This area was originally a 5 room apartment. We removed all walls that were not part of the building structure. There was a false ceiling at the 8' high line which was removed then a plaster ceiling at the 11' height. This upper ceiling was plaster over laths that were nailed to the structural joists. We removed old Lath boards from the ceilings to reveal the original joists which we sanded to reveal a natural open joist ceiling, giving the appearance of an uncompleted warehouse.

After removing the walls, there were "holes" left in the flooring that I wanted to restore. I used gymnasium maple flooring that was only 1" wide per board placed at a 30 degree angle to seem the 4 differnt floors together. The skylights were part of the original structure, but were hidden by the suspended ceiling that was put in the building when a bathroom was added.

By this point of the demolition, most observers of this project were convinced that this idea was the stupidest idea they could imagine. After all the apartment that existed in this space wasn't that bad, a little paint here some new carpet there and it would have been fine, but no, he had to rip it all apart.

The walls were covered in concrete spread over the bricks that were the actual walls. It was far harder than any plaster and had to be chisled from the bricks. The removal of concrete took about 7 weeks. This left all the walls with remainer from the concrete. I hate the impression sand blasting makes, so we ground the bricks smoth using stone grinding wheels.

This is the stage before the final creation took place. You can now see the entire 864 square foot space baren and stripped to the building's bare structure to enable the magic space that my studio now is. This project began in September of 1996 and by March of 1997 it was completed. You see the part that I think is way kewl is the vision to have seen how the studio would look in my dreams, and now after a lot of work you can see what I saw before we began!