Puttering in the Study

The Hub celebrates Cinco de Mayo (sort of)

The painters finished the front of 113 today, with the exception of the "bulkhead" at the bottom, which has already deteriorated from exposure in just the few weeks it's been up (never leave raw wood exposed without putting at least some primer on it - I knew better than that!).  That has to be redone tomorrow, and it'll be the same dark forest green as the rest of the storefront, but until then the white primer provides a nice Cinco de Mayo vibe.  Personally, I think the black cast iron and front door looks pretty cool.  Don't forget the front gets a big striped awning that'll cover the entire upper windows - we're not there just yet.

Inside, the walls in 113 have been completely textured, and are ready for paint (my office is done, but rest is waiting for trimwork to be completed), while the computer tech guys are putting together the wiring closet so the fiber optic cable that bring in our Internet and phone (did I mention we've got fiber?) can be accessed from multiple locations in each room starting tomorrow evening when the server gets installed.  Kitchen cabinets are ordered (I waited too late to do that, so they'll be a while, unfortunately), ceramic tile for kitchen & bath floors is picked out, and the first bathroom fixtures go in tomorrow.

And the trim crew spent the day cutting and sanding the crown and base board moldings from old shelving for installation tomorrow.  The "crown" molding is a strict copy of the 1928 side's crown shown here on top of the shoe shelves , which consists of a 1" x 5" with a strip added to the top and bottom.   We know the 1928 side had this trim all the way around the store at the top of the shelves (including at the tops of the mezzanine shelves) so we are copying that for all the 8' walls that enclose the new offices.  I can't be sure, but I think it is likely that that molding also topped the original 1897 store's 12' shelves, and was simply transferred to the 1928 side, since we now know that the full-height shelves in back had it.  So we're installing it as a uniform decorative band all the way around the building.  I just realized today why it looks familiar - when I was at Baylor Law School over at the "old" law school there was a similar three-piece band of decorative walnut running throughout the building at waist level. 

As much as got done yesterday, today was amazing.  Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Hub update - exterior painting / furniture move

It's finally coming together - this morning the painters stained the brick and painted the cast iron on the 113 exterior, and inside we're starting to paint the first four rooms on the 113 side, which were textured Friday.  The exterior green is taking a little longer to figure out - much like the gray-green on the inside.

We packed the old office Saturday and Sunday, and Sunday morning moved all the large furniture to the Hub, where as you can see, it is stacked under a large tarp in my office while the office is painted around it.  Computers and phones are still working on South Washington for the time being, but virtually everything else is boxed and we're just working around it.  (One of the advantages of working off a laptop and a docking station is that I just don't actually need much - just my laptop and the peripherals (mouse, cables, etc.) that I carry in my brief bag.  Don't even use pleadings or hearing notebooks anymore - those are synched to the iPad, but that's a later post).

Oh yes, my office floor - which is the only original flooring we're leaving exposed - got sanded Saturday in preparation for the tung oil treatment.  It has at least 110 years on it, and possibly as much as 130 or 140, so I was reluctant to just cover it with this week's special from Lowes.  It looks like defrosted hell, even with the green paint that was on part of it taken off, but I really, really like it - it's got character in spades. 

Last, here's a shot of the ceiling, showing the wall color we finally decided on to the right.  By the end of the week, I'm optimistic that everything you see in this photo will be painted, the new/old ceiling fans will be hung, and we'll have the trim going up as well.  (Replicating the old trim using a combination of old shelving boards and new lumber for the small trim has required a lot of testing of different stains and methods, and we're not quite there yet).  The usual order is to put the trim up, then paint, but we're going out of order just to get in sooner, since the trim is something we can get up later.  Right now the emphasis is on just getting the 113 conference room finished and wired so we can get our offices moved in there temporarily.

Hub - wall colors and update

There's not a great deal to say or show, but a LOT has been happening as we close in on move-in date on the 113 side.

Tape and texturing of the walls on 113 may be finished as early as today, and the place looks really different with clean sheet rock walls up.  We picked the wall color today - you can see the patch up on the right - it doesn't look like it, but it's a couple of shades lighter than the ceiling.  It is also way lighter than the wall color we have in our offices now, which is the brownish color peeking out above the test patch.  We are also testing out the stain color on samples of the wall molding shown (which sits on top of the 8' walls copying the 1928 shoe store's appearance - there is no true "crown" molding).  Baseboards are basic 1 x 6" cut from original store shelving, and I haven't posted, but we have wainscoting made from the shelving in the reception area cut into 1 x 4" boards - same thing as the back wall of my office (except they're 12' tall there).

Meanwhile, over on the 111 side, the difficult job of replicating the mezzanine railing & parapet and the shelves based on one piece of wood and a couple of photos has been done.  The parapet and railing are now complete, and we are ready to start reconstructing the shelves upstairs, but that won't be a priority until after we are settled in on the 113 side.

