Nor'East Architectural Antiques

unhappy anniversary

1 year ago today..

We came to work at 8:30 am, just like we did every day. We finished up a few small projects around the shop, had a few sales, visited with a few customers, and left for home around 6 pm. 

At 6:49 pm our lives changed forever as the first phone call came to alert us that our fire alarms were going off.  It took me 4 minutes to get back to the store.  It took John 8.  What we saw when we arrived was something that we could have never imagined.

 

13 years of our life...disappearing before our eyes. 

24 hours later, when it was over, we were thankful that no one was hurt in the fire. 
We'd lost our business, all of our inventory, and our 3 beloved cats...but what we found was a determination to rebuild a bigger and better Nor'East.

 

This is what we had to work with, so with the help of some very dear friends, we started to clean.

we started to rebuild our building...

We started to gather new inventory.. 

 

We even found new cats to love...

 

this is my business partner John...the ONLY person I would have blindly followed through hell, trusting we would make it out the other side.  The day after the fire he told me we would rebuild...and be bigger and better than before, and that everything would be alright.  He was right.

Today...our first new building is nearly finished.

 

and tomorrow, when we come to work "like we always do" it will be with a new goal, to stop defining ourselves as "the salvage company that burned to the ground".  Tomorrow we start a new chapter in the book of Nor'East.

Happy Unhappy Anniversary John!

Donna

Just In...

 

Tens of thousands of board feet of heart pine posts and beams.  This is one of several truck-loads that arrived this week.  This is the same material we used to create our post and beam interior.  This wood  can be cleaned and used as-is or can be resawn and would make a beautiful addition to any project.  Call or email us for more details.

In other news...Nor'East is now twittering! Click the link on the right side of the page to follow us. 

 Starting next week!!! two new projects.  A 1900's mansion once frequented by the Beatles, and a mid-1700's home with beautiful wide pine flooring and chestnut hand hewn beams.

inventory inventory inventory

Once again I have neglected this blog for several weeks.  Sorry about that.  The process of moving in and setting up seems to be taking us longer than we thought it would.  We spend our days photographing, measuring and uploading items to our website (daily!)...not to mention taking a detailed inventory of all our stock.  In the end this should prove to be a huge asset for us...but right now its just a pain in the neck!

I thought you might like to see a picture of our new front counter.  This was taken about 10 days ago, and it already looks different. 

 

Timber salvage

The past few weeks we have been very busy with a new salvage job. Cleaning and cutting thousands of board feet of old growth yellow pine timbers at this Massachusetts mill demolition site.

Moving In!

Well it has been 10 months since the fire, and this week we started moving inventory into our first new building.  Exciting! Here are a couple pictures.

 

In a week or so this will be our hardware department.

The guys have been working hard on our new front counter.  Originally the top was going to be marble, but in the end we went with a bowling alley from Fenway Park.  If you didn't know that Fenway Park once had a bowling alley then  you are not alone. 

We also started a salvage job in Boston this past week.  Here is a picture of a paneled room we removed.

 

Beautiful isn't it?  We will have details listed on our website this week.

Progress

Things are moving along very fast these days.  Here is a picture of our new building that I took this morning.

 

As you can see all of the painting has been finished and the antique posts and beams have been installed.  What a job that was!  Here are a couple pictures of that process so you can fully appreciate what a great job everyone did.

 

 

All of these beams were installed in the span of 10 days!

Updates

Someone pointed out to me that its been a month since my last update here.  That shows you how busy we've been.  But, since I know how much everyone likes to see the progress we have been making I thought I would take a minute and show you.

First, they finished the sheetrocking.

 

And then Mike started to tape and plaster.

 

John has continued installing the heating system

 

Dave has started painting

 

And I have been updating the website with lots of great new inventory (check it out)

Finally...sheetrock!

Well this week we reached a milestone.  The contractors started installing sheetrock.  If you had told us on June 4th that on January 7th we would still not be in our new building I probably would have laughed at you, but I'm not laughing now...not that I blame anyone, things just move a little slower during the winter in New England. 

But on the bright side, Brian and I have been working diligently on our new heating system.  Back on September 17th we posted pictures of the guys installing our radiant heat tubing.  Now we've finally reached the point where we are setting up our salvaged Weil Mclaine oil boilers (which we plan to run bio-diesel in).  Eventually we plan to install solar panels on the roof to run the system. The building was designed to be very tight and evergy efficient so it should not take a lot to heat it.

Here is a picture of one of the three radiant heat manifolds.  By this time next week the heat will be on. 

In closing, Donna and I would like to wish all of our customers a Happy New Year.  Lets hope 2009 turns out to be a bit better than 2008!

John

In the dark

Well it's been a week since an ice storm knocked out our electricity and the electric company has no idea when it will be fixed, so this entire week we have been working in the dark. To anyone who has tried to contact us during the week... We apologize for the delay in replying to you.

The power outage has not slowed down the construction. As a matter of fact they poured the foundation for building #4 on Monday! I will post pictures once the snow melts.

They spent the rest of the week insulating the main showroom. We are still hoping to start moving into that building within the next few weeks.

6 Months Ago Today...

...we lost our business and inventory in a large fire.  Today I'd like to show you how far we've come since then.

 

This will be our main showroom.  As you can see the alarm company is currently installing our fire alarm and security system.  Last week the contractors installed the windows.  Today they are working on the doors.

 

This is building #2, the only building that survived the fire.  It got a face lift after the fire and is currently serving as our temp. showroom....

 

as you can see, inventory has been arriving daily.  We are working very hard to photograph and list everything on our website.

   

Yesterday they poured the foundation for building #3.  Next week we will be pouring another foundation right behind this one.  That will be for building #4.  In the background you can see several trailers that are full of inventory.