At the core of Scottmoore is the ideal of problem solving and innovation. These principles have been put to the test with one of our latest projects, the renovation of a single-family property located in the Shrewsbury neighborhood just outside of New Orleans. To paint the picture, this neighborhood holds a lot of historical significance. This community started out as a plantation where enslaved Africans were forced into labor. This plantation is where the neighborhood got its name. Since then, it has been a home base and thriving community for many African Americans. This neighborhood is in Jefferson Parish, but is technically near the Orleans Parish line.
Now that you have some context of the neighborhood, let’s get into the many layers of this project. What started as a simple renovation project turned into something much greater—not only physically, but ideally for the firm holistically. Our main objective starting out was to remove and replace the flooring in the property.
Because of the close proximity to our home base office, the team saw this as an opportunity to get in the field and take a hands-on approach to overseeing and managing this project. We all geared up and headed to the project site, unknowingly walking into a Pandora’s box full of surprises.
We worked with a team of licensed and trained professionals to begin removing the existing flooring. Layer one was that of white tile, which seemingly came up easy. As contractors worked their way through the layers, we soon realized there was some serious work cut out for our crew. Layer two was a black tile floor, which again, came up with lots of elbow grease and determination.
As the day went on and the crew worked, we finally reached layer number four—Glory, or so we thought. We had finally seen plywood, the end to what we did not know was just the beginning. After reconvening, the crew got back to work the next day. Keep in mind, the Christmas holiday was soon approaching, and as our Principal Architect Oel always emphasizes, “In this industry, people tend to go to sleep and lay dormant during the December month.” With this, it was important to keep the morale of our crew up. After more labor, what we thought was the final layer of flooring (plywood) gave way to even more layers. The crew kept pulling up floors, even a layer containing newspaper!
Now, this house was built in the early 1940’s, so needless to say it has a long history that dates back before any of our team’s time. It felt like we were taking a journey through history as the layers came up. David, our Junior Designer, explained that this process “felt like a Russian Egg!”
Christmas Eve Eve had come, and the crew was finished pulling up the floor. They were dedicated and even worked on Christmas Eve to replace the plywood so that we could go full steam ahead in the following days. Success! We had reached a place where we were ready to move forward. The Christmas holiday was now behind us, and all that was left were finishes and floor application. Because of our client’s fast turnaround time and steep goals, we went with a vinyl flooring that gave the illusion of hardwood flooring. The Scottmoore team rolled our sleeves up, painted the space, and added finishing touches. We had come to a point of appreciation for the process and journey that this project took us on. We were able to bond, learn, and grow as a firm from this experience. It was also very sentimental to play a role in revamping such a historical property for an inspiring gentleman who’s owned this property for such a long time.
These are the types of projects that we live for here at Scottmoore—ones that are complex and instrumental to serving communities that lay the foundation this city was built upon. So yes, problems were solved, and innovations made… another success in the book of Scottmoore’s journey.
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