Lutgen’s Bar Remodel Project

May 4, 2021

A Year On

Well it’s been over a year since I’ve had a post on this site and a big part of that is because most of the work is done upstairs, and I haven’t really started much at all on the main level yet. With that in mind, there are a couple of projects that I’ve been working to wrap up over this year and I thought I’d give an update on that.

The master bathroom shower. As you’ve seen in a bunch of the posted pictures, as of last January (2020), there still wasn’t a shower installed in the master bathroom, and even the drywall was not in since I had to take a good section out to get the shower base installed. One of the things that was holding me back, aside from finding time, was that the cultured marble panels that I had for it were still outside on the deck, and I figured for sure if I moved them in winter, they’d shatter. So once it got warm enough last spring (again, 2020) I set to work on that. It was a relatively straightforward process honestly. The cultured marble is easy to work with, standard woodworking tools work just fine. I used a hole saw to cut out the holes for the shower head and handle and a router with a straight bit to cut out the corners of the side panels for the base and cut a slight angle on the two side panels (the wall was about 1/2 inch off from top to bottom). After that it was basically just using adhesive on the back of the panels and bracing them until it cured. The shelves are just glued on with bathroom caulking/adhesive and then all of the seams caulked as well.

The countertop. This was the doozy, quite a bigger project than I thought I was taking on, but in the end I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. So a little backstory on this, I was able to get my hands on a few timbers that had come off of old power line poles that had been taken down after decades of use. I thought it would be really cool to seam them together to make a countertop for my kitchen island, and it turns out it was!

I started out running them through a planer (top and bottom) and then a jointer (both sides…sorry, forgot to snap pictures of that process) to take the old wood off of them and square them up to be ready to seam together. This was a bit of a task in itself because they’re not exactly short or light pieces of timber (~10′ long and 8″ wide by 4″ thick), but we were able to get it done with a few extra rollers and a few extra hands.

So that was good, and in getting ready to put it all together I built a rack out of some pipes we had laying around so that I’d have a nice flat surface to put it together on. That was when I noticed that all of the beams had a bit of a warp to them and none of them sat flat on the rack I’d built. Well crap. You can see in the middle image below that they have a twist in them, comparing how the seams look on this end vs the other end.

Well now what? I guess I could have gone a couple of different directions here, put it together anyway and work it out at the end, take it to somebody with a mill to fix the warp, scrap the project and just put a regular countertop in, well I decided to build a mechanism to take the warp out of these boards myself. I built a track system that mounted on the rack that I’d already built so that I could leave the boards stationary but then move a belt sander across them at a set height and take enough of the wood off of any particular area so that they came out flat. Some folks said I should have used a router for this, and that might be true, it just seemed to me like I had more fine control over it with the sander. Once I got the tops and bottoms of all of the boards flattened then I did the edges/sides as well.

Once I got all the way through that, you can see that the boards are a bit different thicknesses yet, but the twist is completely out of them. From there I proceeded with lining them up, drilling four holes all of the way through them, bolting and gluing them all together and then it was back to sanding to get the top as flat as possible.

I got it basically as flat as I was hoping to, it wasn’t quite professional-grade and still had some extra character here and there, but I was very happy with where it got to. Then I filled the holes that were leftover from where the timbers were bolted onto the pole with epoxy, routed out a section on the bottom side where it would sit on top of the cabinet, and did the finish sanding of the bottom side. At this point I could have flipped it over and finish sanded the top side as well, but rather than flipping it over a bunch of times (it’s not light) I decided to stain and varnish the bottom side, and then start on the top.

From there I made some plugs to put into the sides to cover up the ends of the threaded rod that I used to hold it together, glued them in, and finish sanded the sides and the top. Then I got it stained and put 8 coats of varnish on the top to make sure it would be durable enough to last as a countertop.

After that it was just a matter of getting it upstairs (again, heavy) but there were a few folks around that were happy to help carry it up for a few beers. I had some heavy brackets made to attach it to the cabinet below, and then got it set on top and screwed down. All in all, I think it looks great!

Well there you go, an update from a year in! I’ve done a few other things, some shelving in closets, etc. as well of course but these were the bigger things I spent time on. I figured this was going to be a long post, but it turned out to be a SUPER long post. Hope you enjoyed it!

January 3, 2020

Moved In!

This one is long overdue, been working to get things mostly put away before snapping pictures for it.

Well, in the middle of October I was able to get moved into the new place! We still had a few wrinkles to work out but it was (very) livable so it worked out. It took a few extra weeks to get the microwave/oven combo in (the first one that arrived was damaged in shipping) and we had a few leaks to work out with the hot water heat, as well as get electricity run to the boiler and zone valves & thermostats hooked up. That’s all resolved now, though I do still have some dishes below the radiator connections just to be safe.

