Chapter 09

Building Clean Up and Changes

On Thursday Eve contacts Tom Jones to get him started on tidying up the school grounds. He employs a couple of other retired men he knows to work with him to turn the jungle of the central playground into a yard. It’s too overgrown to be a lawn right now but it can be cut back to a low grass area. The hedges along the side and rear fence are cut back to match the height of the fence and to be only a metre wide to leave a nice walk area beside the fence. This area is also mowed. However, the big change in the appearance of the building is when they remove all of the boards protecting the windows.

When Tom boarded up the building it was hard to do because the eight foot by four foot sash windows are set in the back third of one foot thick sandstone blocks with wrought iron bars creating six inch squares set four inches back from the front of the outside wall. With the boards having to protect the window glass and the bars stopping access to the outside of the frame Tom chose to use tongue and groove boards to build a cover for each window. The boards were cut to fit each window then slipped through an open window, pushed up against the bars, and fit together to block the space. Two brackets were screwed into the back of the boards to keep them together and a brace in each corner set against the frame of the window to keep the cover held against the bars in the worst weather. So removal of them is a simple task of knock out the back braces, unscrew the brackets, and slip the boards back in through the windows. Once they’re out of the window the light comes in. Tom opens the windows and wedges the doors open to air the building before he stacks all of the boards in the hall until one of the others takes them to the storage shed. Easy work but very time consuming.

By working long days on Thursday and Friday the changes they make do have the property looking very different when Hal arrives Saturday morning to do some work on the building. Hal had been busy with daily life of school, work, and his ladies. However, today is a day to see what they have and all of his ladies are there to look the place over.

Hal compliments Tom on the work done when they’re in the hallway Tom is busy cleaning. The ladies split off to check the rooms but each takes a rubbish bag with them to put obvious rubbish in. Hal goes to the office and starts checking the files. He has some stickers to identify the files he’s looked at when he checks a cabinet. At this time all he’s doing is checking what sort of files are in each drawer of the cabinets. Hal sees no need to read the student files and the financial files but he does need to identify them so he can give them back to the appropriate authorities when he identifies who should have them. What he is after is any files on the building and grounds because they have to be somewhere. He has little hope of finding the original building plans but he does expect to find the files of the plans and approvals done when they put the utilities into the buildings. All of the electricity, the water, the gas lines, toilets, drains, telephones, and computer cabling were all installed at some point after the initial construction. He also wants to find where the original toilets were out in the yard before he does any digging in the yard as he has no desire to locate them by digging up an old cesspit.

One saving grace is the labels on the many boxes of school records in one of the storerooms. The labels means he doesn’t have to check them. Three hours after starting Hal is finished with the files in the main office which is on the left of the front door as you walk in. So he moves to the Principal’s office which is on the right of the front entry area.

When he enters the room Hal is better able to see the furniture in the daylight and he confirms his wish to use this furniture himself. The huge solid mahogany desk is beautiful, as are the matching cabinets and chairs in the room. He does suspect he’ll have to have the upholstery replaced. There are two filing cabinets of two drawers each in this room and when Hal reads their contents he wonders who had been the Principal here. One of the cabinets relates to the school with the plans but the other has papers on the senior church staff in the area at the time of the closure.

Hal locks up the personnel files while he keeps out the files on the buildings and grounds. Interestingly they do include the original plans. Looking at the grounds plan he’s happy to see the old privy area and where the old septic tank used to be are both in the land the apartments are built on. The most useful items are the most recent set of grounds plans to show where the utilities enter the property and the buildings plus they show how to enter the basement he didn’t know about via the basement doors which are under the stairs. The original stairs were wood and when they needed major work they were replaced with the current concrete stairs. Hal is intrigued by the plans showing how they did the reinforcing of the concrete with thick wire mesh instead of the steel rods they use today. The plans also show how they cut into the stonework to set the concrete into stone walls for extra strength.

When Hal leaves the office he finds his father at work replacing the lock on the front door with a high quality security lock. Henry looks up at the noise of Hal’s steps and says, “These doors are solid as a rock and so are the wrought iron grills on the outside. I’m replacing all of the locks to be keyed alike for you, Hal. Liz asked me to organise it so I came to look at the place while I do it today.”

Hal grins and says, “Well, that saves me having to ask you to do it! It will take some time to get this up to where we can move in. Do you want to move into the house after we all move into here?”

“Will your mother agree to that?” Hal nods. “How much?”

