done in six months...

Some Before and After Pics!

It's been, oh, about 8 months since my last post on this renovation blog. Let me condense the experience into a few lessons learned:

1. Do not attempt to live in a construction zone for months on end. Do immediately what we waited 10 months to do and move into a furnished condo. Breathing plaster dust is not good for people or dogs and inviting a crew of between 2 and 7 men to essentially move into your personal space for is not advisable for pregnant women.

2. If you decide to blog about your experience, do not share the blog address with contractors that you might at some point want to kill. Because then you cannot blog about the murderous feelings without having them feel perhaps slightly frightened of coming to your house. Thus the hiatus on the blog. I had to compose myself. Yes, it took many months and some T (see #3 below for definition) to get over it. But I feel better now. :)

3. There is simple math involved in calculating your final cost in a home renovation. It goes something like this:

C = E(C)*2 + P + PTSD where

C = final cost and E(C) is the expected cost prior to beginning the renovation. P is the monetary cost of pain and suffering, which might also in the NYC area be quantifiable in the following manner:

P = $225(T) where

$225 is the cost of 45 minutes of psychotherapy on the Upper West Side and T is the number of hours spent in said therapy.

Finally, PTSD is an unquantifiable residual that is directly proportionate to both C and P. As C and P increase, so does the residual PTSD. There is no way to calculate the ultimate cost of PTSD, but I will let you know my best guess once the nightmares stop.

BUT......IT'S DONE!

(Well, okay, except for some minor paint touchups, a couple furniture deliveries, a bit of cabinetry to be built, some rugs and stair runners, and a hallway that needs some wallpaper, but those are details people, details.)

And in celebration, below are some links to a few photo albums showcasing the fruits of our labor, C, and P. Those oh-so-appreciated "Before and After" pictures that really bring home just how much work we accomplished over the past 12 months. As other rooms get unpacked and organized over the next few weeks I will post additional updated albums.

Kitchen

Dressing Room Turned Nursery

2nd Floor (Master) Bathroom

Master Bedroom

Ta-Da! What do you think??

Kitchen progress

There has finally been some progress at Chez Renovation Inc. (insert enormous sigh of relief as she sees the end in sight for at least one project). Thanks to the most amazing plaster and paint work by two Irish brothers (Dominic and Martin), impeccable masonry repair by a guy named Jack, utmost patience and skill of our electrician Craig, and Tom - the most zen carpenter you will ever encounter, the kitchen is slowly coming to life. Click here for some "before" pictures (from the left sidebar) and then feast your eyes below:

A most beautiful ceiling. To my kitchen-hungry eyes, it's the Sistine Chapel. Benjamin Moore's Mushroom Cap is on the ceiling, trim is in Cloud Nine.

The wall where the (hideous) oak built-in cabinet fixture loomed over the rest of the kitchen has been removed. In its place, Tom is installing the most serene cream cabinets ("bisque glaze" finish, from KraftMaid). Wall color is Benjamin Moore's Honeywheat:

With the island gone and the old cabinets and formica countertops ripped out, the appliances are stacked on one side of the kitchen, awaiting their replacements on February 15th:

Here's a preview of the bathroom. We are nearly four months into this room's renovation and suffice to say that taking a bath in the jacuzzi every morning is actually getting old. I know, it sounds like blasphemy to say such a thing. We dream of hot showers now, and hopefully will be taking one in this bathroom very soon:

Next on the agenda is the reconfiguration of the second floor closets, some wall repair and skim coat plastering, and paint. The small dressing room wall of closets came down today and the rest of the week will be spent repairing the tin ceiling and trim.

Last week the masonry guys removed the a/c units that had been installed through the rear back walls on every floor (remember those ugly things?)...take a look at the nice hole in the walls that we still have on the second and third floors. Dominic the plasterer worked his magic on the hole left in the kitchen and will do the same to the remainders this week:

So, off to London we go tomorrow, with fingers crossed that the house we return to looks even better.