As you can see, I’ve got a few things to do yet. The shower in the master bath is yet to be installed and I have to make the countertop for the kitchen island yet. Also various shelving, cabinets, etc. to be done yet as well, though I’m settled in and it feels like home.

Thanks to everyone who’ve helped out on this project so far, there’s lots left to do, but this is (obviously) a major milestone. I’m going to hopefully get a walk-through video up in the next couple of weeks.

September 23, 2019

A Little Privacy

This past week was a big week for doors and trim. All of the interior doors are hung and window & door trim as well as baseboard is done in most areas as well. I also got new steps and the skirtboard & railing is on as well (sorry, I forgot to snap a picture of the railing…).

I also spent a little time yesterday hanging the two bathroom mirrors that I ordered a couple of weeks ago and showed up this past week. The electricians still need to come and wire them in.

September 16, 2019

The Quickening

Big update today. Last week and this past weekend were really productive. Floors, cabinets, electrical, all making big strides forward.

Starting with the floors. Final sanding, staining, and two clear coats went on this past week and into the weekend and they look really fantastic. There’s enough character so you know that they are reclaimed, but there aren’t huge gaps or cracks that would make it look bad. My flooring guy was a little concerned that I wanted to stain them (rather than just clear-coat) because apparently maple can sometimes not take stain very well, but it really turned out just amazing. He also laid down the engineered hardwood in my office and the parlor this week as well. The tile guy got the tile in the bathrooms down as too (which also looks great). And there’s a random picture of the laundry room now that there’s light in there and you can see the tile. Check it out!

So you also got a look at everything else too. Most of the lights are installed, but some are on back-order yet. The cabinets came on Thursday and they look awesome. They’re quarter-sawn Oak and have inset doors and drawers, both of which are meant to give them a little older feel, more like they were made decades ago.

Next up, the trim and doors are going in this week!

September 10, 2019

Labor Day Update (+1 week)

We made some real progress over the labor day weekend, largely due to the HUGE amount of help that we got from some truly fantastic people in town. We (Dad, Mom, Uncle Al & myself) started laying down pavers for the driveway/patio on Saturday morning and slowly throughout the day we accumulated more and more volunteers until, towards the end of the day, we had 12 people working. Because of that tremendous amount of help, we were able to get all of the pavers laid down in a single day. All ~2500 of them. I forgot to get some pictures of the finished product before it got dark on Monday, which is why you’re getting this update a week late. Unfortunately we got a bunch of rain on Monday night and didn’t quite have the dirt sloped away on the one edge of the pavers yet, so we had some water back up on to them and leave some residue, but we’ll get them cleaned off.

The big reason why it got dark before I got a decent picture of the finished driveway/patio on Monday is because of the shower in my master bathroom…

I ordered a marble shower base and 3 marble panels for the walls through the company that is making my kitchen and bathroom cabinets. They have a connection because they get marble countertops for bathrooms pretty regularly and that organization also makes shower panels/bases. Anyway, the order was delivered on Friday 8/30 and the guy was coming to start laying the tile on the bathroom floors on Tuesday 9/3, so unfortunately it was looking like we’d have to get, at least the base, installed ourselves so it would be ready for the tile guy on Tuesday.

Wow. That was a hell of an ordeal.

The shower base measured 69 1/4 inches wide, and with the drywall removed in the bathroom (to get ready for the shower base) the stud-to-stud measurement of the space was 69 1/4 inches. Plus (as you can see in the picture) the bathroom is all one single width, so somehow we were going to have to get it through the door upright and lay it down once it was in the room. That was a tight fit. We ended up notching out the studs and the bottom plate on the inside wall (non-load-bearing of course) so that we could get it laying flat in that area on 4×4 blocks. Then shimmed it up so it wouldn’t sit directly on top of the hot water lines in the floor, lined up the drain and got the PVC cement it on before dropping it down the rest of the way. HUGE thanks to Neighbor Tim for spending 3 1/2 hours helping us get that in place in addition to helping us with the pavers 2 days before, and HUGE thanks to Neighbor Fred who helped us get those (very) heavy pieces of marble up to the second level.

And, of course, I didn’t get a picture of that in-place because it was 9:30p before we finished and I forgot to snap it before we unplugged all of the lights. etc. Here is a picture of it from last weekend, after the tile guy has his self-leveler down on top of the hot water lines and the Ditra anti-fracture mat down on top of that. He’s set to finish up the tile today.

The hardwood floors are coming along nicely. As of last weekend he’s got them all laid down and a great start on the sanding. The plan is to have stain on them by the end of the day today, the first clear coat on them tomorrow and they’ll be ready for the cabinets to come in on Thursday! They are looking really nice after he’s got them sanded and I’m really excited to see what they’re going to look like finished.

