I should explain that although I have not seen the original architectural plans, the building’s designer divided the building into four quadrants. Each quadrant of this forty-five by seventy building is roughly twenty two by thirty-five feet.
The basement has a stone foundation wall about two or three feet thick. The remainder of the building is brick. Three course thick yields one foot thick walls. The forty-two foot span is then divided down the middle with a bearing wall. The walls of the basement and first floor do not line up, rather the basement has a hallway down the center with two bearing walls on each side of it. Leaving the first floor bearing wall cantilevered from the basement walls.
Trying to map out the original floorplan proved interesting until realized the bearing walls on the east half do not line up from floor to floor.
One the first floor, the Lobby takes up the southeast quarter, the dinning room the southwest quarter: about twenty-two by thirty five feet each. This is larger than most people’s garage. The basement kind of mirrors these spaces above. A meeting room where salesmen used to meet, is below the lobby. This has its own basement entrance, and the laundry room below the dinning room. I will restore the wash machine, making this into part of the museum.
The second and third floor mirror each other. The stairway occupies the south east quarter of the northwest section.
The rooms to the north of the stairway and along the west wall are ten by ten rooms. I am converting the bedrooms north of the stairway into baths. This places six bathrooms, stacked three high upon each other. There is another room which cannot be used as a bedroom east of the kitchen. on the second floor this area is a bath and a half. I will keep these although they are not being remodeled at this time. The other baths south of the hallway are removed. by removing walls, these rooms become ten by seventeen bedrooms on the third floor, and a large common room on the second.
I hope to have the west half of the second floor ready to rent in early June.