FALL la la la la...la la la la

'Tis the season to fall through the bathroom floor, crash through the kitchen ceiling, and dangle in the air. At least according to Michael, one of the contractors working on our house. He fell off the ladder in the bathroom, and ended up stradling a joist, with his leg crashing through to the floor below. But he's okay. Thank goodness the other contractor caught him to break his fall, as either scenario (losing his family jewels on my bathroom's joist, or continuing the fall all the way through to the first floor) would not be pretty. After the shock and making sure he was okay, I had a good laugh, and then for kicks we decided to do a re-enactment for the blog. Gotta love these guys and their sense of humor...here's what poor Michael looked like from the kitchen:

Here's the kitchen post-crash:

And here's the view from one floor up into the second floor:

Now, having a large hole in the kitchen ceiling really isn't bothering me. It might be because this is what the rest of the first floor looks like ever since the guys brought in lumber to start framing the bathroom and the kitchen cabinets from KraftMaid showed up last week. Really, a hole in the ceiling is not even noticeable!

About those Kraftmaid cabinets...we are not happy. Just to check out what the finish looks like (we chose Bisque Glaze on maple cabinets for the sides of the kitchen, and Autumn Blush on cherry cabinets for the island) we opened up a box at random. It was a bisque glaze. The door of the cabinet has a large crack running right down the front, along the grain. Okay, one to re-order. We're not too upset yet - we are pretty easy going people for the most part. Dave chooses a cherry cabinet box. Open it up and hm...the stain is very uneven to the point where it looks like they even missed a couple spots along the raised panel front. Starting to get a tad upset here. I head for the phone to call Lowe's (where we ordered them) while Dave starts in on a third box (maple with the bisque glaze). The top corner joint on the front door panel is not lined up and there is a gap in the wood seam. We are 0 for 3 and I'm starting to see puffs of steam emerge from my husband's ears. Lowe's says that Kraftmaid is closed on weekends, but they will call on Monday. It is now Wednesday and they are still working on a solution. After some research we found out that Kraftmaid constructs an entire kitchen on the same day - it keeps the stain and glaze uniform throughout the cabinets. I suspect that either a poor team worked on the cabinets and that quality control was bad that day. We are requesting that Kraftmaid send someone out to inspect each cabinet and we will decide where to go from there. For now, the contractor (through Lowe's) who is installing the cabinets is on hold and it looks like we may be spending the holidays sitting among boxes instead of enjoying our new kitchen. In the grand scheme of things, this glitch is on par with most home remodeling problems, I'm sure. Now where to put the new range, refrigerator, dishwasher, and chimney range hood when they arrive next Monday? We are plumb out of room!

Bathroom is GUTTED!

Oh we are so happy - the bathroom has been deconstructed and is ready for new construction. Rob Vetter's crew at BDT Construction did a fabulous job and with a last burst of energy yesterday they managed to hack through the last of the 3 inch thick concrete walls and steel lathe that enclosed the walls of the bathroom (aka the "panic room" these days due to it's almost indestructible construction). Here are some photos from the last two weeks of the insane amount of work that went into the gutting (click here for "before pictures").

Massive pile of metal lathe framing that had to be cut and peeled off the walls.

This was discovered under a 3 inch thick layer of concrete that was found under the tile installed in the 1930s...here's a picture of the bathroom midway through the process, with the shower stall getting down.

Rob (standing) and Michael (on the ladder) working in the dark yesterday finishing up the demolition. These guys are AWESOME (and I'm not just saying that because they treated me to several beers at the local bar after they finished up):

And it's finally ready for a new bathroom!

 

In other great bathroom news, we have received all the parts, fixtures, etc. that we ordered. The toilet, sink, and some plumbing all arrived via UPS from Vintage Tub and Bath (the customer service there is superb, I highly recommend them to anyone considering buying bathroom stuff over the Internet). The victorian exposed thermostatic shower system, with a sliding bar and handshower made by Gnutti Sebastiano that we ordered arrived at the Home Expo this week and I picked it up yesterday. The bathroom finally feels like it is coming together.