And finally I have to give a shout out to Luxy 13 Hops who grow hops on a farm just outside of town. For the last three weekends they’ve been harvesting hops and I spent some time on Saturday helping them out with that. It was a great atmosphere, lots of conversation, learning about hops and catching up with Cory and Clinton Rausch who run Luxy 13 along with Joe Klein. Check them out at https://www.luxy13hops.com/.

August 26, 2019

Fresh Coat of Paint

Things are starting to come together very quickly. Two weekends ago a few of us worked most of the weekend to get the reclaimed hardwood cleaned up for the installer who came last week (Mom, Dad, Aunt Shirley, Uncle Al, Uncle Robert, and even Sophie helped out!) For anyone who’s not aware, hardwood floors collect a lot of dirt and other stuff in the cracks over time (especially when it’s been installed for over 100 years) and that needs to get cleaned out before it can get reinstalled. It took us pretty much all weekend, but we were able to get all 1000 sq. ft. of it cleaned up and ready for installation.

With all of the wood cleaned, the installer was able to start laying it down this past Wednesday and he’s making some pretty good progress already. I’m pretty excited to see what it looks like after he gets it sanded off.

As you may have noticed in those pictures, Mom and Aunt Shirley have been working on getting the primer coat of paint on the whole place for the last week and a half. They brought in Aunt Diane, Uncle Duane, & Dad over the weekend and got the finish coat on most of the rooms too! Pretty much the only thing that needs paint yet is the main area (kitchen, dining room, living room).

I took Thursday and Friday off this past week and Uncle Al, Dad, and I spent a majority of the long weekend working on the paver driveway/patio in the backyard. Across the area we dug out at least 12″ of dirt and started replacing it with Class 5 fill, little by little since we didn’t have a huge tamper. We ran out of fill in the late afternoon on Saturday, so we ended up quitting for the weekend, but we’ll get back at it this coming weekend again (and hopefully finish it up).

Also, I said in the last post that I’d get a picture of the grass coming in, so here it is (from last Thursday though, so it’s quite a bit longer now).

August 15, 2019

Starting the Finishing

It’s been a few weeks (at least) since I’ve gotten a post out here, I feel like we’ve turned a bit of a corner in this phase of the project. Suddenly we’ve switched from the “under the covers” type of work to the work that everyone is actually going to see when they come in, which is really exciting.

We’ve got drywall up, taping & mudding completed, and Aunt Shirley even started painting this week (sorry, I haven’t grabbed any pictures in the last week or so). The (reclaimed) hardwood floors are going to start going down this coming week, the tile in the bathrooms is lined up to go down now that the in-floor heat is put in place, and even the water lines for the hot water radiators are mostly run.

Unfortunately I didn’t grab any pictures of the beautiful grass coming up this past week and a half, I’ll get one on the next post, but here’s a picture of some flat dirt. (Oh, with grass seed and straw mats put down 🙂 )

I also mentioned that the hardwood floors are going down this coming week, so we had to get all of that wood back up there so it could acclimate to the environment before it got put down. We had quite a crew helping us get it all hauled upstairs yesterday! It was an interesting approach, but we got it all up there. Now we just have to spend the weekend cleaning it up getting it ready for installation.

We should be seeing some major changes in the next couple of weeks, painting, flooring, trim, & appliances should be happening.

July 6, 2019

Warm Fuzzies

Happy 4th of July weekend to everyone! Hope everyone is having a great weekend and still has all of their fingers (or at least has a good story if they don’t). It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted an update so here’s we go.

The electricians have finished their rough-in work, the one thing that we’re waiting on is to have the underground service hooked up by Xcel so they can switch it over at the panel. Sounds like that’s coming this week.

The plumbers have finished their rough-in work as well, they have water lines to run for the hot water heat yet though.

Since everyone was pretty much ready for it, we had the insulators through last week and this week and they’re as far as they can go until we get drywall on (then they’ll be able to finish up with the attic). It definitely looks different having the walls a bit more defined (and pink….).

The drywall showed up yesterday (7/6) and the crew to hang it is showing up on Wednesday to get rolling on that. Last weekend Mom & Dad helped me hang plywood in the utility room so the plumbers could attach the water and gas manifolds, boiler, etc. to the wall a little more securely than it would have been with drywall.

They started installing the new septic system last week and finished up leveling the ground off with a bunch of new black dirt this past Wednesday. Just in time for 2″ of rain to come down on Thursday, so we had some washout which prevented me from getting grass planted this weekend. I’ve got someone lined up to help get it leveled off again so I should be able to get grass down pretty soon so that washout doesn’t happen again.

June 23, 2019

It’s Electric!

