years worth of paint to remove!

Under the porch roof, we found a piece of lumber signed by the builder and dated 1896.  That’s quite old for a house in the USA.