Day One

 Day one. This sweet, ramshackle, sorry-looking and much abused building at the junctions of Routes 926 and 41 in Cochranville, Pennsylvania, will be our new office before the snows arrive.


The new design is by Emily, the physical transformation will be done by Tom Savage and his team, and this poor attempt at capturing the process will mostly be by me - I know my rightful place.


The process started five or six months ago when we began to think about where to house the business and over that time has crossed from West Chester to Baltimore to New York City to Parkesburg and Cochranville. Well, there was only one choice given those options.


The building is in poor condition, but tough enough at it's important points (that's the technical term in my world) to withstand being renovated.


The first decision was made earlier this week when Tom discovered that the original wood siding was hidden under a horror, a sodding horror of vinyl siding but appeared to be in reasonable condition and restorable. Which was nice to hear, because the floor (what's left of it), ceiling and internal walls made me want to weep.


The old vinyl was taken off yesterday, the photograph above was taken today. 


This evening Emily and I and her cousin Paul met with Tom to finally decide whether the project made sense given the amount of work required in such a short period of time - yep.


The next step is for Tom's team to rip out the internals - this is good; perhaps the shockingly bad smell that hits you like a slap from above (when you push open the broken front door) will begin to become Alpine-breeze-like soonish.


Emily's design is for a very clean, uncluttered, white, open, space.


Frankly, I can not wait. James.