George Bowers Grocery - Here Again!
Can we pass all the inspections before we begin?
Slumlord apartments — gone!
Hooray! The demolition phase of the project is over — and what a difference it made! We’re extremely pleased with our crew. They cleaned up everything, covered the open windows, removed very stubborn nails, and even swept it out. (No more pigeon poop!).
The lean-to apartment that was tacked on the back has been removed, as was the rotted back porch. Most dramatic in our opinion was the removal of the attic apartments. The attic had been divided into four efficiency apartments with a common bathroom. Now it is back to the original open and empty layout. We can’t wait to turn it into our studio!
Here’s a shot of the back of the house after the demolition. I’ll be posting photo updates at TwitPic as we move along.
katie @ December 22, 2008
Demolition Begins!
Hooray! The Jefferson project is officially under way. First order of business? Clean up.
The demolition scope includes removing a back staircase (which will eventually be rebuilt in kind), removing a lean-to “sleeping shack” tacked on the back (back from the “apartment days”), and removing layers of debris. If there is treasure to be found it will be in the root cellar…but, we’re not expecting anything.
It is no exaggeration to say that nearly everyone in town has been through the house — from rowdy teenagers to tenants to the curious.
In fact, our electrician lived on the ground floor as a kid!
katie @ December 16, 2008
Tysons Corner: Model City?
New Ruralism, green living, walkable Comments (0)
Here is an excellent audio clip about the planned re-development of Tysons Corner (outside Washington, DC, in Northern Virginia). Tysons Corner was originally built on the outskirts of DC. It’s design depended largely on the automobile. Now it’s working on a plan to radically redevelop in favor of more human-scale, walkable, green-energy design. It could serve as a model city for completely redesigning a city.
Places like small-town Staunton aren’t exactly “rural”, but, due to financial and historical circumstances never lost their walkable downtown. In avoiding yesterday’s “progress” they have the unique opportunity to jump-start what could be a massive re-thinking of what small town (or any size town) quality of life should include. See the newly-developed discussion wiki site “Sustainable Staunton”.
Now that the grocery is up and running we’ve turned our attention back to Jefferson. Earlier in the week we dropped a line of electricity necessary to begin. We have a meeting tomorrow with several people from the city. We hope to begin in ernest soon.
katie @ December 11, 2008