2015: A year of dreams realized

2015 was truly a year of dreams realized for us. After years of searching, we finally found "The One". It had been a  long journey with many twists and turns along the way. But it looks as if we finally got it right. We found the perfect building that combines our need for shop space with a grand residence.

It has been a long road. In fact our first attempt at finding "The One" led us to St Joe Missouri years ago and a falling down beast of building that we bought only to have to fight tooth and nail with the city to save it.  In the end and from several hundred miles of commute from Indianapolis, it proved to be an insurmountable task. Right kind of building, wrong place.

While it had great potential and needed someone like us we moved on. But we managed to save a nearby house from destruction, but it was lesson learned.

In the interim we have restored several homes, help turn around a couple of neighborhoods in Indy and met some incredibly dedicated fellow preservationists.

We even kicked started a neighborhood in Cincinnati that had been down on its luck for years and we kept a piece of Cincinnati history the Nagele Merz house from its fate with a bulldozer.

We did a home tour and we proved that you can change things if you just try. We hope 2016 will be the year we find someone to complete the work we started with that home and make sure the home stands for another 145 years.

Lots of things have happened, lots of preservation battles fought, some won, some lost, but Greg and I both understand that if you do not try, you do not accomplish.

The Burgman Building may turn out to be our greatest preservation accomplishment, time will tell, but I know we have realized our Preservation Dream, we found "The One".

A study of Victorian Design: The Persian Parlor

With everything going on, getting the shop space ready, moving not only inventory but our own stuff...and we have a lot of stuff...the Persian Parlor sits. I had placed one chair in it so I could occasionally take a break and sit there and marvel at its artistry. It is a 17x23 ft work of art and my job going forward will be to conserve and lightly restore it while preserving its "aged elegance". This week we began finally moving some things in to the space. After all we are moving in so it proves me an opportunity to study the space more and as we bring things in, determine how to "set the stage" and find the best selection of items from our collection for it.

What we know about Victorian design  comes from photos and some historical accounts of the era as well as books about "design" which often were personalized tomes about one persons opinion on what was good design. Colors of the era were 'described' but only when you have a "document room" like we have at the Burgman Building can one see first hand exactly what it looked like. Furniture placement in large rooms is often difficult as there are no records describing how this room was furnished so its a calculated and educated 'guess' at best. Most likely this room had a double parlor approach with two distinct seating areas under the two gasoliers that were originally in the space. In my minds eye I know how it will eventually look but at this stage it is introducing things into the space and then studying how they will work and play with the room's walls.

A good design trick is to take a photo of a space then edit it down to black and white. If when you have done that it looks like you are looking at an old photo and the balance of the shade of grays looks "period" you probably have it right. As we can see from the same photo in Black and white and color this balance looks right.

So over the next few weeks we move some stuff in , move some stuff out, mice things around and at some point things will be just right. But for now I am still packing and moving so this exercise will be a work in progress.

Burgman Building Restoration; sales counter work and hidden pathways found

In a perfect world I would have loved to have a period store counter and I may yet find one, but to get us open I have had to be creative and use recycled material to come up with something. We are 'almost there" with some trim work left to do but it should serve us well.  Its sort of "Victorian updated" but most will come in and not notice it and in this case 'blending in' is a far better alternative to some wall slatted commercial pieces I seen in other shops . I used an old IMAC left in the garage as a visual about how much space our POS monitor would stick up. Still have to finish the "screening" of that area but I think its going to work. We will have a ton of storage space for wrapping paper and boxes under the counter and I'm working on building out shelving and storage.

Upstairs Greg has been busy stripping wallpaper from the "Grand hall" as we call it . 53 feet of hallway from the stairs to the Reception Parlor just before you get to the Persian Parlor...bye, bye,  1990's wallpaper border, this space will soon be transformed back to period elegance.

Days on a ladder painting have meant...what else? a break from ladders and we spend a day doing some yard work. I have resigned myself to it taking some time to fully restore the grounds on what we like to call the "Burgman block" since we own almost an entire city block of land. One of the pleasant discoveries was this stone path leading from the back yard to the back door. It was discovered when I found a stone covered by ivy and just started cutting away. This garden archeology is fascinating to me and we are just beginning to understand the thought Mr. Burgman put into his garden.We even found the old well pump base to the cistern

Although you can't tell, there is a two level pond under all that ivy! We have started cutting back the ivy off the gravel path that wound by the two level pond, but trust me it will take a lot of work and discovery to get things looking the way they looked back then.  But that will be future project! Some of our neighbor's who have lived there for decades have vague recollection's of sneaking back in "The Grotto" to play in the pond area. It was a favorite "hide and seek' playground for the kids in the neighborhood back in the day.

We also came across some paperwork. A printed listing of the house on Historic properties.com from 2005! at that time (pre 2008 real estate crash), the house was for sale for 94,000.00! In the listing it talks about how the site (3 lots) was used  as beer garden back in the old saloon days! Its a fascinating insight back.

So tomorrow? Work continues!

Burgman building: More moving and painting

One thing we have done is paint the tin appliques in the showroom window space an aged copper finish like that on the store counter and it impart an elegance and depth to the space.

Meanwhile we have been painting the other side of the shop space including the round window areas . Ultimately I plan on trimming the windows out with wood casing ( a more finished look) but for now I need to get things ready to open so we continued the color banding around them.

