The house building adventure

The bad news

2009-09-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

It taked me a while to become able to write about my project and what is going on again.
basicly, i only have bad news.
the guy i rented the building with, turned out to be a very...ehhhm... not so good person.

after my side of the building has been almost rebuilded, he taked it over and moved in.
all the work, the money and energy is lost.
since i do not fight or argue, i gave up.
i could have made a case out of it, but i rather do not. he would live next door and that would never give any peace and just creates an bad bad spirit around.

the idea is not death, i still want to build this project.
right now i have to recover from the financial and emotional loss of this story but i will find an other project to start...

thank you all for all the support and volunteer times.
i'm so sorry that all your guys workingpower was just for nothing well.

It looks not bad

2009-08-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

we are coming along.

The living section starts to look somewhat nicer.

everything is cleaned well, the floors are dust free.

we can look out of the windows and all around, it is pretty great how far it is.
we still could use some helping hands.
some electric works have to be done and also some plumbing

but so far, i'm happy with the progress.
i will work on bars for the windows in the next days

that place needs to be save and secure.

i think we put the bars inside to make it more difficult to break in or so. plus, it is easier to build them in.

we have a working fridge there now, with this weather we need lots of cool water. it helps to survive...lol

i will update some more pictures pretty soon.

More roofing work done!

2009-08-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

Not much to tell about. it was hard hot work to fix that part here. not that i did it professional but i think i got the holes to be save for the next rainy days.

there are holes all over, but it rinses out of just one part. so, i think i got them all...we need to wait for the next rain thought

roof cement is a devils stuff i think. i stickied my hands so bad together that i was not able to move the fingers anymore...lol

Little rest on the roof.

list of what is done already

2009-08-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

yeah, we did a lot already. some things are visible, some not so much.
Adrian cleaned nearly all rooms from junk and trash and more junk.
Adrian scratched up most of the old paint in the ground level section.
Yosefa helped a lot to get rid of old paint.
I helped to get rid of old peint also.
I painted my personal working space and the hallway.
I started to palnt some goodies.
Rhubarb, strawberries and some trees.
I cleaned up some of the warehouse section.
I repaired the roof (ok, one roof, there are some parts to work on still)
I cooked food for volonteers.
Adrian cleaned the rooms after the dirty works. mountains of old paint and such.
Adrian turned the water on and found the leek in the cellar. one pipe has a problem.

I helped a friend to move part of his stuff in a section of the warehouse area.

there is still way to go and lots to do.

we got the first tiles, windows and doors. i need to start fixing the doors and see wich we can save and wich have to go...
if it does not rain tomorrow, i go and fix the next roof hole...
adrian is supposed to clean the quater yard from junk and unwanted plants.

The roofer has done the job

2009-08-05T15:43:00.000-07:00

Somebody was soposed to come by and fix our roof.
there are some leeks in and i wanted them closed.
Over a week i waited to get that job done.
First i where thinking to fix it myself, but everybody told me not to go up there...you know...dangerous.. too high ... and because!

i agreed because i think it may not have been my favorite place to be.
But the leeks needed to be gone and every time it rained, and lately it where raining a loooooot, i freaked. this damn water just made it more bad and bad when ever it leaked in the building.

after waiting now so long, i decided, i GO ON THE ROOF and fix that hole.
adrian, my son, daved the ladder and old mama walked up the roof.
leek stop, spatulas and diverse other tools with me.

damit, it was high up there. almost in the clouds. not that it was realy soooo high, but it feeled like it was.
after i while playing with this bad sticky leek stopper, i realized that i wore my favorite pants. i did not wanted ruin them. walking down the roof and change, would have been an option but i did not feeled like that this would be a great idea.
so i made my son bringing me other working pants. he looked at me like i talk chinese...lol...but i brought them to me.

what should i say... i changed on top of the roof... a picture for the goddest family...

after i fixed the roof, i rained like hell opened. a nice bad thunder storm and bad bad rain floods came along.
i went after it cleared up to have a look.
huh, there has not even been a glimpse of a water drop visible. i think i did a good job! you can call me roofer now:

changing pants in the air:

sticky stuff... sticks sticky everywhere:

quiet compfortable between the two roofes:

job is done:

Some progress

2009-07-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

As time goes by, some progress is visible!

Yesterday i started to paint the first room. the room where i will give metalsmithing classes got a new dress. the shitty white/greyish walls are now light yellowish and sunny.

Normaly i hate painting, probably there is not much in renovating works that i hate more. muscles are getting sour, the head hurts, the neck needs some labor and so on and on and on...

this time, i got a spray gun system from a friend. WOW! i never have been happier for an donation than this time.

It is sooooooooooooo usefull and i can not even think why in the hell i never have bought one before.

the painting job have been done in a 1/2 hour. normaly i was never able to paint a single wall in this time.

this painting job was almost as easy as taking a nap! no pain no hurts no exhaust!!! the best thing ever!

i have to admit that all the volunteers are super great! the help we got and get is amazing! we never would have been able to make that all happen in this short time.

perhaps we sill could need some more helpers. who ever has some left over time available, please contact me

LHIONESS(at)YAHOO.DE please remove the written at and place an @ in the middle.

