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~~~ Growth is a wonderful thing, especially when the outcome will lead to Greyhounds placed into retirement homes ~~~ We decided to create our very own photo journal of our growth process. This is so exciting for all who are involved we just had to share. We want you to be a part of the growth and excitement.~~ June 2002 ~~ PRH purchases over 6 acres of land in Guilford County North Carolina. We plan to clear acre by acre in phases as this allows us the opportunity to grow as needed and when finances are set. The first acre will be the actual site of the building and runs. The next acre will be a large playfield for the hounds and special events. We will be carving walking trails throughout the beautiful woods that surround our property. Plans are set in motion to prepare this beautiful parcel of land that will eventually become Project Racing Home Greyhound Adoptions, Inc. Our new home is located at the highway 220 and highway 62 intersection in Randleman, North Carolina. Our facility address will be 7015 Faulkner Road Randleman NC 27317. We will continue to use the PO Box for postal mail. ~~ July 2002 ~~ Building plans are finalized and contractors are rounded up for what is about to become one of the most exciting times of our lives and a brave new way to approach adoption of these wonderful dogs. Construction of our 20 foot by 80 foot facility is set to begin. After much research, education and insight, we have decided to model our facility after a racing kennel to allow a smooth transition from track life to retirement life. We will maintain a track type schedule for the dogs and we will provide sand pits to keep our facility clean and parasite free.
~~ August 2002 ~~ Trees start falling!! Clearing of land begins with the clearing of our first acre! Just starting....
Half way there..... Almost cleared...
Getting the stumps out and hauling away the debris.
~~ September 2002~~ The site has been marked with stakes showing all the specifics. Where the building will be, where the runs will be, where the driveway and parking lot will be and even where the dumpster pad will be located!!! The driveway and parking lot which will be paved when completed are currently graveled. We have all our affairs in order and we are ready for concrete! We plan to start construction with in the next 10 days and be complete by December. We have ordered our crates and are getting all of our final building requests in order. ~~ October 2002 ~~ After a few bumps in the road and uncontrollable weather factors, we finally get everything we need to continue construction. Now comes the rain! UGH!!! That was so frustrating for us. First we can't dig a well because of a drought and then comes Monsoon season! No fear, we will keep on plugging and things will come together, we are positive and we are strong willed!! ~~ November 2002 ~~ Looky Looky Looky!!!!!
The Block Man Cometh!!! We arrived Wednesday (11-27) to see that our building blocks
were being delivered to the site.
We watched for awhile as this man placed pallet after pallet of cinder blocks on our site. As we were leaving, there was a second truck arrive with more cinder blocks!! Pictures should be posted frequently now as I will most likely be going out every other day or so to check the progress and of course snap those photos!
~~ December 2002 ~~ Ok you will have to use your visual imagination here with me
until I may be able to get a scan of the actual building plans!
This is the front of the building - the cut out in the middle is the front door! When finished the front will have an awning and a deck railing around it as well as a couple wooden benches to sit on, provided we can find some nice person to build them or donate them!
This picture is taken from the right side and if you look along the block you will see another cut out in the blocks. That is a side door that will lead to an introduction lot. There is another door directly across from that one.
These are my inspectors! You may have seen them in a lot of the photos! When this is complete they will probably know more about construction than they ought to!
WE HAVE PLUMBING!!!!!!!
hahahahaha just kidding! I just couldnt resist the opportunity to get you all with that tasteless joke! We did get quite a chuckle out of the portapotty!! See, we have to supply a potty...one more expense that you just NEVER even think about when it comes to building!!
This is our actual plumbing that was completed in one day! Miraculous! Again you are looking in the front door..the pipes to the right are the washer and dryer the pipes to the left are the bathroom, kitchen and wash rack also known as a very large shower for bathing dogs!
This is a close up of the bathroom, kitchen and wash rack. The wash rack is a 6ftx8ft shower that is modeled after those you will find in horse barns. We felt this was easier than trying to lift these large dogs in and out of a tub. Ok easier on the back and safer for the dog! So let me just tell you all now...bring bathing suits, shorts and flip flops...we're gonna have fun!
At the present time...12-4-02 we may be held up for a couple days. Seems we have to tolerate drought conditions, then Monsoon season and now we have this wonderful day of frozen everything! Tomorrow calls for much of the same unfortunately. Friday is supposed to be nice...ok high 40's...that beats the mere 22 degrees we have had today right! If I have to I'll go tend a fire at the site so the boys can keep warm and building!!! Maybe a little hot coffee...some warm doughnuts....hey who said bribery doesn't work!! Well, we were held up for about a week. Ice was awful, downed trees everywhere. Luckily nothing really bad at the kennel site, just a mass of mud! Due to the soggy ground and the mud we had to wait for the slab to be poured. We finally dried out a little and had a couple days of clear weather and ta-da.....