We keep moving stuff in and its getting full fast which will drive the timetable on the rear shop space so we can be ready for the holiday sales season. We also  put some notices out on Craigslist and other places about our impending opening and people can be seen peering in the windows daily to see what's going on.

A pleasant surprise as the Clematis' is in full bloom. We have had so much rain lately and I'm dying to do more work in the yard.

Burgman Building: Commercial "un-muddling" begins

The front storefront has few changes

While one could justifiably argue that the front commercial space is 'period perfect' down to its wainscot , period storefronts and beaded-board ceiling, the side street unit is not.

The back storefront is a 'different' story

In fact this was the area of greatest re-muddling, undertaken by the prior owners who were trying to... who knows what? What they did do is install the "Great wall of kitchen" as we call it, drop ceilings, install florescent lighting and put in crappy carpet.

There should be a law to prevent this!

These "periscope ceilings' do nothing to show off the large windows and period trim.

The new floor plan works better for our use

Of course it ALL has to go! We will be reconfiguring the back 2/3 of the space as additional shop space connected to the front shop and the front 1/3 will be turned into a formal entrance for the upstairs, with a large pocket door between this entrance and the commercial which can be opened up for large events where we might need to use multiple entrances.

Amazing detail on this capital

This back space was originally built as a saloon and it had been updated a few times over the year so little is known about its original paint colors. However when  we began removal of the dropped ceiling we exposed the original support column with its polychrome paint. Faded and chipped but enough to go by.

And there is the round window and 13 ft ceilings!

We also exposed the circular window along the back wall which makes a big difference! Still have lots of drop track to remove, and we now have a 7 ft high tall stack of acoustic ceiling tiles and we filled 30 bags with fiberglass bat insulation.



This short wall will come out and a full height wall built to house  a pocket door with a large arched window over it to let in light

Coming soon will be the old duct removal and patching any holes cut in the ceiling with some matching bed board.

Of course now that everything is out of the Persian Parlor, I just had to throw down an oriental rug which has some blues that compliment the wall nicely.

Burgman Building : Weekend Update: The Garland Parlor and fabulous finds!

A quick dose of "ugly removal" and the Garland Parlor its on its way back

The Garland Parlor is now back to its original size now that we have removed an addition done back when this was a drapery shop. the garland room is named such do the garland frieze stencil work. This room and eth long hallway both had evidence of a hanging rail and we presume this The Garland room might have been where the family hung Artwork. The removal  of the workspace involved removal of a built in box, workbench and some shelving and a partition wall.

I have no clue what they were thinking here, but this will be gone VERY SOON!

We cannot explain the "lattice work" hanging in either the Garland Parlor or the entrance hall, other than is tack and poorly installed, but that makes it easier to remove. Soon we will be back to original ceiling height in the  entrance hall.

Tucked away we found this treasure

Four days since close and so many changes and finds.! Tucked away was this Antique Zither, while it needs restringing , we are amazed anyone would just leave it.

Mapping it out is a must do when planning a kitchen

Today we mapped out the new kitchen. At 12x 19 feet its not the largest kitchen but will have room for side by side fridge, Large sink dishwasher and a commercial gas chefs range and plenty of storage due to the 12 foot ceilings. The island will be 42 x 72 and have bar seating and we sill have room for bistro table. The kitchen cabinets were put in about  a year ago and are of good quality with 42 " uppers. Our plan is to have them re-sprayed (they are currently a light oak) and we will reuse the green quarts counter top and be adding an extra 6 feet over what is already there. Fortunately we can get a perfect match for this counter top. The cabinets will be done in Antique Black and the island will be custom built as a free standing unit and in a different finish. Not sure if we will do a butcher block or some sort of copper top. We will use salvaged wainscot on the walls. With the additional trim work we will do we are going for a 'butlers pantry" look.

We knew this area was the most damaged

On Friday we met the director of the Cass County Historical Society who stopped by and we were interviewed by a report from the local paper who brought a photographer with here. Lots of questions and lots of photos and I guess the piece will come out in a few days. They photographed  the removal of the awful retail hanging board that was in the parlor revealing what I knew was the worst part of the Persian Parlor wall and this weekend I started removing the awful corner cabinet.

Fortunately this is where the new Valor gas fireplace , slate mantle and renaissance over mantle mirror will be

Fortunately this is the area where we will bump out slightly for the gas fireplace and the Slate mantle and Renaissance over mantle mirror will take up most of this heavier damaged area leaving me with only some repaint/re-creation work

Things are moving right along!

New Project: The Historic 1884 Burgman Building

We are pleased to announce that we have acquired the historic Burgman Building, an 1884 commercial Italianate building in Logansport Indiana.

The building was listed on that cities historic preservation inventory but had been 'delisted' at the request of a former owner . The last owners had been 'remodeling it' but fortunately nothing irreversible was done.

The building is a period perfect example of a Commercial Italianate corner building and was built for the Burgman family who operated a corner store on the 15th street side and a saloon on the Smead St side.

Of critical importance historically is the second floor residence of the Burgman family. This second floor has only had minor alterations over the years and still retains its high ceilings , original Eastlake woodwork and a rarest of the rare "Persian Parlor" with its hand painted and stencil designs. That room will be restored to its original excellence

The building will undergo a complete restoration to Secretary of the Interior standards for Historic preservation with the goal of a local state and national ,historic status.