If I did not have such a great team to work with I would never agree to step in and project manage such an undertaken of Cassis Home. Plus if Ching and Gary were not good friends of mine and if they weren't one hundred percent behind every decision I make I would never be doing this. But since the "Team" is behind me and creativity is free rein this is one of the best projects, that am lucky and happy to be part of it.
What I mean is that this apartment was good enough, it was livable but Ching and Gary wanted something more, something unique, something that honored its bones. Simple, Avant-Garde, Modern with only a slight hint of whimsy. They wanted space, not the tight fit that it was, and they wanted all the beautiful light of Cassis to pour in. If the Team wasn't behind me I would be frustrated not to be able to bring to life what I visualize for this space.
We are going to have a cement-like finish, that Rene and I created to put on through the entire apartment. We are also going to add it to the stairs three levels of them. The bottom part of the stairs is original to the apartment which is over a hundred-year-old. They are not made like the upper two levels which were made in the 1980s and are solid cement. The bottom level stairs (not shown) will take more work I will explain that when we are working on them. For now, I had the team take out the decorative solid iron bars on the stairs. Of course, we had an engineer-architect come over and check out to see if it were possible. Once we got the green light I had them take them out and reinforce the corners with thicker iron tube plus we added an I-beam to the corner. I had the team leave the old I-beams exposed to give it a loft feel.
Facts:
Dust. Dirt. Debris. Stairs plenty of them.
Rene is a genius. Honest and incredibly hardworking.
Patience.
Discovery at every corner, that is the thrilling part working within old walls.
Friends who appreciate my creativity and let me spell it out, erase it, reroute, bam nail it.
Exchange with confidence.
These last few days I am seeing Cassis Home come alive, breathing, it is as if my thoughts are being made whole, playing out on life's stage.
We removed the decorative iron bars then replaced the two end ones with a thicker heavy iron bar that they drilled into the stone wall.
An I-beam and those two iron bars are the main support for the two floors overhead.
Every time I say I-beam I think of Yann, as we met at the I-beam in San Francisco nearly 32 years ago dancing to hits such as Higher Love,
Your Wildest Dreams, West End Girls, White Wedding, Kiss, Addicted to Love, Don't Leave Me This Way…
Those songs rock on to a different beat to the sound of hammering, chiseling, scrapping…
The pipes were pierced and fixed into the stone supportive wall.
Next, the tiles had to be chiseled off so that we can layer them with cement.
Rene chiseled off all the new tile, and sweep afterward. Our shoes are constantly dusty!
The steps will have a cement-like top with an iron band across the top.
This is the prototype railing It is like a ribbon
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