In the last couple of weeks we’ve seen a fair bit of progress, specifically on the electrical side. The electricians came in two weeks ago and in a couple of days had most of the rough-in wiring upstairs done. The plumbers have also made a bunch of progress on the heating/AC ducting and are basically completed with that as well.

We’re hoping to be far enough along that we can get insulation put in this coming week, and also the new septic system is going in this week too.

That’s all I’ve got for now, but you can bet on another update soon!

June 1, 2019

Back In The Saddle

Wow I’ve been really terrible about keeping this site up-to-date, especially as of late. Well let me get everyone up to speed!

Working to get bids to finish everything off on the second floor took quite a bit longer than I was anticipating (there seems to be a common theme here…). I finally had everything pulled together by the end of March, so we were able to get started with construction again in the middle of April (my move-in plans are going to push out a little bit it seems). The new construction crew was able to get out there pretty much right away and get the stud walls stood up for me.

Along with that I had them open up a new back exit on the first floor in the bar room. Soon the original “pop shed” door will be closed up and this will be the access to the stairs and out the back of the building. (Unfortunately I forgot to take a good picture of this, but I’m posting the crummy one at least)

The plumbers have been in the last couple of weeks working on the plumbing and they’ll also be working on the hot water heat and ductwork for the Air Conditioning. I haven’t made their job terribly easy with the several levels of flooring they have to cut through and work around to get their pipes in the right place, but they’re doing a great job. I’ll have the electricians in pretty quickly here to do their thing.

Also, some the family and I have been hard at work starting to refinish some of the old trim to be reused (somewhere upstairs). I’ve made a few trips back and forth from North Minneapolis with the truck hauling home some radiators that I’ll sandblast and repaint to use for my hot water heat upstairs.

Now you’re up-to-date! Now that things are rolling again, I’ll make sure to get back on a regular cadence of posts.

One last thing, I want to take a second to thank everyone who came to Grandma’s funeral, and especially anyone who stopped by for a beer at The Store afterward. It was really special for the whole family to have so many people come to celebrate her life, and spend time reminiscing about her, how she’d impacted everyone that walked through the door, and the many games of euchre she played sitting behind that bar. It was exactly the send-off she would have wanted.

October 1, 2018

A Marathon, Not A Sprint

A quick update today. Not a whole lot new since the last post but I wanted to mark the date; aside from a few ancillary items (that won’t be done before winter), the outside of the building is complete! The siding, shakes, and deck were completed early-mid last week and the construction crew has taken off while I work on finalizing the plans for the interior of the building and lining up electrical, plumbing/heating, sheetrock, cabinets, trim, etc. Here’s some pictures for ya! (sorry about a few of the deck ones, it got a bit late the one night…there’s some day ones as well)

September 24, 2018

Day by Day

As the title says, more progress day by day. We’ve got almost all of the siding on at this point, and they’ve got the couple of overhangs above the doors built that they were waiting on to finish out the siding. They also added runners for the deck on the balcony and started adding the deck boards. Hoping to get it (the outside of the building) wrapped up this week!

September 11, 2018

Moving Right Along

A bit of a quick update for everyone, siding is on more of the building but there’s a few spots where there are going to be overhangs over the doors (on the West and South sides of the building). So they’ll need to build those and attach them before they can side those sections of the building. Also the rubber roofing went on above the porch this past week so that is sealed up tight now as well (unfortunately I didn’t grab a picture of that). Half of the roof above the balcony is also shingled (though I expect that it is done at this point, since it was over the weekend that I was up there and grabbed these pictures).

August 31, 2018

I Can See Clearly Now

I spent a bit of the day today moving this site to a new hosting provider and thought I’d end the day with a post, seeing as how I have some pictures and updates to share!

You’ll notice a few things since the last post, we’ve got all of the windows & doors in the building, trim around almost all of them, and also siding on one side as well. The crew is continuing to work on getting siding on the rest of the building and the roofers will be coming in the next couple of days to lay a rubber roof down on the balcony floor in the front of the building. From there the crew will lay a deck down on top of that.

August 20, 2018

Get Out The Water Balloons…

Last week seemed to fly by, but things are looking a lot different! The sheathing was added to the balcony floor, the balcony posts and beams are up, and we’ve even got a roof on it!

As you can see, a couple more windows went in, trim work has moved along, and we’ve even got more siding on.

In an additional note, the cleaning on the main floor continues. We got some more cleaned up in the old grocery area and another shelf removed. It really opened that room up!

August 12, 2018

A Post! Finally!

It’s been a REALLY long time since I posted, that was mostly because there wasn’t a whole lot going on with the project until now. Here are the things that we DID make happen in that time.