“I’ll talk to Mum about it but I think it might be best to just roll it into the business as a demonstrator and a perk for staff. You best check with Lee about moving in as well. Moving into here will be quicker than most expect as it’s so big we don’t have to have it all ready before we can live here. We just need to have enough done to suit us then finish it later.”

“Sounds, like a plan, Hal. You can use many of these rooms as they are after you paint and clean up. At the last housing convention I saw some stuff you may be able to use to fix this place up. I’ll give you all of the brochures on Monday.” Hal gives him a thumbs up and walks away.

A little later Hal is standing at the back of the room beside the nearest set of stairs and looking closely at the wall. You have to be up close to the wall to see where the outlines of the doors are. Even then it takes him a few minutes to find where the covered lock is to unlock the door to go have a look at the basement. When he does get the door open he looks at the classroom and thinks, Thirty-six student’s desks, a teacher’s desk, plus a cupboard in each of the regular classrooms, and there’s about a hundred of them. That’s thirty-six hundred student desks, what will we do with them all? We’ll have to discuss that before we get started on the main work.

When Hal walks down the stairs he finds a light switch and turns it on. Many of the light bulbs don’t come on but there’s enough for him to see the basement is packed with even older furniture. He groans and decides to leave it to look at tomorrow when he has a lantern.

Returning upstairs Hal seeks out Tom and says, “Mister Jones, there’s a lot of old school records in what used to be the administration office and the store room near there. Next week can you arrange to have them placed in boxes and taken to whoever in the local church school system would be responsible for them, please? I want to keep the filing cabinets but I see some legal issues with me having the personal information they have a responsibility for.”

While slowly shaking his head Tom says, “I did wonder about all of the records but I never bothered to look. Show me where they are and I’ll get them to the right people.” Hal and Tom go back to the two rooms with the records so Hal can point them out to him.

With that done Hal goes looking for his father and says, “Dad, when you finish with the locks will you help me to move the paintings from the office area to our office? I want them in a more secure environment until we can get them assessed and decide what to do with them.” In response to the frown he gets Hal adds, “I suspect some are worth a bit but I need to get an expert to value them. I want them safe until that can be done.”

“The main art gallery in the city has better security so let’s get them now and I can finish the locks later.” Twenty minutes later all of the paintings from the office areas are in the back of the TSS van and on the way to the main commercial art gallery in the city.

Hal goes to have a better look at the other rooms while his father deals with the paintings. However, he’s stunned when Henry returns to hand Hal a receipt for the artworks while saying, “They’ve locked one of them away for now and will put the others on display after they get another person to provide an independent evaluation. I’m not sure what they’re worth but they want to send the one they locked away to Sydney to be properly valued. Lawson said many of them weren’t worth much but he wanted to know how you got your hands on several million dollars worth of artworks because a few are worth a lot. He wasn’t happy when I said I didn’t know.” Hal laughs at the idea he may make a profit on the place before they even get it cleaned up. It does make him wonder who had been in the Principal’s office to have such valuable works there. He also shows his father where the doors to the basement are and asks him to change the locks on them as well.

When Henry goes back to work on the locks Hal goes looking for Tom again and asks him, “Mister Jones, who was using the Principal’s office when they closed the school?”

Tom looks at Hal when he says, “The Principal retired in the middle of the year after he had a heart attack. They already had concerns about the school’s future and they didn’t want to hire anyone. So the Bishop moved into that office as it gave them the opportunity to do some major work on his regular office. Why do you want to know?”

“Some of the things left behind made me wonder, is all. It seems I’ll be able to pay for the building from the sale of a few of the paintings they left in the office. There are also a few files on some of the clergy I’ll have to give to the Bishop.”

Tom laughs long and hard before he says, “Serves the lazy buggers right. I spent years telling them to come and look at things and they just ignored me. I wonder if they’ll get sacked when the details come out.”

Shortly after that the ladies catch up with Hal as they all want to go to lunch. All of the obvious rubbish in the rooms is now in bags in the rented skip sitting in front of the storage shed. Hal leads the way to the mini-bus and takes them out for lunch at a nearby restaurant.

While they wait for their food they discuss the school and changes to be able to use it. Hal’s mother says, “Girls, we don’t need to make all of the changes right away. There’s plenty of room and time to ready a few for our use and then do the rest after we think about it. So let’s work out what we need to do to be able to move in soon.”

The discussion continues through the meal and Liz summarises it as they drive back. She says, “We need to clear out and repaint a few rooms for us to use as well as putting in some baths. Then we can move in.”