I have not posted

2009-07-26T21:29:00.000-07:00

but we are still active working at the building.
I have been somewhat busy with Bele Chere, needed to prepare some stuff.
I have not made new jewelry in the last weeks and i wanted to have at least a few new items.
so i made some spiral earrings last night, just to feel not too much guilty.

the building is eating a lot of time right now.
we still can need more help to make it becoming nicer in the next weeks.

Jobs who needs to be done right now is:
*starting painting some rooms
*scraping off old paint in other rooms
*the inside the building garden area needs to be cleaned out and first available plants can go there.
*moving some tables in
*eating with us

today it feeled for me like the hottest day this year. i may be wrong, because i anyway do not understand farenheit at all.
but from the swet i got just from doing a little bit of something...it must have been pretty hot...

A lot got done

2009-07-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

I got today the first plants.

Rhubarb plants and also kiwi plants.

I have a nice sunny save place for the kiwi and hope they will do well.

but we will have lso a nice big garden space and there i will have many vegetables, herbs and also some fruits.

i play with the thinking of having some chicken. there is a space where they can make noises if they want.

we will see...

today i closed a lot of cracks in the walls. adrian scraped off more paint and did clean other areas.

plus they did in the front yard some work.

we have some helpers now.

the first in the gang was Yosepha, she is great! i never have had somebody in years, who is all times more than in time. half hour before...she is there.

than, her friend, he just jumped by and started helping. an since today we also have Claudette, helping us.

I have an somewhat friend. he is homeless since...i think last 3 or 4 years.... so i thought that he could stay at the building and helps us. we can give him some space to do his crafts. he is a realy talentet crafter. he carves arrow heads out of glass, but he makes also cloth out of leather and he can fantastic work with wood... honestly... i can not think about what he can not do... perhaps, he is an bit odd... probably not more than we others... but odd...lol

Adrian in action... pretty sportive

i'm fixing the walls. i love that, it is pink first and turns white after it dryes

The "little" big boy is pretty busy

An other day of work

2009-07-20T14:29:00.001-07:00

ok, today we have been very lucky. 2 people helped and donated some working time.
What a great thing!
It made me so happy to have 4 more hands helping us out.
The progress from this more man power is visible already.

We got the kitchen pretty cleaned up and my working room looks way better.

i think i can drive to loves and buy some plaster and start filling the holes tomorrow.

have to make a decission what colors i want to use.
but i guess it will be something in sunny color spectrus to have it looking somewhat happy.
yellow is allways great and it looks even like a sunny day in the deepest winter time. even we dont have that realy.

i'm allways impressed what an 18 year old boy can do. he did a geat job.
the landlord is impressed also from the progress. that shows that he has not believed it will happen so quick.

lots of work still to do. if there is aybody with some extra time, we love to get more people to help us...
just holler and we will hear it

2009-07-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

Big machines needs to clean up big mess

he has been hired to clean up an special area...after, there has been lots cleaned out, but the corner he should have done is still a mess... communication is hard...
The building is huge
little big boy does great work
good to have this helper

some more pictures

2009-07-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

When it is done, this will be our living room

a dream will become true... the biggest kitchen when it is done

more kitchen

still the kitchen

my working room will be light flooded

The step to my heaven...sleeping room under the roof...

perhaps it needs some insulation and cleaning job

but i can have my bed right under the window and see the stars at night

the biggest warehouse space

the way to the next warehouse space

huuuuh, scarry... more space

isnt that huge???

On half way thrugh the building, there is a nice size inside garden. the whole building is like an in the middle open square... somewhat... an in this is this wild garden. right now the guests are some bay cats ...

lovely oasis in green. perfect for relaxing and bonsai works...can't weit to get it under my fingers...

here is a distance view from part of it. it goes around the corner at the right side

a round hole in the roof creates this nice light

and...voila... here is the last room of the building... huge...

House of the Heart

2009-07-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, the masterplan for this house, we rented like 10 days ago, is, to build an somewhat ok living space, plus my personal working space, plus an kind of a art school for underpriviligated young people.

we have almost 30thousand square foot of space. many warehouse areas, garden and yard spaces and so on and on.

the whole place has not been ocupated the last years.

well, it has, but more for homeless people sleep inns, and that is how the whole place is looking like...or better, was looking like.

all the foors covered in trash, old blankets and what-god-knows-what...
my son did a pretty great job and un-trashed it for us. i had to work and make some jobs done to get some money together for the starting.

we bought some tools and machines alredy.

a big ass plasma cutter (cant wait to play with it), and a big ass mig welder are our new house mates.

this baby is looking great. i need to make a picture from the plasma cutter as well.

so, to give you a good idea how it looks like right now...here are some "nice" pictures...lol

The Hallway

Will be my sons room. it is biiiiig
has even an old safe... who knows what death bodies are in it??? huh

from the other wall, seem room

something pretty is even there...an artist paintet this nice nature life...