Progress and Fun!

Things are really moving along. The brick work is finished at the building and now we're talking about things like fixing the roof and skylights and so much more. The great news is that we got the loan! The details still need to be laid out as far as an interest rate and how long we'll have to pay it off, but I'm so happy to know that the bank is willing to help us. We've had the greatest rep to work with from the bank. I'll add names and the exact bank at a later time, but for now, I'm just going to say that I'm grateful. We're so blessed! What we're going to do with this building, and even the building itself, will bless so many in the future that we feel like we're just being guided through all of the things we need to do in order to be the conduit for all of it happening. I've talked about this before, but it's as if all of the goodness surrounding our ideas and this project seem to just draw the right people in.

Here are a few pictures from recent trips to the building!

East Side Brick - check!

West Side Brick - check!

James and Kyle Filming for the Documentary about the Building - Check!

She's so pretty!!!

Did I mention that I climbed up on the roof? It was a little scary!!!

Where we'd like to put a green roof and skylights...

We could probably see fireworks from up here on New Year's Eve and Fourth of July!

Looking down on the lot we hope to have someday!

Research, Fun and Photography

I can safely say that I've never had more fun doing research than I did on Saturday. Looking through the old Polk Directories with James and finding out who has lived in our building was interesting! We could also find out what these people did for a living so that helped. Each name that came up represented a life and it was tied to the community that we want to serve...even if it was just for a year. We only made it through books 1929 to 1940, but we'll have more time here and there to do it this week. I can't wait because we're finding names and figuring out relationships that some of these people had with other people in OKC; ones who helped to build good things here. That will help with our application. In my heart I know that every single person who lived in the building over the years was important. I think about their lives and their daily struggles, the things that I sit in my own house and ponder until they're worked out.

After we left the library, we went to the building with Ed Nguyen. Ed is the guy that took the photographs before to help with HP and the national tax credit application. He's also a great friend! We needed more shots for the application, so we took a trip to 612 NW 29th street. While we were there, the brick men were still working. It was fun to be in the middle of all of that energy. It's great to see progress on those walls, but just as thrilling is to already have people moving through the space. It gives it life!

Here is a picture of Ed and some recent shots of the building!

Oklahoma Historical Society Research Today!

James and I are going to the OK Historical Society in the Oklahoma History Center to do some research today! I'm really excited because we'll go through books of old pictures and history of our building. It's going to be the most fun research of all time! We'll find out who lived there and what they did for a living. We'll get to see what the building has looked like through the years and it will help guide us in choices that we make for renovation.

It will be a little adventure! Then, this afternoon, Ed is going to take more pictures for the national tax credit application, so that means more pizza!!! I love paying people with pizza...I get to have some too! :)

Tax Credit Tutorial

Last night, James and I met with a great architect at Sam G's office to talk national tax credit application info. It was great! She has given us such great advice. I can't believe how lucky we are to be given these pearls of wisdom. It's like E.Willy with the bank application. People are helping us right and left. We have to do the work ourselves, which is good. We both want to learn and to do this right! That way we will know how to do it if we get to a place where we can do it again. And I think we will. But it's the help of people like this that makes all the difference. It's so nice to know that people care about what we're doing, because we care so much.

We're so blessed!!!

p.s. James' boss, Sam, gave James four tickets to a Thunder game so after the meeting, we met James' parents at the Ford Center. What a surprise and so much fun!

HP Success #1

James and I went to the historic preservation office on Friday and met with our liaison and HP's architect. We presented our ideas for the building and were met with more acceptance and encouragement than I thought we'd find. Yay!. I think that HP will help us to do what is best for our building. I love that they are working in its best interest. I think we all want the same thing...to preserve and bring this building back from near loss to become a place full of life and goodness!

Every time James and I talk about what we want or ideas for solving issues the building presents, we seem to find even better ideas than what we held before. I know that 612 NW 29th is going to be one of the best places to be in OKC!

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude.

East Side/West Side

Went by the building on Tuesday and took some pictures. The brick workers are taking brick off of the east and west sides of the building now. Much like they did on the back side, they are taking it down, brick by brick, and putting it back up after they fix what they need to with the building. I'm so thrilled to see all of this progress!

Danny Bumpus, the code enforcer for OKC, sent James a message yesterday, saying that he was really pleased to see someone "put a plan into action!!" (Exclamation marks included!)

I'm so happy with how things are going and how on top of things James is. He really is a natural at all of this. I'm glad he's my "pardner!" :)

A Trip to the Building - Update!

James and I ran errands over my lunch break today and had some fun while doing it. We went to finalize the application for insurance and that makes me feel much better. After we left the insurance office, we went to the building and looked around. It was so fun to see the building's interior with light coming in. It felt like a whole different place! I'm so excited about all that is coming our way! :)

Getting Started on the West Side
This One Cracks Me UP!

Getting Started on the East Side

This One Is My Favorite!

Laying Bricks

So the workmen at the building are not only finished taking the bricks off of the back of the building (one by one). They are now putting the bricks back up! So excited!!!!

One more picture for the day!

Working on a Sunday!

This is CRAZY dedication to getting the job done!

Progress!

Check out the images from day one of the brick work and from today! I can't believe these guys work so fast!!! And even more impressive is the fact that Mario's workmen took down each brick, one at a time, cleaned it off and placed it in a pile. It's amazing!


END OF DAY ONE


END OF WEEK ONE

Big Day!!!!