Hal says, “While we can use the facilities in the cooking classrooms I’d rather wait until after we renovate those rooms to be a proper kitchen for us. I also want to replace all of the electrical wiring and the toilets. However, we can do a lot of that in stages while some will have to be done before we move in.” After some more talk they all agree with Hal.

Work Plans

On the Monday after school Hal is talking to a local builder about the work they want done. The man will prepare the plans, get Hal’s approval then get the council’s approval before he starts work. They discuss it all, a schedule, and then list the total work to be done as three stages.

There are some restrictions on what can be done and where due to the way the various utilities are accessed. The gas, water, drain, and sewer pipes are in both streets along with the electricity service. However, the pipes to the building have water, drain, and sewer pipes from under the two sets of toilet blocks in the front building to the front street and third set from under the back of the building near the road. That set of pipes was put in when they built the cooking classrooms at that end of the building. That’s also where the gas service enters the property.

The builder, Franklin Benton, says, “Hal, I’m glad you want to talk to me about what to do before you did any plans. The way the utilities are done will greatly restrict what you can do with the building.”

“In what way, Frank?”

“We can run the water up into the roof and then bring it down to any place in the building but getting the water away afterwards is another issue. So we need to be close to where the existing pipes are or near the end of the side buildings to minimise running pipes all over the place or we’ll have to take them down through all of the levels and out.”

“Well, the first thing that needs work is we need a decent kitchen. I was thinking this room opposite the back stairs on the east wing, that’s the street side of the building, can be the pantry with walk-in freezers and fridges. The area in front of that can be the kitchen and dining room set up like a large cafeteria. It’ll go the width of the building for two rooms to give an area of about twenty-one metres by about nine and half metres to play with.”

“You expect to be feeding a lot of people?”

“I’ll be having over twenty young women at school or uni living there and lots of room for guests. How many huge sleepovers do you think will be happening?”

“Right! You’ll be feeding a lot of people. I’ll do it up as if the place is a large boarding house or for a boarding school living accommodation.”

“Good idea, Frank. Keep that in mind with all of the renovations as that’s what it may become in later years. Making that area the kitchen means we can keep the gas to where it is but check the pipes.”

“If you don’t mind I’d rather replace them with better ones.”

“Good idea and something you may have to do with a lot of them. For the electricity I want the mains to come into the basement nearest to the access point and set it up to charge low voltage batteries. I want all of the power within the building to be low voltage so I can run it from the solar panels you’ll be fitting to the roof. That also means LED lighting for the whole facility. I want each floor of each building able to be segregated at the floor entry point and at the main power box. You need to wire it up as you go so it doesn’t need to be all done at once but you’ll need to have the backbone put in place at the start.”

“Good! That makes it a lot easier to do.”

“I’ll need a lot more toilets and plenty of bathrooms throughout the building with a bunch of toilets opposite the stairs on the ground level of the west wing. I’ll need a master bedroom in the west wing upper floor that’s the building width and twenty metres long with a full bathroom. One or two large lounge rooms will be needed, some study rooms and libraries as well. We can easily convert some of the rooms into bedrooms so the bulk of the rooms just need cleaning up and painting. I also want a large swimming pool along the back fence. What will be hard is I also want full privacy for the pool and the yard. I want all of the toilet blocks modernised and to include some disabled access toilets. Make the front block end rooms into bedrooms with the small rooms beside them as en-suites for them. In the back you’ll also need to fit in a couple of garages somehow, along with a way for food deliveries to be made to the back stairs near the kitchen.”

Frank very slowly says, “OK!” After a moment’s thought he adds, “I’ll need to think about the layout. I can do either blocks of bathrooms and toilets or give everyone a small en-suite if I turn each of the rooms into a small flat-like set up. That way I can take the pipes all the way down in the one area. The best way to do that will need me to move some doors around so I can put the wet areas in as pairs above each other.”

“If it can be done, Frank, that’s a good idea because it means we can rent out the rooms we don’t use. People going to the uni are always after more rental housing. First give me a set of plans to look at.”

“That would work well. Let me play with plans and get back to you.”

“I also want the car park covered like a large car-port and think of a way to make the window bars vanish when you put in the triple glazed windows that look suitable for the period of the building.” Hal hands over a set of copies of all the files on the building he has so Frank can better plan the work. Frank smiles and leaves.

