Patience makes the heart grow fonder... and thirstier

"Patience and fortitude can conquer all things." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ol' Ralphie probably wasn't building a bar when he uttered those words.  But in the grand scheme of things, he is right.  After starting into this project, there wasn't much of a light at the end of the tunnel.  However, bit by bit, we have made some tremendous progress.

She's a brick... wall.

For starters, the walls are finito!  They have been de-plastered, grinded, re-mortared, and sealed.  And they look spectacular!  In all honesty, I am not certain if these century old walls have looked much better.  Here's a fun fact for you CB's followers: When you have four grinders going at the exact same time, you can create a mini-haboob with pretty limited visibility.  (If you are unfamiliar with the what a "haboob" is, I promise that I am not trying to be obscene.  It is definitely one of my new favorite words.)  These walls bring in quite a bit of character to the space already. 

The floor looks like Charlie Brown's shirt

Now that the walls are complete, we have turned our attention to the ceiling and floors.  The old ceiling tiles are in good shape, so they are going to stay.  They need to be cleaned and painted.  Also, so that we can bring everything up to code for fire safety, we are in the midst of getting quotes on sprinkler systems.  The ceilings actually produce a whole litany of "to do" items, such as speakers, lighting, etc.  (We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.)  As for the floors, we might need a professional paleontologist to peal back all of the layers.  We have carpet on top of linoleum on top of tar paper on top of tongue and groove hard wood.  So far, all of the carpet is pulled up, and we are waiting on the linoleum so that we don't have to tape off the floor when we paint the ceiling.  The tar paper has seemed to preserve the hard wood floors well, so hopefully not much work is needed to restore this gem.  I repeat: hopefully.  And on a side note:  In the great history of Western Civilization, who the hell ever thought that linoleum looked good?  I've seen more attractive patterns on Bill Cosby's sweaters.  I can't wait to get rid of this stuff.

Understandably, the goal to open by Deltarado Days was not achieved, and that is okay.  You can't rush a good thing.  Construction is in a holding pattern until we get everything up to code.  Once we pull that final permit when zoning is complete, watch out!  We'll be able to move much more quickly.  So hang in there folks, because this will be worth the wait.  That first beer from CB's is going to taste ever so delicious when all is said and done.  Until then, we'll just keep plugging away.




Carrie seems deep in thought.