The Home Stretch

Monday morning, 6:30AM. The rains have stopped, the sky is clear, and the weather reports are good. This is the week when the second half of the Cheney Cottage moves to 62nd Street.

Starting today, Phil and his crew will be on 62nd Street, preparing for the move. First, they'll put large glulam beams down to stabilize the cribbing, then put the large beams through the second floor to support it. The second floor will be lifted, and the dollies, after being under the second floor for 11 months, will be removed. Phil will take the dollies back to Albany Village, and put them under the first floor.

Then the second floor will be lifted 16 feet up in the air. The beams stick out the east and west side of the second floor, so the entire structure can be raised from the outside (to keep the space under the second floor clear).

Later this week, Phil will pull the first floor of the Cheney Cottage out of the Gill Tract and put it on the parking lot, ready to go. And then on Sunday morning, the first floor will follow the second: Along 8th Street to Gilman, down Gilman to 6th, 6th over to University, up University to Sacramento, then all the way along Sacramento to Alcatraz, up Alcatraz to King and over to 62nd Street.

Once at 62nd Street, the first floor will be unhooked from the truck, and attached to the winch to pull the first floor under the second floor, positioning it exactly on the points Moran Engineering identified as the right spot, based on the plans Andus Brandt drew up.

Eric Angress will then work with his crew to dig and pour the foundation, and build new pony walls to support the first floor. The first floor willy gently be placed on its new foundation, and then the cribbing will be brought inside and built up to support the ceiling. Upstairs, the cribbing will continue up to the suspended second floor, and the beams removed. Then the second floor will be gently lowered down and set on the first floor.

We hope to have the house back in one piece by April 1st.

I'm also meeting Dare Morris this week to get a bid on painting the exterior of the Cheney Cottage. As part of the sale of the house, the University did all the asbestos and lead abatement, so the exterior of the house has been scraped and is ready to be patched and painted. This is a huge advantage: the lead paint removal is costly and difficult, so having the house ready for paint has saved us quite a bit of money.

We've been looking at the old paint left on the house, and have determined that one of the original colors of the house (maybe the first color) was purple, along with green. This is a house that has been grey and undistinguished for years, so we're going back to its roots: we're painting the house a deep purple with dark green trim and cream colored sashes. After all it's been through, we think it's time for the Cheney Cottage to put on some bright colors and show itself off.