While Frank is preparing his plans Hal and his ladies work hard at their regular daily tasks of their school work, current employment or looking for work, and doing some cleaning up of the buildings by taking everything they can out of the rooms Frank will have to work on.

Tom does a lot of work cleaning the building but the best job he does for Hal is to contact the Aboriginal Education Service to donate all of the student’s desks they have in both the current rooms and the older ones in the basement areas. The AES arranges for some semi-trailers to be left at the school to be loaded up with the desks. When they have all of the student’s desks and chairs loaded up there’s still some space so Tom has his work team fill the last trailer with most of the teacher’s desks from the class rooms. The AES are glad of the free furniture. It may be old but it’s still in very good condition and Hal is glad to have them out of the way.

When Tom tells Hal about donating the desks Hal asks him about the two rooms of text books they have. Tom calls his AES contact and the next day the AES has a large box truck on hand with a work crew loading the text books. They’re almost finished when Hal arrives after school and he lets them empty out one of the stationery storerooms as well.

By the time Frank’s crews are there to do their work everything left is down in the basement areas to be out of the way until Hal has the time to go through it all properly. The only exceptions are the furniture in the Principal’s office because Hal wants to use it is as his office.

The Plan

A week later Frank is showing Hal the final layout for the buildings while he explains the changes in the plans. They have everything Hal asked for, including the changes due to the talks during the week. “Hal, when I looked at the rafters I found I need to replace the roof. So I want to pull it all off, install steel trusses, and attach some new roofing which is a combined roof and solar panel with the upper surface made from a strong Lexan type material.” Hal slowly nods his head in agreement while he thinks on this but he can see no problem. “The way they go together all of the wiring is in the roof and they have overlapping links against the rain. The current roof is ten point two metres wide with three hundred mil eaves but I want to put in fifteen metre trusses to have a four hundred mil eave on the outside with a five metre eave on the inside. That will go all the way around the property.” Hal looks up then back at the plan when Frank points at it. “I want to extend the side walls down to near the back fence and along the fence to make it look like one huge building. I’ll put windows in to match the two floors and extend the back roof to cover the pool with the back half as tinted Plexiglass to allow light in. The wall around the pool will stop the wind blowing things from the play area into the pool while it gives me a weight bearing wall for the back roof. A double garage door at the drive to the side street for delivery trucks with a garage between the delivery area and the pool. Most of the rooms will be bed-sit flats. The pipes will run to the basement then to the existing services. I want to get the back wall up along with the new roof while I replace all of the windows with a new style triple glaze unit with a mid-gray security and insect screen on the outside. I’ll clean the bars and paint them the same colour as the screens so they’ll appear to vanish into the new window screens. I’ll paint the doors the same colour so the front door grill will match in as well. Then we can work on the kitchen, the master bedroom, and the apartments for the west wing. The car park and rear roof will be done after we put the pool in. You can move in when we have the roof and enough of the west wing apartments done for you. We can work on the rest of it with you living there.”

The New Upper Floor Plan

New Lower Floor and Grounds

Hal examines the attached costing sheet and says, “Get to work. However, I want the fire door for the basement under the east wing to be shut and opened from the front basement area only.” Frank smiles, nods, and walks away to get started on organising the project.

The Work

Knowing the job will go faster without him watching over Frank’s shoulder has Hal only visiting the site when asked to check something. He also changes his mind about moving in before all of the work is finished and this allows Frank to plan the work more effectively. All of the security aspects are supervised by Hal’s father to provide top security for the whole facility.

It’s only at the end of the project does Hal find out his mother made a couple of minor changes. The access doors to the basement are the same as the other doors, sandstone tinted reinforced concrete is used in new basement floors and all of the stairs, a passive air flow system is installed in the basements, while both of the wing basements are turned into large gym and exercise areas. This is so the family gym is separate to a gym for their tenants. A small kitchen area is built in the family room for snack preparations as well as a kitchenette in each bed-sit apartment.

One night after all of the exterior work is done Hal visits the site to see if the exterior lighting is an issue for the neighbours. The area lights for the outer walls are LED (Light Emitting Diode) area lights mounted on the top of the posts for the one point eight metre outer fence in a way they only shine onto the grounds and the building. The inside grass area is well lit by the brighter LED area lights along the eaves in such a way the glow isn’t visible from the street. The LED area lights in the car park roofing are also set to shine into the property and not into the street.

