Roof Work on Church Has Begun

I hired Durable Slate out of New Orleans to renovate my roof.  More than anything I wanted to save the integrity of the interior and this is no small job.  The renvation of the roof is expensive and I still will probably have the roof replaced at some point.  The clay top ridge needed to be re-set due to Issac and Katrina.  Something of note, the large clay ridge caps only sit up on the roof and piggy back each other.  They do not nail or cement in place but because of their heavy weight they will stay.
Anyway, the roofers show up the first day.

When I expect a crew of people over with boom lifts and ladders only 2 guys show up.  2 guys, 2 ladders, no power tools no ropes, just 2 ladders.  When Josh goes up the first time he says "the ladder is too short we have to go back to the shop; we will start tomorrow".  I thought, this will take a long time for sure at this rate. 

So, when a roofer goes up for repairs he brings with him a few tools, nails and hooks.  This is it!  He takes his time pulling apart the old damaged tile and slowly replaces each tile with copper nails and stainless hooks while his assistant cuts each one to size on the ground and then runs up the ladder to give him the finished tile.  Suprizingly they move right along replacing 50+ tiles in the first day. 

By day 2 they have done over 100 tiles and replaced the clay roof caps.  By day 4 and 5 they have done all the tile and all the ridge caps.  It was amazing to see and I was glad I did not tackle this myself.  (I watched a youtube video of it and thought I could do this myself, till I went to the roof edge).  Caulking up a few more spots and we are good to go.

Time Goes By Quickly

While I was working on selling my studio and home in Shreveport I was doing the usual planning and re-planning of my 2 spaces at 2009 and 2001 Iberville.  I have to finish the 2009 in order to get to the church renovation so it has been taking some time.  I did finally sell my property in Shreveport and now I have the time to concentrate on everything NOLA.  I am in the process of getting temporary electricity and started on a new roof for the 2009 property.

Due to damage in Issac I am now spending thousands of dollars on re-vamping my church roof as well.  A added expense I did not plan on right now.  Unfortunately I only bought the property weeks before Issac and my insurance policy did not even arrive, so I did not think it would be right to try to make a claim on the first payment.   The new works will start the first week of April.  I tried to find old clay ridge caps like the church already has but to no avail.  I will have to put regular clay ridge caps on in place of some of the real ornate original ones since they were blown away in Katrina and Issac.

New walls will be going in 2009 in the near future as well as a new sub floor.  The metal roof will be better for Hurricane's and new additions to structure will make it Hurricane proof.  More pictures will be coming soon.

2009 Iberville Demo Work

This is about 4 days into the demo.  Walls have been gutted and and most of the interior is completely cleaned out.  It is going well and within 5 days it was complete.  The next big project will be the roof on 2009 Iberville. 

Tuesday October 9, 2012 I have a inspector looking roof and what it will take to repair FEMA is also coming out to look over property.  I have another company coming out to look at what it will take to raise and level the church.  I do have a swagger to the building which is cute but I want everything straight even though it is acceptable to have at least a 6 inch drop in your floor in New Orleans.  People consider it level if it is even 6 inches off!!!! 

2009 Iberville Renovations

While I bought the church I purchased the property next door as well. I want to renovate it as well as the church so I had the demo started on both properties of the parts of the property which no longer will be needed. Above is the roof area between the two buildings being dismantled. It took about 3 hours but was needed because of the damage from Katrina.

 

 

The building on the right side with the red brick front is 2009 Iberville.  I am completely gutting it so all that will be left is the roof, exterior walls and flooring.  It is 2418 square feet and I will be turning it into a 3 bedroom 3 bath home which I will most likely sell after I complete it to concentrate on my church renovation.

 

This is the front entrance and day 1 of demo.

Damage from Isaac

The storm did not bring the storm that was to be the storm to match Katrina but what it did bring is a lot of rain and wind.  The Hurricane was nothing to laugh at but wind and rain do bring problems as well.  I seemed to have lost most of the top caps which are clay and added to the edges and tops of roofs in the south to protect the tops from wind damage due to storms.  They are very old and they did not hold up very well.

While I was packing to leave to move over to Baton Rouge to wait out the storm I did get a call from the Nation  Register of Historical Places and my building was eligible to be on the register and so without too much paperwork or sweat I am now on the NRHP.  It is one step further along on my journey to finish this renovation.

Waiting out the Storm

So as if it were not enough to evacuate New Orleans now while trying to get the services hooked up to start work on my properties, Issac came a knocking.  Knowing I could do nothing to protect the church from the "Cone of Discomfort" we (my girlfriend) and I fled to Baton Rouge to ride it out.  We stayed 3 days while though slow Issac pounded rain and wind on New Orleans for days. 

Friday we returned to our house in Uptown to find we had no electricity and they did not expect us to for at least 6 days so we immediately went to the French Quarter to stay because of course they never loose power.  My first drive to the church was a little scary because of the drive over was filled with damage on so many properties I could only think of the worse for my own. 

Pulling up I noticed 3 Plexiglas windows had broke but did their job and protected the stained glass.  I found a gable laying on the ground which was good because I wanted to make new ones and now I did not have to get them off the upper part of the church.  I did notice many pieces of slate as well as clay hurricane caps that line the roof the the building.  for the most part not too much damage.

The building has sustained 6 major hurricanes with the bell tower falling in 1965 and then replaced with solid walls to keep it from happening again.  It has survived the Civil War, riots, fires, hurricanes, and life in general.  Now, on to the repairs....

Cleaning can be Poop

The other day I decided while I am waiting to get the electricity turned on in my building next (door which I will talk about later) so I can have electric tools to do some basic things.  While I have been waiting on the city to do a inspection for electrical I decided to clean poop.  I will tell you that a pigeon can screw up anything and pooping on a alter is wrong in so many ways.  It does not smell as such as it just is gross. 

A little cleaner and a scraper with a lot of paper towels and nice gloves I scraped the poop and scraped then towel cleaned over and over.  The alter is about 12 feet high and so this took quite a while but when I was done it was completely clean.  The alter has some damage as you can see from Katrina when the back wall above the roof line caved in a section of brick 10 x20 feet long with all the bricks falling onto the alter area, thus the damage.  The wall was sealed back but some of the wood was damaged.  I will have to hand carve the pieces to replace the parts that broke.  I will be using the alter as part of the kitchen and most likely will be using the style of the alter to create all the cabinets in the kitchen (much later).  Anyway, after cleaning for hours I got it to a place I am comfortable with until it can be re-finished in the proper way and matched up with the custom designed cabinets.

Wrapped up in plastic and waiting for its future use.