June 16th Kiggins House update

The house is almost ready to be lowered to the height it will remain at. How do I know?

Well, it's a long story but I will try to make it shorter. Because the sun spots ruined some of my photos yesterday, I decided to go back today and get a few. When I arrived, I saw several workmen, including one climbing around the boards he was framing the basement with. See his legs in the first photo?

Then, I walked around to the front of the house and took a few more. . .


Finally, I walked back to the park side and took another look. I could see some white framed window panes on the ground near the back of the house and I was curious so I decided to walk around to 24th St. and take another look. I took one photo and was about to leave when a gentleman approached me from the driveway of the house in front of the Kiggins home and asked if I "was Paulie."

My heart said, "ohoh . . . would he ask me to stop taking photos and leave?" But that didn't happen at all! I was so relieved! This nice man introduced himself as Bruce Wood. We got to talking and he said he had seen my blog and thought I was doing a nice job with it. I was feeling better all the time! Then, I mentioned that a lady in the office across the street first commented on my blog and then his sister in law from Australia left one also. So, I knew that they knew about my blog about the Kiggins house. He hadn't seen the comments from these two and said that and said he would go back to look.

(He also said that he liked some of my other photography and he mentioned my Math Cloud photo! Ü )

OK back to the house. . .

I asked him about why the wood was cut off of some of the windows and found out it was to get some circulation in the house. Until it gets on the foundation, the boards can't be removed from the house. When questioned about the white framed window panes sitting on the ground, he said they were in the basement of the Kiggins house when he was preparing it to be moved so he just kept them and will use them in another project. He explained to me how the house was too long and would be hanging in the city street (it's a dead end street) and that he would have to shorten the house. He said it was the stairwell that someone built onto the house when it became office space -- done for fire safety regulations. Only then did I realize that the little "rectangle" in the back was added on -- noticeable at the roof line if one knew to look. He said he didn't need that staircase in a private home and would take it off and fix the roof and trim accordingly.

When I told him that I didn't know about the addition for the stairwell because I had never seen the inside of the house, he mentioned that he could give me a tour inside before he started working on it after it was on the basement securely. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! He said I was probably the only one who was interested in seeing the inside at this point in time before the remodel. . . I don't know about that but I can hardly wait! He also mentioned that there would be an Open House when it was complete. . . he hopes that will be by Christmas. His family and his parents will live there.

Then he told me the metal beams will be removed tomorrow at 10:00 AM in case I wanted to be there!!!!!!!!!! I am so grateful for this knowledge because I might not have gone over tomorrow since I have been there for the past couple days. Now, I can't sleep. Maybe that's a good thing because I had trouble all afternoon trying to load my photos to blogger and it wouldn't work until tonight.