Well I'm back up in the hallway of the second floor of this 1906 hotel. Now I've I've pulled
the carpeting out of here and so I have kind of a that hollow echo sound. It's amazing how much
carpet will absorb in sound. I've got the carpet out, the padding out, I still have the tack strips
that need to come out, and I've got to pull the padding staples. That's not really a big deal. But
was interesting, this still has the old original, and I'm thinking probably a fir flooring,
that was so common in houses of this era. It's probably three and a half-ish, tongue and groove,
really pretty nice shape. But as you can kind of see, as you look down this hallway, you can see
where initially it had a runner. It looks like about 30 inch wide runner that ran down through
the center as opposed to the full carpeting that it has, or did have, up until just recently.
So you can see kind of the the track here of the runner as it came right down through here. It's
a little bit tapered from the stairways until it comes out to the center of the hallway about here,
I'm saying that's probably 30, 35 feet. You can kind of see it comes center
to about here. This would have been a middle room for a hotel room, and then it kind of centers up
toward the back. So I'm kind of thinking I'd like to maybe go back to this style. I would imagine
maybe, I don't know for sure, that it was probably a hard rubber mat. They came back through the
center here. And it might be, to help dampen some of this noise of this empty hollow tube sound.
I may contemplate putting maybe a carpet runner in here. But I'd like to leave some of this old
original flooring exposed. When they came through at some time and painted on the walls, they didn't
put drop cloths and so there is a fair number of paint splatterings on this, but that's pretty
easy to clean up. I'll probably end up sanding this floor and refinishing it anyway, but I kind
of like seeing floors that are in this condition. It just brings back the era of that time, which I
like. It's what I'm headed for. So the next thing to do now is pull some of these padding staples,
and I've got to get rid of these tack strips. It looks like maybe there used to be a quarter round
on the bottom of this baseboard. I'll be able to tell that a little more clearly when I get this
tack strip off. That's kind of my guess. I have a couple pair of gel knee pads and I don't know
what I did with them, and so I brought a piece of foam, four inch foam, up to kind of kneel on.
You can see the evidence here where there was a quarter round molding up against this before the
carpeting was put in. They took that out to lay the carpeting right up against this baseboard.
Well this is a front banister going up from the main floor to the second
floor and as far as I know this is original handrail spindles
this end post. And it's this old wood work that really catches my attention in this building.
Just nice shape, some of the woodwork on the base of the stairs going up. So there's a set of
stairs that goes down the back end and they're all covered up with paneling, so I'm kind of curious
what's underneath that paneling. The handrails are a little different, but I'm going to take that
paneling off and just see what's hiding underneath there.
So where the handrail in the front is round
this has a little bit of a crown to it. There's not a lot of thickness here however, so I'm really
not sure what's there. I'll see if I can get some of this off and see what's hiding there.
This paneling is fit fairly tightly.
Not sure I can get in there.
Maybe the back side is the way to try this.
A little bit of space here, but if I pry on that I'm going to mar up this corner woodwork.
Ah, there's a little more space here. There's actually a joint maybe there.
That might be our start right there
Little tiny finish nails holding that on.
Why did they cover that up?
Its almost like it's the same material as the flooring was.
I'll pull all these little nails out.
I like that original. Again, there was a quarter round that was put down to finish
this riser. Well knowing now that this is a solid panel underneath
I know I'm not going to damage spindles.
Gotta find the brake in the armor.
This is really fitted fairly well.
Here's our joint.
So the same three inch tongue and groove, this was just painted. Looks like it was a repair done here.
So I guess it would make sense that this back stair is not quite as fancy as the front.
I like that though.
So part way down these stairs it makes a 180, so there's a landing here. So
this is the back side of that. f I can find a break in the armor here. I think it's right here.
Yep. Ah this is a little more ornate and has a little more mill work done where the tongue groove
comes together. Let me get more of this off here.
Won't scratch this finish up any more than I have to.
Nailed on there pretty well.
Well that's kind of the pits that they put glue on here.
That's what made this so difficult. Mess up this nice finish here.
I'll have to get that back off. I really like that. That's pretty cool.
If I can reach up here far enough.
I might have to get my ladder down here.
I'm sorry this is in a staircase and you can't see this real well.
That's too bad it was put on with glue.
A few nails. I think that's cool. I'm gonna try to get this from the top here.
Timber.
Now, is there a break in this armor?
See if I can reach that from here.
I'm gonna try from the bottom and get this started.
And you can see from right here is the same material as this.
Well this is al lathe and plaster under here. It had a trim board that's been removed. This plaster would
be salvageable. This piece was replaced, repaired for some reason. I'll try to blend that in.
But this is a pattern of this all the way up the staircase. This over the stairs.
So there's some writing right here. This says looks like, Spude was here. Glenn Baldwin was here.
I actually knew a Glenn Baldwin.
Not sure who Spude was.
So the height of this door frame has
been altered. You can see this is the original side frame of the door. So it was shimmed down
for the door that's in there now. This is the other side. This is the original door frame
shimmed down for a lower door. And it would have been a broad trim went across here. I don't even
know what color that is. Kind of a puke yuck, into a yellow, to this kind of a turquoise, which that was
pretty fashionable in its day. Then above this short wall, which is above the door,
this would be the ceiling of the staircase, which is actually underneath the floor up
on the second floor. So this is the back side of the stair, still call it a banner
so would you, the top rail? So this is from the stairway up on top in the hallway, top hand rail.
So I'm on the landing of the switchback on the back stairs.
I took the paneling off here. I did take one piece of paneling off. This
has been sheetrock and rough taped and then the paneling applied on top of it.
So this makes a transition right here. This is all original lathe and plaster. All seems to be on the
same plane. I wonder why this was shimmed out. The only way to find that out would be to take it off,
and I'm not sure I'm going to do that, because we're all pretty flush. Get the rest of this off.
There's one more sheet.
This quoter round trim here has been removed to accommodate this panel.
Pretty well jammed in here.
So this is across the hall to our end rail here.
Looks like this might have been slipped in behind this rail.
So the joint is right there along my conduit for that lamp. I'll have to take that lamp
lens off so I don't break it,
and get this out enough, I think maybe I can rock this forward.
Well I've got this paneling mostly loose, but it seems like
there must be a finish nail pinning the top of that handrail,
through the paneling, into the wall, which would make sense to stabilize that handrail.
So I'm going to have to take the saws-all and cut that nail.
Well this gives you a little better picture of what this back staircase was like that went from
the upper hallway when this was a hotel down into the original kitchen. Most likely most
of the tenants that stayed here probably went down the front staircase.
Just a supposition.
But there is some plaster damage. There is a piece that is missing and I think that is repairable. I'll check
the rest of that wall to see how well attached it is to the original lath, but that is patchable. I've
done some other plaster work in another apartment and it's kind of fun to do actually. So it's nice
to see what was underneath this stair railing. I like to see that old original wood.
So anyway, we're making some progress.
Appreciate you following along the progress of this 1906 Hotel