Many of our friends and family have been following our renovation project in Three Rivers, Michigan, via this blog and we haven't written any updates since last summer. For the most part, we haven't had much to write about because we haven't had time to do much work. We were in Ontario in August as co-organizers of Practicing Resurrection and then, upon returning, we resumed our work at Calvin.
We've also been waiting for a lot of administrative work to be completed by both the city and the state. In March, we applied for a matching grant from the state for historic districts. The grant works like this: state funds are available for facade work (windows, brickwork, painting, etc.) and must be matched by building owners for other building improvements (electrical, plumbing, etc.). While we were awarded the grant in July (and had our matching funds ready through a loan), we had to wait to spend any of the money until we signed a contract with the state--which we finally did yesterday.
The delay was caused by a number of things. First, we applied for the grant in a block with several other building owners in downtown Three Rivers. As difficult as it is to organize details for one renovation project, you can imagine what it might take to do five at one time.
Second, and specific to our project, we had to work out how we were going to replace the front windows on our building. We were planning to replace each window with two windows, a rectangle double-hung on the bottom with a half-moon transom on top. The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), though, told us we needed to use one window with an arched top sash instead, which increased the price of the project by several thousand dollars--a cost that would have to be split between us and the state. After we made it clear that we couldn't increase our funding, a county project manager creatively helped negotiate a deal in which the state covered the overage.
While we've been frustrated with how long the process has taken, we realize that we wouldn't have been able to do this project at all without state funding. Now that we've signed the contract, we can start doing work requiring contractors (as we won't have time to do much work ourselves until June). We're hoping to get our new windows and doors installed soon. And, depending on the cost, we may have some framing work done by a contractor so we can start plumbing, electrical and HVAC installation.
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