The last challenge lies in figuring out how to work with the art deco shower door that we are trying to salvage. We need to have the glass tempered for safety purposes. Assuming that it survives the heating and cooling processes involved in tempering (fingers crossed), the next step is having a custom frame made for it that would then extend into a glass half wall over the other side of the shower area. For now, Jason Tedesco over at J&S Glass and Tile is working on arranging the tempering process and we will go from there (no sense making a custom frame if the whole thing breaks apart at step one!).

Updates to follow as this comes along...

Demolition has begun

Demolition on the 2nd floor bathroom has finally begun! The guys have been so wonderful about saving as much of the wall tile as possible.* Most of the tiles are off, the plaster underneath is getting chipped away, and next comes removing the steel cage underportion that lines the entire bathroom. Below are some in-progress pictures, and "before" pictures can be seen to the left, in the link titled "Bathroom - 2nd Floor":

*I recently found a box of this tile from the 1930s in the cellar - it's in perfect condition, made by the Robertson Tile Company in Trenton, NJ. The manufacturer is stamped on the back, along with the following: Incised Planatile Series, Airport, Patent Applied For. Looking this tile manufacturer up on antique tile sites showed that the tile might be worth quite a bit. We're saving as much as possible, and will probably reincorporate it into part of the house and sell the rest.

Bathroom is on the calendar

Demolition on the second floor bathroom begins on Monday, October 25th!

Tile for this bathroom has been ordered from Ann Sacks - it's so beautiful! Here's a picture of the samples they gave us:

The flooring will be in the woven dogbone-style white and charcoal gray with a gray grout. One wall will have white subway tile up to chair rail height. The opposite wall (with the sink and toilet) and the wall with the hall door will have dark brown stained wood wainscoting up to chair rail height. Inside the shower stall, the flooring will be the ming green marble bricks. This will also cover the custom bench that will sit under the window in the shower stall. The green glass tile will line the entire shower stall, and also be used to create built-in cubbies in the shower walls (to hold shampoo, etc.). I think that the combination of dark wood, white tile, chrome and white porcelein fixtures, and a light green glass will meld together perfectly to create a vintage look with modern ammenities.

We still need to make a decision on the fixtures this week. Here are pictures of what we are leaning toward. Both are from Vintage Tub & Bath.

St. Thomas Creations Nouveau Console Sink with Chrome Legs:

St. Thomas Creations Richmond Round Front Toilet:

I'm having a heck of a time figuring out how to use the frame (rechrome? replace?) 2nd floor shower door so we can reincorporate it into the new bathroom. Here's a detail of the top chromed part of the shower door (click photo for larger pic and more details):

Dave is leaning toward only salvaging the glass out of the shower door and going to an all-new frame that will match up with the glass over the half wall portion of the shower stall. I think the current frame is beautiful, but agree with him that our planned configuration for the shower stallmakes reusing the frame a little difficult. We'll see. I'm on my way now to visit a glass artist to see what she thinks.

Blog update: new "before" photos have been added - click links on the sidebar to see pictures of the Front Exterior, 2nd Floor Bathroom, 3rd Floor Bathroom, and the 2nd Floor Bedrooms.

Central A/C ordered

Just in time for Fall....we have central air conditioning being installed. :-) The current arrangement of these intra-wall units look like this, one on each floor of the house:

click image for more details

The air conditioning system that we chose is a combination of a ductless split system from Mitsubishi for the kitchen/parlor level and a duct system with a compressor located on the roof for the second and third floors. The ducts will run from the roof through the center closet areas, with registers and returns located in the interior wall, one facing the room in the back of the house and the other facing the room in the front of the house. In addition, flexible ductwork can be run along the crawl space above the top floor and dropped into the top floor bathroom. The second floor bathroom will be demolished in the next month, so that once the ceiling is opened up the ductwork can be run from the main shaft then split off between the ceiling and floor, popping out once again in the ceiling of the second floor bathroom. In choosing a duct a/c system for the top two floors we compromise a small amount of closet space in the top floor - about 1 square foot of the corner of one closet will be lost in accommodating the duct running between these floors.

