Halloween

Well, today is Halloween, and again I wore a costume to work. 

We have more progress on our building, showing up now in our new kitchen.

I really like these cabinets and the faucets.

Things are getting closer to being finished

Some of our office spaces on the second floor are now completed and colleagues are moving in. It will be a bit longer before I make my move.

In the meantime, here is our new lobby and the new reception room, which is beginning to resemble the finished product:

Our future reception room

Our future lobby. At this stage, it's hard to imagine it looking very nice.

The kitchen cabinets began being installed today.

Cement was poured today

This morning the welders finished installing our new landing and final stairs. Now it was ready for the cement to be poured.

At first, water was pumped up through the hose, lubricating it so that the cement would flow freely. This was followed by the true cement. As it came out of the hose, men were quickly spreading it out.

With the cement in and leveled, it is now sitting to dry out. This area will be carpeted and will become our new resource library. There should be one more day of welding, and then the smell should be over. There are more areas of the building waiting to be painted, carpeted, and have furniture installed. Again, it's been interesting.

Rochester

Pretty farm along Highway 52

Straw is harvested in rolls.

Autumn Ridge Church

Early this morning I drove down to Rochester and went to church with my brother at Autumn Ridge. I had not heard his pastor before (he's from England), and enjoyed his sermon very much. Their new choir director is the music professor at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He was really good and the choir was excellent!

After church and Sunday school, we went to dinner with Janet. I'm so happy that her ankle has healed enough for her to be driving (she got a new car last week), and is back at Sweet Adelines, too. She really missed out on a lot while she was laid up.

After dinner we drove through parts Rochester to see the pretty foliage. Around St. Marys Hospital there are many big, beautiful homes. It was nice.

Flowers outside one of the Mayo Clinic buildings

Saturday

Saturday is a very important day of the week for me. After working Monday through Friday, it's really nice to sleep in for a little while.

The past four Saturdays have been full up with activities for me, and thus, my chores have been a bit neglected. This morning I made up for that. I cleaned my house, including putting my furnace filters in the dishwasher. I changed the sheets on my bed, and on and on.

Taking a break, I watched a couple of cooking shows while spending some time on the Internet. I had a feeling today might be the day for the open house at my favorite candy store, Regina's Candies. I looked it up and I was right, so I made up my mind to drive over to St. Paul to once again take the tour. I phoned a couple of friends to see if they wanted to go along with me, but they had other commitments. No matter, I took off on this very fine autumn day.

Again, there were small crowds of people eagerly waiting for their turn to take the tour. For me, it was my 4th time—first time was in 1992 (here is the post I added two years ago), but nonetheless, it was special. The candy store is celebrating 88 years in existence, and I find it heartwarming to hear the grandchildren (now one is the owner) reminisce over the way their grandfather met his wife early on while she was a clerk in his store. The story goes on with their father meeting his wife (their mother) who was also a clerk in his store. What a legacy – a family business with now great-grandchildren working there. Many of the instruments and kettles they use for making the candy were used by their grandparents. Even some of the counters in the store are from the first store.

The neighborhood around Regina's is very nice. There are many lovely homes and a few other businesses. Today the trees were particularly pretty and I enjoyed the carpets of fallen leaves on the walks and in the streets.

Construction Update

We are now getting a feeling for what our new space on the first floor will look like. The landing, and the lower stairs going the opposite way from before, are being installed. The supports for the walls that will divide us from our new neighbors (also our new landlords) are in. This area (on the main floor) will be our new lobby, and the view from the new reception desk. It is vastly smaller and less impressive than our former lobby.

Dry wall was being installed next to the staircase at the time I left working yesterday. On Monday, cement will be piped upstairs to the new floor (on the upper left side of this photo) and on the new landing and steps (out of the photos, but at the bottom of this staircase). That should be interesting.

With everything that has been going on, one would think there would be some mishaps. I'm not sure how many have occurred, but noticed this one as I left the building. What happened? A drill bit slipped and created this crackled effect on one of our exterior windows. Oh, my!

Another noisy day at the office

Yesterday they finished installing the decking over the beams that will become our floor in our new resource library. Later this week cement will be poured over this.

The wall that separated our reception desk and the dining room is no longer.

It's hard to believe this used to be our reception desk.

Looking through the coat closet doorway right into Jim's office. Change, change, change.

Our office dining room

Today the remodeling plan included beginning to cut into our dining room wall, getting ready for the new occupants. In getting ready, four very dirty, grimy dining room tables and 25 chairs were brought down to our temporary reception room so that we would have places to eat. That meant I had to get out the Pledge and some cloths and begin cleaning the dirty furniture. Our chairs have many spindles, some of which I don't think have been dusted in a very long time. So, I worked and worked on the furniture and got it shiny and clean. The temporary space is quite far from the major construction, so they should stay that way for awhile. Had I known this was going to be my job today, I would have worn some older clothes. Oh, well.

I had this treat for my eyes when I went to lunch: two gorgeous red maple trees that sit at the entrance to our parking lot. They're just stunning—my camera doesn't capture them very well.

This afternoon, the construction workers cut away at the dining room wall. They have been so good about covering things up that can get dirty and cleaning up after their work.

Later today, the welders returned to add more decking to the new steel beams. The odor and smoke from their work was making it difficult to stay, so one of the bosses told me to go home. I gladly left.

This is the biggest change yet!

These steel beams were installed Saturday, forming the basis for the second floor of our building.

Part of the decking is in on the 2nd floor. This will get covered with cement. Our building will never seem the same.

More excitement in our building!

Yesterday the two square holes in our lobby floor were prepared for cement. And then the cement truck arrived. Men with wheelbarrows came in and out the building, filling the two holes for the new footings that will help support the new floor.

This morning a large truck came with 5 huge new heating/AC units for our roof, followed by a gigantic crane that hoisted down the old ones and put up the new ones. That was quite an attraction!

Later this morning they moved our reception desk over into our new landlord’s space and we will be in this temporary space about 2 weeks. It is huge, and beautifully painted (3 gray walls and one fuchsia) with new gray carpet. I love it! I have the biggest space in the whole office!!

Oh wait, that's not all . . . later today they turned on one of the new heating units and it caused our fire alarm to be set off. Sure enough, here came the fire department! Thankfully, it was only from fumes of the oil burning off the new units and there was no fire.

Tomorrow the builders are bringing in huge steel beams that will be the support for the new floor upstairs, closing off the atrium to the first floor. I'm thankful that work will be done while we're away. The smell of the burning steel is not pleasant.

Just when I thought things couldn't get worse . . .

So before I arrived at the office today, the workmen had cut out most of the soffit, getting ready for the six steal beams that have to go up to support the new floor on our second floor. There were pieces of metal and sheet rock all over our former lobby. 

All of this debris was soon carted outside to the dumpster.

Quite the lobby, right?

Mid-morning, another crew arrived and used a power shovel to loosen the compacted sand and dug it out making the whole deeper, about 3-1/2 feet. We have two holes this size where cement will soon be poured for footings. 

At 4 o'clock, the office manager called me to the upstairs railing to see our reception desk being taken apart.

Our reception desk is being moved into a temporary space at the north end of the building. I helped move a bunch of the stuff and came home exhausted! Now I'm told the main telephone cannot be moved until sometime tomorrow afternoon, so I guess tomorrow morning I'll be sitting out in the open with no desk. It's going to be interesting.