the mountain goat

 well, sometimes you have to step outside the wheelhouse to

help some friends, and it always feels good when you do.

our friends, the manleys, had been promised in 2021 that the work would

be done 'this year', but unfortunately, the contractor 'couldn't get to it' 

and it needed to be 'got to' ... so, kristian and i volunteered to help ..

kit and i have long been good friends with the manleys, and ace's family 

has owned this building downtown for over a hundred years. 

ace, briefly mentioned in my old man project, is the guy who hired me

to work at the roundhouse when i got off the bus in arlington 51 years ago ... 

looong time friends .... we skied and snowshoed, fished, played softball and 

paddle tennis, were more or less next door neighbors for 5 years,

vacationed together a bit, and all had kids the same year in the early 80s ...  

read on, and click the photos for a closer look .... 

 

here is the building in its original configuration as the combination cash store.

it was opened by ace's grandfather, and then run by his brother til the late 70s

when it went on to become a furniture store, a sheep skin place, and now,

the mountain goat, a patagonia store

 

we needed a lot of stuff to do what we needed to do, and on main st, no less

day 1... scrape and paint, polish the copper, consider the flaking plaster

day 2 .. upgrade/replace the floor, clean up the window over the door .. more plaster

there was some molding and flashing that needed attention,

and we noticed that there was something missing over the front entrance,

 

a matching cornice!

i photoshopped in what was missing and put it on the list

 

we started with the obvious repairs first, stripped off the rotten

crown molding and installed some new, and got monarch metal

to whip up some copper flashing to dress up the new moldings ..

after a little nibbler work by kristian.we were able to slide the new flashings 

under the existing ones we had cut back to get the old molding off,

and now the painter, mrs. manley is on the job 

with us daily, and making good progress.

on next to the new cornice ... 

we haven't built many 25' long things in the shop lately, but we got it together

and with a little help from sam and luke from the metal shop, 

we wrestled it into place and flashed it ... by this time, kristian 

had repaired the plaster, and there were

 only a couple more details to go ..

 

 the original window

we had to spruce up the original combination cash store co. window,

 and you can see a little of the new floor here ..

we just had to replace some missing molding pieces and spray paint

some 'fake' details on the blank new cornice brackets to wrap it up.

the brackets for the existing cornice had these nice carved through details and

looked more interesting than the blank ones under the new cornice

we played around with an mdf stencil and some spray paint and viola!

you almost wouldn't notice that they're fake ...

over and out ... this was a real 'feel good project' .. 

always nice to help out some longtime friends ..