We have a slab of concrete!! We have a floor!! We have a dance floor!! Now we need to allow 48 hours for the slab concrete to set up and then we will be ready for the next step...Walls!!!
December 27th, I drove out to the land today and what did my eyes see....WALLS!!!! Okay so its just one and a half walls...its a wall!! This is one of the first times I have been present when workers have been on site. It seems like most of the time I go out there and like magic, stuff is done! The last time I was actually there when there were workers was when they were clearing the land!
That looks pretty impressive! Our door frames were being set. Sure looks long doesn't it!
Our Contractor was on site making sure everything was rolling along smooth and safely. He informed me that we may have a slight hold up over the next 7 to 10 days. Seems the factory that manufactured our windows will not release the windows until they complete their year end inventory. The anticipated arrival of the windows will be January 7th. Since the windows need to be blocked in with the construction of the walls, we may have to hold up, should be no longer than a week.
New Year's Eve the crew was at work.... They completed all four walls and are now set to begin the interior walls. Windows will be delivered as early as January 8th. Once the brick masons put those in place the trusses will be put into place. We will have a roof soon!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! ~~January 2003~~ January 7th....I had heard thru a grapevine the walls were looking good. But when the person on the other end of the phone said "It's huge!" I laughed and said, "It's not huge, it's functionable and has a nice working flow to it!" Little did I know when I arrived at the site to take pictures and check on the progress that it really does look HUGE!!
This is a picture I took on New Year's Eve. From the looks of it...it just looks like a big mess!
What a difference a week makes! This picture was taken January 7th. I was standing in the office area facing towards the kennel area. The large room to the right is the storage room. Directly across from the door into the storage is the kitchen area. I tried to take a picture of that but it was really hard to decipher in photos! Let me just say it has an awesome window over the sink! The room on the left is the bathroom.
Ok so bathrooms aren't all that impressive! Hey at least its not the porta-potty right!!?? That's a bathroom we can square dance in!! The door to the left will lead out to an introduction lot. We have two introduction lots, one on each side, directly off the office.
This is a shot taken from the kennel area looking towards the front office. The bay you see to the right is the wash rack/very large shower! The next bay up on the right is the kitchen area.
Now that's a wash rack! Yep it's a very large shower for washing dogs...looks like fun eh??
This is the kennel area...I was standing in front of the wash rack when I took this one. This kennel area is a 20 foot by 40 foot room with enough space to accommodate as many as 72 crates/dogs. I think we figured we may actually be able to fit more than that at absolute full capacity. However, we are only putting in 48 crates. We can always expand if necessary!
The doors that you see are leading out to the turnout yards. The door on the right is going to be roll up like a garage door. The door on the left will be the personnel door. The roll up door will make turnouts such a beautiful thing! It will also allow us to open up our windows and open up our doors and have a wonderful breeze blow through the building. Fresh air in the indoors...such a joy...especially on those nice spring and fall days! UPDATE..... Wow what a month! January 13th our crates arrived. It was a very cold day to be handling metal of any sort let alone heavy metal! We had plenty of help and managed to get the truck off loaded in about 45 minutes. The driver was thrilled as he was on a time line and had to meet with other kennels in Northern Florida. I have no problem telling you that the load he was hauling was quite heavy. I believe our total weight was 3 tons of stuff. We all have arms like Hercules now!!
We stacked the crates in the kennel room for the moment...seemed we would like to wait for a warmer day to put them together! No one argued that fact!
We have a roof! We have the HVAC guys coming this week and then the shingles and gutters will be put on.
My inspectors are at it again! This is the back of the kennel. When completed there will be a concrete pad poured under that roof and turnout runs will be located off the back. We plan to have two small runs specifically for the surgery dogs and two very large sprint runs, one on either side of the building. We'll have a total of 8 dog lots when finished with the initial phase of construction.
We watched as the power guys hooked up our very own transformer and we watched as the septic guys ran the lines for our septic system!
~~ February 2003 ~~
Well finally we had some warm weather...ok so 53 isn't all that warm, compared to 23 its feeling pretty toasty! We got together at the kennel with power tools in hand to put our crates together. The first one took us awhile, after all they don't really come with any instructions! All I had to go on was the visual I had in my mind and what the manufacturer had told me! Hey it couldn't be -that- difficult now could it!? I was told after the first one was done the rest would just fall together like a puzzle. Well that was exactly the case! Crates 2 through 7 went together in a snap. Crate 8 gave us a bit of trouble as we were all getting a little tired by then! It took us a total of 8 hours to put all those crates together! Not bad for a days work I would say. We had to make sure we followed suit and each rack of six was inspected by our supervisor. The inspections were grueling! HA!