Hub exterior color samples up for approval

Shane has samples for the 113 side's exterior colors up this morning - the brick is stained the original red, the cast iron gets painted black, and the exterior trim is dark green (look to the right of the front door for the sample). 

Inside, the sheet rock installation is finally finished, and tape and mud should start later today, as should the electrical for the sprinkler. Over on the 111 side, the finish trim for the arch is going up.  Finally, the new interior doors will be coming in from Lowes sometime today - not sure when the trim crew will get them hung, but it won't be long (I'm hoping).

Hub update - the boys try out their hatches and room

The boys came by the office this afternoon for an hour and a half while Jamie had a massage, and I ran them up to the Hub to try out their room, complete with the new hatches.  Here Parker tries out the study room, with the study carrel recesses to the left, and hatches to the right. 

Hub update - skylights, hidden doors and sprinklers, etc.

Lots to see when I got to the Hub this morning after the trip to Corpus.  First of all, the sprinkler installation is complete, with the exterior pipes and the interior Christmas tree installation, which we'll leave exposed because it's just so steampunk chic. The sidewalk is also (finally) patched.

Next up was further work on the skylight and hidden doors for the boys in my office. The skylight originally had screen hatches on both sides, presumably to permit airflow in the attic space, but we didn't need those, so we had a local carpenter fabricate 1870's style beadboard to close the hatches up.  The below photos of the north wall shows the beadboard up and painted, and the boys' hatches closed and open (the seams will be hidden by horizontal strips after the wall is stained).  There is also a photo from the hatches looking towards the front door which shows the south skylight wall with the new beadboard in place but not yet painted. Speaking of paint, here's the current appearance of the ceiling with the skylight painted - the darker color makes a big difference - previously it was a glaring white in pictures.  (The gray-green actually turned out decidedly blue, so we're repainting it a greener hue).

Over on the 111 side, the metal ceiling has gotten its white paint, circa 1928, and the sheet rocking is complete on the two conference rooms, so you can finally see what they'll look like with the tray ceilings and skylights (to bring in the light from the big skylight).  The wood grille shown will hold translucent panels to allow in natural light from above (supplemented with a few can lights in the high ceiling - shhh!)  Note that the wall outlets are at desk height, so visiting trial teams can push desks up against walls and still have easy access to outlets.  The tray on the 113 side conference room doesn't have the grille - instead as shown to keep the 1897 look we put fifteen of the original ceiling tiles up and they'll have a hanging fixture suspended from them.

Lunch at Snapka's in Corpus Christi

The boys and I picked Jamie up at her break and headed out to the Snapka's on Leopard for lunch.  It's a Corpus Christi tradition (since 1948) that I discovered a couple of years back when we had lunch there during a Litigation Section meeting hosted by council member Kathy Snapka.  (The tacos and onion rings are to die for).  Today Kathy stopped by to make sure we enjoyed our lunch, and we took a picture with her for the boys' scrapbooks.  Parker in particular enjoyed the yellow car his lunch came in, which made a perfect convertible for his pet Webkinz Shirt (so named because Parker thinks he has the colors you normally see in shirts).

Visit to the USS Lexington - Corpus Christi

The boys and I are accompanying Jamie to her seminar in Corpus Christi this week.  Yesterday we hit the Texas State Aquarium, but the highlight was, of course, today's visit to the museum carrier U.S.S. Lexington (CV-16).  Here we are in our matching Dad 'n Lad shirts on the flight deck.  

The boys enjoyed all the tours, although the bridge was not what they were expecting, Star Trek fans that they are.  But the liked the hangar deck and the engine room the best.  Flight deck was a bit hot! 

Hub update - 113 ceiling painting completed

The effect won't be clear till the walls are painted and the woodwork stained dark mahogany, but the ceiling is painted over on the 113 side.  Compare here to the original (left)  and the pre-painted condition (right).  This is presumably what it looked like in 1897, before over half a century of cigarette smoke and another half century as a very hot attic, all of which darkened the original colors significantly.  This photo shows the corner of my office where the boys' windows are framed up (the boards that make up the doors covering the holes have been taken down, obviously).

The skylight needed repairs - it had two large holes in it for ventilation hatches, which have now been patched with beadboard make to match the original 1870's boards.  In this picture the boards have been installed and primed, and even I can't tell which are old and which are new.  The final paint will be gray-green to match the border frieze.

The Catholic Church: A History - William R. Cook

Just finished this 36 lecture Teaching Company course as well, which I've been listening to mostly each morning on the one-mile walks I've started taking before work (originally three trips to the gate and back, but I've been cutting paths through the woods and meadows, and it's now two trips to the gate, including the front meadow path each time). 

The course is chronological for the most part, as you'd expect, but has significant departures from that when it covers specific subjects. I enjoyed it and learned a fair amount, although to some extent it understandably overlapped either with the previous courses I've listened to on the papcy or the New Testament, or with the books of the history and practices of the Church that I've been reading this spring.