Back in June we were able to get the windows and doors put in the first level so Al could move back in, unfortunately I neglected (insert “forgot” here 🙂 ) to snap any pictures right after they went in. After that, in the beginning of July we were able to get the rest of the concrete steps pulled out from both the west and one of the south doors (remember we had them halfway gone?). We patched up the parts of the foundation that got a little wrecked by pulling those out and will probably have to spend a little more time on the south side with the patch work but it’s sealed for now.

Starting last week the crew was able to come back and start on the front part of the building. Within the first few days they had the roof torn off of the porch and were starting to build upward from there to form the new balcony that will be above the porch now (accessible via the second level of the building). They’ve got a temporary post there holding it up right now, but they poured the columns on both the north and the south side of the front of the building this past Friday so they’ll be able to get those permanent posts put in place early this week. As you can see by the pictures, they did get one more of the first-level windows put in, in the new section of the first level. They also got the band board put all of the way around the building on the bottom, some window and corner trim installed, and even have a piece of siding on one of the walls of the west side of the building.

Additional note that you may have already noticed from one of the pictures in the last gallery, we started pulling the tiles and grid out from the drop-ceiling and exposed the tin ceiling that’s above them. It needs some work yet, but I think it’s going to look great once I get it refinished!

I thought I’d end this post on a happy note, this past June my sister got married! It was a great time and fun was had by all. I, of course, shaved for the occasion and snapped a picture that I could share with all of you (mostly so you can understand my sister’s frustration with me 😀 ).

Thanks everyone for following along! Now that we’ve got construction rolling again I’ll be posting more regularly.

April 6, 2018

Bulletproof! I Mean…Waterproof (But Maybe Bulletproof Too)

A long overdue update here, about two weeks ago the crew finished shingling the building, I’ve decided to go with steel Arrowline shingles from Edco. They look really nice on the building, especially when the sun hits them and I think they’ll go better with my design than other styles of steel roofing. Plus they’re guaranteed for 50 years! They also started working on the soffit and facia that week, and came back to finish it up last week. Now they’re taking a bit of a break until the windows and doors for the first level come.

March 18, 2018

Wrapping Up The Week

This was a big week for the project, lots done (as has been evident by the last couple of posts). Walls sheathed & taped, roof on, sheathed, & papered as well. Just a short post here wrapping it up, there was some work done after Tuesday’s post, they finished the front and back gable ends and they took out the south door in the living room and patched it in. Here’s a couple of extra pictures from Friday afternoon.

March 14, 2018

Bringing In The Ringers

I forgot to mention this in my last post, but we had another local crew, from Richmond, MN, have a week free up so we were able to bring those guys in to help out this week.

Wow.

These guys showed up with a 4-person crew for a total of 6 working on the job and really made some progress. Yesterday (3/13) they got all of the rafters hung, half of the roof sheeted and also the Titanium UDL50 on that side as well in one day.

March 13, 2018

Sheathing & Taping

Quick update for everyone tonight, day 1 of this week has shown lots of progress. We’ve got rafters delivered and all of the walls sheathed and taped. (The tape seals up the seams on the Zip Sheathing so it is weatherproof for up to several months without additional covering)

We should see rafters go up tomorrow and roof sheathing on Wednesday! (Assuming all goes well)

March 12, 2018

Get On Top

Been a while since I posted, the crew had a few other jobs that they had to take care of so they took a bit of time off from my job. They’re back in full swing now though.

First things first; before they took off, the crew did finish up leveling and sheathing the floor, I’ve just been slacking and didn’t get the pictures up here.  During demolition, they did notice some rot on one of the beams on the east side of the building, so they fixed that as well.

On to the good stuff! As I mentioned the crew got back at it this past week and they really made a heck of a lot of progress. We got some great pictures of it and as you can see, we have four walls upstairs again!

You might notice that the front wall is (significantly) taller than the other three. We’re going to put a “storefront” type look on the building again, with a squared-off front, similar to what was on before we started the project.

The crew will be back this week, along with a few extras, to get the walls sheathed, rafters set, and roof sheathed. Exciting!

January 28, 2018

Onward & Upward

Quick update this week, I was up in St. Nick yesterday (Saturday) to check out the progress and things are definitely starting to come together. I’m pulling together a quick update because I’ll be out of town most of the week for work so I won’t be able to post any additional updates until way later in the week.

Things are looking really good, the insulation went into the walls on the north side during the week and they were able to get the first row of sheathing on as well. They also were able to work in the new corner of the building and get the new steps built and the new ceiling/floor added to that section as well. It’s really exciting to see how things are taking shape!

January 25, 2018

Better Than It Was Before

This past week the crew finished adding the extra studs in the first floor walls on the north and south sides of the building, fixing things here and there. On the south side they took out the framing for the window that was in the grocery (that was originally twice as wide) and on the north side they were able to true up the wall with the additional studs.  They also got tenting set up so that the insulators could come out and foam the south and west sides of the first floor; they came in on Friday and got that done.

