Yeah!!! The snow has gone and fingers crossed this will help work progress faster here at the Project. As they say, “Dear Lord give me strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”. Yup, pretty much the theme of ANY building project and project 851 is no different.
The story of the stairs has been a LONG time coming. In my “strength” to know the difference I’m happy to share this powerful Sam Cooke song… (p.s. great Netflix doc. on Sam Cooke worth checking out)
There have been many, many discussions about the stairs going into Pink House — do we go with metal stairs?, will it cost too much?, how do we do it?, who’s going to make the template?… Architect, Contractor, Engineers, Metal Workers, site visits and such have been ongoing for many months and I’m happy to say we’re a the point now that it’s actually happening. Bring on the welding shop, that will be my home. Up, up, up, we go!
Crazy right? Believe me there were times when I thought “Hey, just leave those wooden working stairs. They’ve grown on me, visually, financially and practically.” There are a lot of thoughts that flow through your head as we approach finish (so please please let’s just finish). It’s not always easy to keep the strength of patience it takes to see your well intended decisions come to reality. As mentioned before the original owner, James Mason was a machinist and owner of the ironworks foundry on Franklin St. It’s also a nod to my Grandfather (Dida Marko) who only during this project did I find out from my mother that he was trained as an iron worker. The last of the 3 M’s is my Dad who also was trained as a machinist before coming to Canada.
I’m not sure any of those 3 men would have thought their work was “ART” but it sure is going to be in this case, One thing I’m pretty sure they’d all agree on is that it’s looking good and these “boys” are doing a great job.