Aren't they just beautiful crates! These are made by the same manufacturer who makes crates for the racing kennels and farms across the country. They get excellent reviews from people in the dog business who have been using them for years. As several people had put it "they are the very best crates you can get." Of course we said, "Well, we must have the best!" One of the greatest features of our crates, besides that they are open and airy, they can be wheeled out under the back awning and cleaned out with a hose if necessary.
~~ March 2003 ~~ Went out to the kennel today. (3-4-03) I wanted to survey the damage from the recent ice storm. Luckily we have trees down in the woods and that's it. I think that probably going to be pretty par for the course since we do have about 6 acres still wooded! We had lots of progress over the last few weeks despite the
nasty weather that continues to annoy us. Our heating and Air Conditioning has been installed and electric has been hooked up. There are some finishing touches, but for the most part HVAC and electric is complete.
We have doors! All of our doors have been installed. This is looking out the front door from the office area. Won't this be wonderful on a nice sunny day!
This is our beautiful kitchen area. We think we will have plenty of prep room in here and it appears we will have lots of cabinet space as well. We were actually worried about not having enough counter space and cabinet space! Guess we were fooled!
March 10th 2003 The siding has been finished, the phone lines have been run, the ceiling has been put up, the painting is finished, the counter in the front office is almost finished...what's left!!!??? We are on schedule...this is supposed to be a good week weather wise so we hope the fence guys will get in there and get the job done!! The brick boys were going to be out there today building our walls around the turnout lots. hey said that would only take a day!! WOW! I went out there Saturday and let me tell you, there was so much activity going on it was just crazy! People all over the place and power tools buzzin! It was awesome to see so much commotion! Builder man has given us a completion week....he said between March 16th and 22nd he should be finished. He said since we have doors we can start moving stuff in and since we are all sitting with our homes full of "stuff" we are excited about that! Here are some new photos....and you can bet with the weather as nice as its supposed to be this week...I will ride out there and take more as soon as I can!
When finished these will be sand lots for turnout. We are so excited about these. I know, sounds silly, but this is really the best thing for the dogs. We want to keep a clean facility and sand lots are wonderful and easy to maintain. Not to mention the dogs love to play in the sand!
Notice we have a ceiling!! The vents and such will be put in this week. Do you like our stairs? Everyone needs a poke hole for Christmas decorations right!!??
This is the back of the kennel...we call it "The Patio" Notice the big door on the left (well ok there is a piece of sheet rock laying in front of it in the picture!) That's our roll up door. This was put in specifically so we could roll our kennels out and clean them once a month! Its a beautiful thing!!
3-11-03 The turnout lots have the walls up and the garage door has been installed. The trim painting has been done...next step fencing!
The forms have been laid for the concrete sidewalks. Yes you read that correctly...concrete sidewalks and a paved parking lot and driveway! I believe the fence guys were scheduled to be there this week, probably today 3-12, and the concrete guys were scheduled to be there this week.
~~ April 2003 ~~ Sorry for the delay in posting updates and pictures....much of the work that has been completed over the past few weeks has been indoor stuff that's not all that interesting to photograph...such as light fixtures...you've seen one you've seen 'em all!!!! More weather delays so the outside has taken a beating but its finally pretty well finished now. I believe last I checked the driveway had to be paved, the paver machine was at the site on Sunday (4-6). The gutters needed to be put on the building, and a few minor things in the front need to be finished.
When I took this picture the fence was almost finished. This picture was taken on 3-31. These are our sand lots/turn out yards. As of April 2nd the fencing is complete and looks awesome.
Welcome to Project Racing Home!! In this picture we are almost finished with the front, just a few minor touches to finish it off!
This picture shows how the play yards and visitation yards are squared up with the building. Its really pretty actually, I think it looks clean and organized. I hope the grass grows soon!! Finishing touches are being done this week and we should have our Certificate of Occupancy early next week at the latest. We are excited!!
Our sign is not in place yet, its currently being fabricated however this is what it will look like and it will be HUGE!!!! We like it, what do you think!!?? More pictures to come soon!!!! |
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lovemygreyhound@aol.com with questions or
comments about this web site.
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....make it
level! And there we have our site!
We
have a well and we have footers!
We think
our supervisor, better known as Chief BabyDoll approved as she found no problem
sacking out in the new crates! 