The next steps after that were to get the walls sheathed and two of the three sets of steps were in the way of getting that done properly. So Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday morning Al and I worked on getting them pulled out. They did not come willingly. Lots of rocks (especially in the one on the west side) We got enough done so that they could get the rot fixed and the sheathing on, before the jackhammer had to go back to the rental place by noon.

As long as there was no sheathing on the outside of the building yet, and there was still light coming in, I figured I’d snap a few pictures of what it looks like upstairs now.

Quick update from this week, I was up on Tuesday and snapped some pictures of where things were at. They were able to get the tenting moved to the north side to prepare for the insulators, which should have been there today (Wednesday). They also got the sheathing on all of the south side and part of the west side. It took them a bit longer than they would have liked because the studs in the walls (the original ones) were not measured 16″ on center, so they ended up cutting every sheet before they put it up. They’re using some newer sheathing that actually has the sealant already applied to the sheets (rather than having to wrap the house afterwards with Tyvek). After it’s up they only have to use special tape to tape all of the seams and it’s supposedly waterproof for 3 months (without cover) after that.

January 15, 2018

Getting The Place Bundled Up

This past week we had the threat of freezing rain, slush, snow and all sorts of nastiness; so the crew worked the first part of the week to get things sealed up top so that we wouldn’t have all sorts of water running in and ruining everything. A big part of this was finishing getting the walls built up higher, hanging the new joists, and putting the first layer of floor sheathing down.

After that they got a bunch of plastic sheeting laid down over the whole thing to seal it up really well. Turns out that we didn’t get a terribly large amount of snow/rain but it’s good that we had it sealed up all the same. They’re planning to head back out this week to keep on working.

Al also got all of the boards pulled off of the north side of the building to get ready for the foam insulation that’s *hopefully* going in this coming week so that we can get the exterior sheathing put back on.

December 26, 2017

A Christmas Story

I’ve really had a lot of fun this Christmas weekend, lots of family, friends, and family of friends have been around town and stopping by to ask how things are going with the project and express their excitement about it. It’s a bit of an undertaking  (which I knew that it was going to be) but hearing the excitement in everyone’s voices and the stories about the bar that I’m hearing from everyone really has made it a ride worth taking. I think this is a fantastic time for me to express my gratitude for everyone that has helped make this project a reality and for everyone that has supported and helped me with it. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Now to the good stuff! I teased a little bit in last Monday’s post, but (for those who don’t know yet) the crew was able to pull the rest of the roof off last Monday. It was quite the spectacle and we had quite a few gawkers while it was happening. (including myself!)

After that I wasn’t able to get back up to St. Nick until this past Friday, but they’ve leveled everything off and put in the new double top plates all the way around the building and Friday they stood up the two new first-level walls! (in the northwest corner of the building)

The crew is taking this coming week off so there probably won’t be a post this coming Monday (1/1) but I’ll keep the posts coming as more happens.

December 18, 2017

Cooking With Gas

Last week Monday the crew from Chupp Brothers Construction showed up to start on the project. They were off to a great start on Monday, they got settled in (warming area set up, etc.) and then started in but about halfway through the day one of the wheels on their lift locked up. So that set them back just a bit. They brought a different lift out on Tuesday and really made some stuff happen.

Tuesday’s Status:

Wednesday’s Status:

And the status on Saturday when I visited the site:

One thing that we found a while back but I couldn’t get a good picture of until the ceiling was down is the original front of the building. When they added on to the front of it, they took out most of the wall that used to be the front exterior wall (so that there is one big room on the main level and upstairs) but they left the part of it that’s in the attic.

Now, I know I’m a couple of days late on this post (I should have had it up Saturday night already) so here’s a little teaser for this week’s post. (from today)

December 11, 2017

Everyone’s Pitching In

On Thanksgiving Day weekend, after enjoying some fantastic Thanksgiving Day food and family time on Thursday, the Lutgen family converged on the family bar the following couple of days.

Friday we had a big crew and got quite a bit accomplished. We finished tearing the wall between the two upstairs’ down to the studs (so that the construction crew could get right to it), got the flooring that we pulled up hauled down to the shed and stacked on pallets, and had a big reveal!

When Al pulled the stucco off of the north side of the building there was a bit of a surprise that we found underneath. A painted on sign that (we’re figuring) was put there sometime between 1936-1939 by John (Jack) Frank who was renting the place at the time. Quite a bit of the town showed up for the big reveal of the partial message that they’d been driving by the whole week before.

Quite a fun little surprise.

On Saturday we had a few of the cousins and their kids stop in to check out the progress and they (the kids) had a fun time knocking holes and plaster off of the walls. I think they would’ve stayed all day/night long if they could have!

