Comics: "Bill" by Rube Goldberg

Here's another strip from May 1, 1932.

Comics - Boob McNutt

I think we can all agree that the Chronicle's comic page is lacking a good story about a dirigible.  I especially love the line "To lose control of a dirigible is a serious matter - especially when your gas is low and you're many miles from land."  Words to live by.

Comics - The Van Swaggers

Another comic strip from May 1, 1932, "The van Swaggers."

And a "Tillie the Toiler" Paper Doll:

Sunday Comics

In restoring an old house, one often finds memorabilia from the past, hidden away in the walls.  Recently, when working on the Walnut Street house, we came across the Sunday Comics from May 1st, 1932.

It's interesting to see the changes in newspapers over the years. The comics are a much larger format, and the drawings have incredible detail.  And they're pretty bizarre.

Here, for your reading pleasure, is "Tillie the Toiler"

After a Long Break

I haven't been keeping up with the blog for the last couple months.  And I know, people have been wondering: what is up?

As readers of the 62nd Street Blog will recall, much of the early part of the blog contained rants about how horrible it was working with the City of Berkeley on obtaining permits.  The process has changed in the intervening years.  It is not necessarily better - in fact, getting permits now takes longer than it did back in 2011.

But I decided I didn't want to write rant after rant about City staff.  And the staff we have been working with, unlike last time, have all been pleasant and tried to help us, despite the difficult situation we all found ourselves in.

So I waited.  And now, I'm happy to announce, we have finally been given our Use Permit!  We went to the Zoning Adjustments Board meeting on Thursday, May 12th, and there was no discussion of the project at all. The ZAB moved our item to the Consent Calendar, and voted for it.  This is real progress!

ZAB Notice of Decision

We aren't out of the woods yet: we now have to apply for the Building Permit, and then the Move Permit.  This will also take time, but we're hoping to get the Permit center to expedite the permits and get this thing done, so we can move the house.  Everyone wants to see it moved, so we;re hoping there will be the will to get it done.

What have we been doing in the meantime?  There has been a lot to do, and we've been slowly plugging through it.  Getting the house ready to move has included lots of cleaning up, removing weird "improvements" (such as plywood nailed over plaster walls), and planning for the work to be done.

I have also been scouring free stuff online, and finding some great deals for the house.  In particular, one person was giving away an entire kitchen of solid wood cabinets, as well as two beautiful built in cabinets.  All are now waiting to be installed in the Walnut Street house.

Bookcase

Built in cabinet, ready to be installed

One of the many kitchen cabinets

So now we're working on the submittals for the building permit, and planning for the move.  We're hoping to move the house in August - stay tuned.  And for those who may have lost track of which house we're moving, here's a picture:

Begone! Before Someone Drops a Blumpf on You Too!

The blumpf has come down - fortunately, no wicked witches were killed in the process.

Demolition is an interesting process.  When dismantling other people's work, one gets to see what a good job they did - or what lousy construction some people do.

In the case of the blumpf (the old back room on the Rockhead and Quarry shop), it was definitely the latter.  As we started dismantling the blumpf, we found that water had gotten into most of the walls, and there was a lot of damage, dry rot, termites and mold.  The blumpf had also been constructed so some of the wood actually sat on the dirt - the foundation was not very well executed, and the slab was mostly inside the walls.  The walls were rotting from the top down because of water leaking in, and from the bottom up because the blumpf was sitting directly on the dirt.  So taking the blumpf off was not only necessary for this project, it would have had to be removed even if we wanted to keep that room.

So we tore out all the rotting wallboard and removed the windows.  Then we started taking off the siding, exposing the original studs.

The blumpf with the siding removed

After that, we went up on the roof and disconnected the roof from the old building.  It took a lot of prying and cutting, but eventually, the blumpf came free.

We then knocked the blocking out of the two side walls, which made them unstable.  We left the blocking in the back wall, to keep it steady, so the blumpf would fall straight back.  

Once we had pried the blumpf free, we tied a rope around the back wall, and we started pulling.  Within seconds, the blumpf started leaning toward us, and then, with a loud crash, hit the ground.  

Tom, post blumpf

The flat roof of the blumpf, with the wall studs under it

Next, we cut up all the debris, sorting the wood to figure out what was still usable, what was junk, and putting the asphalt, the scrap wood and the metal into separate piles.  Dumps these days are picky - they want everything separated.

A pile of debris

Today, we went over and loaded all the debris into the truck, which Tom took to the dump.  The blumpf is gone, and all that is left for us to do is break up the concrete pad and haul that away.  Progress!

Nice and clean

The shop is back to its original 1916 footprint - just in time for its centennial. 

To see a brief video of the blumpf being disconnected from the building, right before we yanked it over, see below.