The advantage of not using a completely ductless split system throughout the house (aside from greater reliability and less rumored repairs) is that it is much cheaper - less than half the cost of installing ductless splits on all three floors. With our savings we have decided to upgrade to a higher energy efficiency ratings on both compressors (the ductless and the duct one), from a rating of 10 seer to 12 seer.

Before we can actually have the sytem installed, though, we have a little prep work that needs attention. First, the electical system for the entire house must be juiced up from the current 125 amp to at least a 200 amp. Second, the new central panel has to be enlarged to accommodate some safety switches. Third, we need to run electricity up to the roof and to the backyard so that the compressors have power. Fourth, we need to have a masonry company remove the current intra-wall units and repair both the exterior and interior walls.

The electrical work will hopefully be completed in the next 10-14 days, and the masonry will be completed in this same timeframe. The man who recently repaired the front stoop will repair the back exterior walls. When I asked him for a price quote he mentioned to me that he was the one who installed the wall a/c units over 10 years ago for the previous owner. I joked that will all the work he's done on the house, he has as much claim to it as we do. It's nice to find people in the neighborhood who have a history of working on this house. We have been very impressed with not only the quality of work of the local craftsmen, but also with the pride in which they take in their finished products. We look forward to seeing the final result within the next month.

First Post!

In June of 2004 my husband David and I bought our first house together. It's an 1887 brownstone and brick rowhome, located in a historic district of Hudson County, NJ - just a stone's throw across the Hudson river from Manhattan. We are in love with this house, and after years of watching episode after episode of This Old House, we finally have our own old house to play with.

The house itself is steeped in history, as it was once the residence of a former mayor. An infamous bookie (and friend of the mayor) lived two doors down, making for some interesting politics, not to mention illegal activities. So, here's a rundown of house basics and layout:

The house is only 16.67 feet wide and 35 feet deep. There are four floors, and we occupy the top three. The garden level is a one-bedroom rental unit with a tenant. Out of his privacy, no photos will be shown or details discussed with respect to his part of the home. Since we live in and are embarking on a restoration of the top three floors, I will refer to our first floor as the first floor. The garden unit will be called just that - the garden level/unit.

The first floor has an entryway and parlor in the front part of the house, and a kitchen in the back. There are two chimneys that run the full height of the house, but the chimney in the back (where the kitchen is) has been sealed off. The chimney in the front room gives access to a fireplace in the parlor that was converted to gas in 1981.

The second floor has a large master bedroom (with another gas fireplace) and an adjacent small bedroom, accessible by an open pass-through. This room has been used for the past 30 years as a dressing room, and eventually we hope to use it as a nursery. This floor also has a bathroom with a stall shower. This bathroom was redone by the former mayor in the 1940s and the tile on the walls was actuallly tile used in the new Maternity Hospital that was being built in the area at the time as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal post-war program. Somehow the tile "fell off the back of a truck" and landed in our bathroom.

The third (and top) floor is a more modern open floor plan. There is a guest bedroom toward the back of the house, and a large open area at the front of the house. We plan to use this as an office/family room. There is also a large bathroom on this floor with a huge jacuzzi tub that fits two adults comfortably. Installed in 1981, it looks as though it came right out of a retro bathroom that one might find in a SoHo loft. Although we love it for its funkiness, it is not exactly family friendly in terms of bathing babies and we plan to redo this bathroom in the next couple years. A beautiful old clawfoot tub is definitely in the plans.

This blog will document the restoration (and renovation, in certain cases) of the house over what I'm sure will be the next several years, if not the lifetime of our tenure here. There are links on the left hand side of the page to "before" photos - and hopefully soon we will have a list of some "after" photos. Work has already begun on the facade and front stoop, as the masonry and brownstone is repaired, and the ironwork is repainted.

We decided to name this blog done in six months... as an ackowledgement to the silly notion that any major project can be completed in six months. Instead, we look at this house as the beginning of a relationship that will last many years. Right now, three months after getting the deed, we are still in the honeymoon phase with the home. I'm sure that our first fight with her is right around the corner, but let's not think about that just yet...