I also went up on Tuesday (11/28) to retrieve the sign to be saved and reused as decoration inside the future bar. I also worked with Al (it was mostly Al) to pull the siding and stucco off of the front of the building, exposing some cool original siding underneath.

And finally, the construction crew is coming this Monday (12/11) to start up so we had a big push the last week and a half to finish getting everything ready for them. (I apologize for the lighting on a few of these)

Anyway, it seems like these big posts are going to be more common than I’d like, sorry about that! I’ll try to get back to weekly updates.

November 14, 2017

Starting to Get Some Traction (this is a big one)

I know I haven’t posted much in a while, I apologize for that. Here’s the (lengthy) update!

Let’s start where I left off. The variances that I applied for (height and distance from the road right of way) were both approved! The Stearns County Board of Adjustment meeting for October was on the 26th and the Board did not seem to have any issues with either of my requests, even citing that just across the street was a building that was over 100′ tall (the Church) vs the 35′ tall that I’d like the bar to be.

Since then, we’ve made some serious progress with the project. We decided to save quite a bit more of the wood used in various places in the building to be reused for decorative purposes (accent walls, etc.) in the new place. I’m hoping that this will help tie the new construction together with what’s currently there and make everything look like it fits. On the 28th with the help of Al and Dad, we removed a bunch of the wood from the walls in the pop/oil shed area.

One thing that we noticed when we were tearing the wood off the walls was that the wood on the ceiling/roof looked pretty cool as well and would be fun to save. I headed up on Friday the 3rd to spend that evening and Saturday the 4th tearing the roof off of that section to save the wood. When I got there, I walked around back of the building, opened the door, and was perplexed to see daylight. I looked up to find that Al had already torn the roof off of that section and saved it for me. With that wood saved, I scheduled the Braun Excavating to come out and tear off the back corner of the building and to dig for the new foundation.

With the wood from the ceiling saved, Dad and I pulled out one of the lifts and decided we’d see how difficult the stucco was going to be to get off of the north side of the building. It was not easy, but it seemed like once I got it started it went a bit easier. I snapped a picture of some siding that hadn’t seen the light of day in probably 100 years.

With the wood saved, Doug Braun came and tore off the back section of the building on the 8th. I got a little snap-happy with the camera (aka iPhone).

The rest of last week, Doug worked to pull  up the rest of the concrete around the back side of the building and dig for the new foundation.

We got REALLY lucky and were able to get a concrete team scheduled for yesterday (13th) and they had the footings poured and the foundation laid in a day.

I also had a meeting with the lumber yard and the construction crew to effectively kick off the build part of the project yesterday. (yay!) We’ve got the new trusses (both the new floor joists and the new rafters) on order and the construction crew is lined up to start building in the second week in December. To help them keep moving along Dad, Al, & I started demo in the area where they’d like to start building, above the old grocery side. We got the stucco pulled off the wall up there and were able to pull the siding off as well and save it. (sorry i didn’t take a ‘before’ picture!)

Well I think that’s all the updates I have for you right now. (as if it wasn’t a boat load already) I’ll try to stay more on top of the posts as we go so they don’t get huge like this one did.

October 4, 2017

Red Tape & Bureaucracy

I’ve been trying to get this post pulled together for a while now, been a while since I posted anything.  We’ve been making some progress (as you’ll see by the photos below) but really I’ve been dealing with a bunch of other stuff lately.

I went in to apply for the construction site permit at the beginning of September with Stearns County and apparently since I’m increasing the usable space of the building (the space above what was the grocery side will now be considered ‘usable’), my project now is subject to setback and right-of-way concerns so I’m having to apply for a variance since the building is (already) too tall and too close to the road.

Side Note: For anyone reading this looking to do a similar project to this one, keep in mind that you can actually apply for your construction permit before you own a property as long as you have the owner’s sign-off on the application. I was unaware of this (mostly because I never thought to ask the question). Had I planned ahead I should have been able to have all (most) of this taken care of before now.

A part of the variance process was a land survey which revealed several issues, the biggest one being that since the property lines are not perpendicular to the road, part of the shed behind the garage was on the neighbor’s land and the back corner of The Store was closer than 10′ away from the line, which would require (at least one) additional variance. Instead of that, I’ve been working with the land surveyor, a real estate lawyer, and the truly fantastic neighbors around The Store property to re-set the property lines so that everyone’s buildings are on their own property and the lines are now perpendicular to the road (just as the buildings are).