Today is a big day at the building because work is going to start!!! Mario and his crew will be heading over soon, if they aren't already there, to begin work on the brick. I am so excited to see progress begin! I need to get the insurance in place and am a little mad at myself for not taking care of that last week when I was home so much with being sick, but I will take care of it today!

I'm really thrilled to see what James and I have planned and worked on come into being. It's a new beginning!!!

Camera

The video camera that we ordered came in tonight! We're going to use it to create a documentary about the renovation of the building and how it relates to the Paseo and the city! James finished the plans and the budget and sent them in to the bank so we should know something tomorrow as to whether or not we're finished with our application.

EVERYTHING IS COMING TOGETHER!!!!!

First Shots!

Yesterday after work, I met James and Ed Nguyen at the building. Ed is a friend of ours who is an awesome photographer and he took some still shots for documenting purposes. We'll use the photographs for the Historic Preservation and Landmark commission requirements and for the before and after shots of the project.

While Ed was taking shots, James and I walked through the building for the first time since we bought it. It was so exciting getting to talk about how we wanted to lay out the space and how we want things to be. I can't wait for the work and progress to get started, which should be in about three weeks!

James has been looking into the idea of having a green space on the roof and I would love that! I can't believe how lucky we are to have the building we wanted and to be able to do so many cool things with it! It's going to be the most awesome building in OKC!

I'll post images of the shots when we get them from Ed.

School Will Be In Session

So the big plan for the apartment building will not only be to provide some awesome living spaces. When I quit teaching elementary school music in 2004, I did so to go back to school for art history with the intention of opening my own school for kids...one where people could learn about art, music, video, cooking, poetry, drama....anything creative, and anything that I could find teachers for.

So I left teaching and went back to school, but before I could finish my degrees (bachelors and masters in Art History) I was offered a job at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art as an education curator. At first I thought that this would be a distraction from the original plan and that I wasn't qualified for it. But I realized the second time they offered it to me that I could do that job. It took me a good year and a half to really understand what I was doing, but I got it eventually. And I'm so glad that I did. Learning how to do my job there has been and will continue to be the preparation that I need for opening the school up here in Oklahoma City!

James really had encouraged me (and I know that he has guided my thinking too...in a good way) to envision working with the museum, but I don't yet know how that's going to work out. I'm trying to devise a plan for presenting my ideas to the board, to where we could work together. I have a feeling that they aren't going to want to do that because this will be my business and not theirs. We'll figure it out somehow. I just want to do something that allows me to do what I love (work with kids of all ages...including senior adults) and to provide a community based learning experience.

I'm going to be posting ideas for things along the way. In fact, that's the reason for this blog. I want to document the progress of the building project, but I also want a place where I can keep my ideas for future learning opportunities when I discover them!

So today I was looking at Vimeo (a site that James and Kyle turned me on to) and I see this:

Jam Session 2.0 from Cain Mosni on Vimeo.

Wouldn't it be cool if the school could have connections with people from all over the globe and have a jam session like that through skype or some other format of communication?

The Beginning of an Amazing Adventure!

On January 8th, 2010 (Elvis' 75th birthday) my friend James Varnum and I formed an LLC at my cousin and lawyer's office and then directly after (about two hours later), we closed on a building! James actually paid for the building with his life savings, but it's listed under our company. I'm still amazed that he did that, but it was just one link in a whole magical chain of events. Everything about the process has been graced with serendipity, from meeting James all the way up to having people want to help us with the application for the bank loan. We're finding that the people who do hear about our ideas want to help make them happen. We're so lucky! But more than anything, I think that our plans are going to be so good for the community that there is a lot of good karma surrounding what we're doing.

James sent me a message on Facebook on July 18th that said this:

James Varnum Two things:
I'm down for CO in August. When you wanna go?
Also, I have an apt building in the paseo you should see.

I can remember seeing the message on my phone while on family vacation in Greece. We still haven't made it to Colorado together, but that building at 612 NW 29th Street is the exact one we bought! And even though my cousin John said that we shouldn't fall in love with a building, I can't help it. Even in its run-down state, I can see it as it will be when we're finished with it and when there is so much life and happiness pouring through its rooms.

I knew that something special was going to happen one day last summer when I sat with James on the wicker swing in my back yard. We were drinking wine and talking about our ideas for the future and I just felt it! Everything seemed electrified! We've developed an awesome friendship and the work that we are going to be about, saving an historic building and starting something that will help OKC to be more vibrant, will lead to one of the most exciting and rewarding collaborations of my life.

I have a huge amount of respect for James and for his ideas. He inspires me to learn new things and to seek out creative ways of approaching life. He also challenges me to face my fears and to grow. I feel like a kid who is discovering the world! The more James and I spent time talking after that day on the swing, the more I knew that we were kindred spirits. We aren't one hundred percent, exactly alike in our thinking, which is a good thing. Because of that, I get to learn from him and hopefully he learns from me too. I am, however, usually amazed at how similar our visions are...especially when it comes to this building. And we have so much in common, but I'll make that a subject of a future blog.

Before we even talked about design, I was conjuring up ideas in my head about how we should lay out the floor plan and how the space should be used. When James did eventually draw out his ideas, they were exactly like mine. It makes me really happy that he respects me enough to want to work with me, because I feel that way towards him. I know, without any doubt, that we are going to do great things together.

And the ideas we have for what we are going to do with the building...well, those are so exciting that I think they'll have to wait for the next post. But I will say this. When (not if) our plans become reality, they will change our community for the better. We're going to revolutionize our community...and we're going to start with the Paseo.

I'm so excited!!!!