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The initial phase of work at the Red House has started in thanks to some groups of college students who volunteered on the Gulf Coast during their Spring Break. Miami University in Ohio brought a group of seventeen students and one faculty member to help with our first effort to demolition and start the construction work.
The first items on the agenda were to demo the North porch, the South porch deck, the bathroom interiors and roof, and the interior walls. The conditions of the bathrooms were in dis-repair, and ,since the storm, had become a meeting place for "not-such-nice" transactions. The South porch sub-structure was completely termite and water damaged so the work was done to rebuild and tie into the main structure to support the new decking. The existing plan was a simple center wall with partitions for the bathrooms and a back room. The interior demolition included disassembling these partitions to open up the space for the community meeting space. We will have to construct a new plumb wall for the bathroom and kitchenette and will re-use the vertical wall boards as sheathing. We have started scraping the exterior wood lap siding of the main house and started re-roofing the storage building.
Our studio is continuing the design and management of this project as it moves into the next phase of restoration and construction.