I was able to get my variance application in by the deadline, along with all of the requirements, so it seems (at least at this point) that we’re on-track to be on the agenda for the Planning Commission meeting on the 26th of October. *fingers crossed*

Anyway, time for the important stuff that I know you came here to see, the current pictures (well, at least since Sept. 11). Unfortunately it’s nothing super exciting but we were able to get the rest of the floor pulled up and stacked up. (there’s a couple of days’ worth of pictures here, looks like I missed a post)

Gary has been spending some time up there tearing out plaster since the last time that I was there working on it. He found the same thing on the north wall as we found on the other side of the room, for some reason towards the front of the building, the walls get a little thicker at a certain point. Definitely a little interesting, we don’t have really any idea why this was.

August 30, 2017

May the Floor(s) Be With You

Not too much of an update tonight, spent some more time pulling up floor. Still coming up very well, just slow work. Also, Neighbor Dave came and helped out (a lot!) tonight!

August 29, 2017

Back to the Floor…Finally!

Tonight we had almost the whole (immediate) family involved! Mom & Dad were helping out, Gary came and tore plaster and laths off of an entire wall, and now that the interior walls are out we started making some good progress pulling up the flooring. It’s going to take some time to get the whole floor up, but it’s coming out pretty well and I think it’ll be worth it.

August 28, 2017

Phantom of the Demo

I had kind of a full weekend this past weekend so I didn’t get a chance to get up to The Store to continue demo, but when I got back up there this evening, a bunch more had been done! How weird is that?!

Just kidding, dumb joke. Al spent a bunch of time on Saturday working to pull out a HUGE section of the middle wall. We’re definitely making the strides on this demo that we are because of Al.

I was able to get some more done tonight as well, finished pulling out the last of that wall, got that cleaned up and cleaned up a little extra in order to be able to get the rest of the flooring pulled out. Not a huge amount of progress, but still movement forward. We’re back to one big room upstairs! Anyone up for a dance? 🙂

August 24, 2017

Hitting Our Stride

Really excited after tonight, we’re making some very good progress now. Dad stopped by and another good friend of mine (Betty) offered to help, so with the help of Uncle Al we had a great team going and had a few more visitors stop by to see the progress. Lots of interest in the goings on at The Store!

August 23, 2017

The First of Many Evenings

After The Long Weekend, I haven’t been making as much progress as I’d like, so I decided I needed to dedicate a lot more days and evenings to demo…starting with today! Initially I’d been taking my time and really finding out the best/easiest/most effective way to pull off plaster and laths from the walls, but in the end it turns out that the BFH really is the quickest way to tear things apart. With Uncle Al’s help (needless to say, he ran circles around me) we made a bunch more progress this evening and really nailed down our process. By the end of the evening we had our process down pat and working as a well-oiled machine.

August 20, 2017

The Long Weekend

I had the whole weekend free so I was at The Store continuing to pull up materials that I’m planning to save/reuse and also continue the demolition.  I didn’t quite get as far as I would have liked but made some good progress all the same!

After Day 1 (Friday Evening) – I was able to finish pulling all of the door trim, baseboard, etc. and Uncle Al spent a bunch of time tearing out closets, baseboard heaters, and pulling up carpeting from a few of the other rooms.

After Day 2 (Saturday) – I started pulling up the hardwood floor that I’m hoping to save, made some progress on that (luckily it’s coming up really well!) but found out quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to make much progress without starting to take out some of the walls (since it’s tongue and groove, and the walls are built on top of the flooring). So I started tearing out walls! Uncle Al spent time cleaning out the “Oil Shed” part of the building and taking out shelving, etc. because that section of the building will be coming off as well.

After Day 3 (Sunday) – Bit of a slow start this morning (Church, of course) as well as having to clean up a bit early for an event that I had to get to later in the afternoon made Sunday a bit less productive than I’d hoped, but still made good progress, finished tearing out one of the walls and spent time pulling nails out of trim boards that I’m reclaiming. I also had some fantastic visitors come by to check out the progress! (Cousins, Uncles, and more!)

August 11, 2017

Saving What I Can (Part 1)

There’s a lot of great trim, baseboard, and flooring that I’m hoping to save and reuse in the new place. It’s coming out pretty good so far! Also, very interesting info to learn as we started opening up walls; the house was built using something called “balloon framing” where the walls are stood up first and then the floors are added later. (you can see in the wall section that the floor doesn’t go all the way to the edge, the floor joist is mounted to the side of the stud) There was no insulation in the exterior walls, which I’m finding out is normal for pre 1920’s construction. Another cool fact, the space above the bar was all one room at one time, you can see in the one wall section that the walls were actually put in later, before that it was a dance hall!

July 22, 2017

Cleaning House!

Today the entire family got together to help clean out the upstairs of The Store to get it ready for construction. It was a fantastic time going through old memories and discovering things that hadn’t been seen in 50 years or more. The place is starting to look a little bit different without all of the stuff up there.