Frank has a lot of workers on the job to get it all done in only eleven weeks, which is amazing considering the amount of work needed for the pool, back wall, garage, and the cistern under the barbecue area. The only visible wood floors are the kitchen / dining room, halls, and Hal’s office with carpet tiles laid in all of the other areas. Special wet area carpet tiles are used in bathrooms, which surprises Hal as he didn’t know of them.

While Hal and Frank do the final inspection to sign off of the work Frank tells Hal about a few changes his father made while installing the security system and the door locks. All of the exterior doors have high-security key-operated deadlocks, however, they’re locked open and are intended to be used only when securing an empty building. All of the doors have electronically operated locks that can be opened by the entry of the correct code on the pad or the swipe of the encoded card. It’s the same system TSS installs in hotels. Each card is set to open the door of the room it’s assigned to as well as the exterior doors and the other common use doors for the area the person is authorised to access. The system is controlled by a computer with the access assigned to the cards set in the software. This provides more flexibility in the assignment of the rooms.

The basic layout has a number of zones on each level of each building which is further complicated with some limited use areas and public use areas. The toilets for the pool and barbecue area are in the southern end of the ground floor of the west wing, which is the family wing. The doors between that section and the rest don’t work for everyone while anyone with a card can enter from the central area. The fire doors allow anyone to enter the stairs and exit at the ground level but to exit the stairs at any other level requires the use of a card authorised to enter that level.

Hal is surprised the interior stone walls of the two upper levels are covered. This is due to installing insulation and to hide pipes and cables. In the wet areas they use a fibreglass like wall covering and the wood removed from those areas is used on the stone walls of the other areas.

The plans Hal approved set aside the west wing and the west half of the front building as being for family only with the rest of the buildings being available for use by people renting the rooms. The basement of the front building was unassigned and it was intended to be general storage. However, use of the cards to vary assignment of areas means they can safely rent out ground floor rooms assigned for the family until the family needs them. For now the thirteen double rooms and huge master bedroom will suit their needs while allowing the other nineteen double bedrooms on the ground floor to be rented out until they expand enough to need them yet still give Hal controlled access to the office and allow the family members to use the laundry and basement gym on that side.

Hal and all of his ladies are happy with the work when done so Frank is also paid from the Swiss account Hal has courtesy of David Hanes. The ladies are very happy when Hal approves an open budget for them to do the decorating and furnishing of all of the rooms except for his office.

Handling the Special Contents

Hal answers a phone call while on his way home from school on the Wednesday afternoon of the third week after the purchase of the school. It’s the Rolls Royce dealership owner, Terrence Hill, to tell him they’ve finished the service on the Silver Cloud as it had been delayed while they waited for a few parts to be shipped in. The dealership manager surprises Hal by saying, “I’m not sure how they found out but I’ve had a few calls from car collectors wanting to buy the car. The car is in pristine condition with low mileage for a car of that age so it commands a premium price.” He goes on to quote a value that’s nearly triple the price of a new model.

After a few minutes talk Hal says he’ll call back. He then calls Eve to tell her and her response is, “Riding in a Roller has always been a dream but I don’t think we want to own a car worth that much. I’ll call Terrence to tell him to sell it to the collectors.”

Hal agrees with her and adds, “Tell him to set a price twenty percent higher than what he quoted me and to sell to the first person to agree to pay that price. Let’s see how serious the collectors are.”

About two hours later Hal gets another call from Terrence Hill to let him know he sent an email with the new value to all of the people who contacted him about buying the car. A bidding war broke out and he has an agreement to sell the car for thirty-five percent more than he valued the car at. Terry concludes with, “I thought I was overvaluing the car but they really want it. I did send the full stats and photos with the email so they knew what they were looking at. This sale just set a new high for the sale of a Silver Cloud. I also passed on the details of how you came to own it to the buyer and they’re now researching the history of the car. I’ll bet someone in the church administration will be upset when they realise what happened.”

Hal laughs and replies, “I plan to tell them after I sell the artworks I have out for valuation. I expect to come out quite a bit ahead of the cost of the purchase, clean up, and renovations. They had to send some of them off to Sydney for a proper valuation.” Terrence laughs at how some lazy administrator has let such valuable items be sold so cheap.

The next afternoon Hal receives an email with the valuations for the artworks and details on how to sell them. He could get more by waiting to let them be sold at an auction in London in six months time but he goes with an immediate sale through the city art gallery. They’re happy to handle the sales because they get a percentage as a commission. They take a couple of weeks to advertise the works and end up selling them for a lot more than the valuations. They think they got almost as much as they would have got waiting to go through the London auction.