A Facelift for a Building

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The new job completed



Across the street from our apartment, we have witnessed the restoration of a building during the last several months. It's been interesting to see the process used in renewing the exterior plaster on it. 




The picture below shows what a deteriorated exterior looks like. This picture was taken out of our back window of the courtyard surrounding our house. It's in very bad shape because of the age. Street-side walls don't look this bad, but it shows how the plaster chips away in old age. I'm sure that during Soviet times most exterior walls resembled this picture. 
Peeling plaster off walls


Scaffolding being assembled










Teamwork
We knew that the building across from us was going to be repaired when we heard the noise of the scaffolding being erected around it. We were amazed how fast the men threw that scaffolding together - three or four tiers tall. They handed up piece after piece from one tier to the next as if they were handling pencils. 



Stripping off old plaster



The next step was removing the old plaster with a power washer or something like that. It took days for the men to spray off the old paint and plaster to get it ready to apply new plaster. Some days, they had to resort to scraping off the old, especially around the windows. 






Time to paint



Finally, the day came to apply the new coat of paint to put the finishing touch on the surface. It took more than two weeks for them to paint and do detail work around the building again. We were very happy then the scaffolding came down showing that they were completed with the task. It was fascinating to see the project up close, however. 


I'm sure the restaurant owner on the lowest floor agreed with us also, so he could open his business again. Next week's post will talk about the restaurant. 


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