Crown Heights Reno: November 2007
« October 2007
November 25, 2007
systems update
or
these walls come fully loaded
for the past couple of months we have been focusing on finishing up all the systems so that we can (finally) close the walls. basically that work is now finished though finding the right person to do the heating took a while: we are not only replacing the 50 year old boiler, we are changing from a forced air system to hot water heat, this work is about to start so i'll leave that discussion to a later post.
A/C
we did take advantage of the walls being opened to install central a/c.
the units for the top 2 floors sit on the roof (back & low)
the maze of ducts: amazingly, not visible through the top floor skylights
our a/c contractor has done an incredible job of hiding the duct work.
left: the vent cut into the parlor ceiling (which is in the process of being restored)
(also visible are low voltage cans that we added at the 11th hour feeling that they were necessary to light the walls properly for paintings).
right: the duct that feeds that vent set into the closet floor; there are only two places (here in the closet and at the top of the 3rd floor stairs) where we have to build something to hide the trunks; we were able to do the whole house without dropping any ceilings.
some flexible duct work on the top floor and the unit in the basement for my studio which will have one long round exposed duct down the middle.
ELECTRIC
the electric was a huge job; with only 60 amps coming into the house we definitely need to bring in new service
this requires digging up a portion of the new cement since it is necessary to replace the wooden trough that the electric currently sits in with a metal pipe (seems reasonable). the silver lining here is that we can rethink putting some plantings along the edge of the yard where the cement has been removed.
(left: new meters, right: old)
con ed also wanted to install our new meters on the outside of the building which did not seem reasonable. i would much prefer to let them in to do readings once a month (until the digital read outs become available) than to have 2 meters hanging out in the front.
the electric in the extension wall: my studio will have a combination of lights; florescent fixtures for day to day activity and incandescent fixtures for showing work.
the jury is still out on whether or not to go low voltage here.
some of the massive mess of conduit running through the house
but what a joy to be able to flick a switch and have lights come on!!!
we went with low voltage 3" cans throughout much of the house and find the light to be very pretty.
& a big shout out to joe at lendy electric (137 bowery) for all his help and patience; great service, great prices.
some of the wiring on the parlor floor;
left: new panel
right: preparing for the wall o' appliances in the kitchen
SIDEBAR
in the snap above is a picture hanging on the (soon to be) wall,
it is a rendering of the kitchen;
a little reminder that things won't always be this way
briefly all our appliances will sit on that west wall with the exception of the oven which will be under the island.
on that same wall will be a combination of wood cabinets with horizontal hoppers in glass & metal.
we are foregoing a dining room table and building a large concrete ovoid counter to serve for both prep and dining.
(we are really excited about this so play nice, remember you don't have to live here)
LOW VOLTAGE
or "the information highway starts here"
you might ask, why all this cat 6 in the age of wireless???
i promise you, for some of the work that i do, wireless just doesn't cut it
and again; the walls are open
we still haven't finalized the headache of alarms, intercoms, etc. though i must admit, the prospect of keypads, thermostatic controls, detectors of all sorts, etc. distributed liberally throughout the house in their lovely shades of decorator plastic is beginning to wear rather thin.
November 4, 2007
beauty break
one good thing that happened over the summer was that we started restoring the plaster work on the front parlour ceiling
while there were voices discouraging us from doing so, it was something we both really wanted. (see the march 9th entry)
unfortunately by not doing it immediately, a bit more of the ceiling started to pull away, but not enough so that we considered give up on it. and even though it is costing a bit more to do the extra work, the fact that the majority of the ceiling held up to all the demolition above it, gave us the confidence to proceed.
this project is in a holding pattern right now, as we are going to wait for the floor above to be laid so as not to risk damage to any completed work during that installation
we are thrilled with the results so far
the first step was to remove any loose plaster and secure what was there:
next, all small cracks were patched and the surfaces that were down to the lath were covered with structolite over wire where needed, then the brown coat was applied
some details of the original plaster work and the repair around it
the medallion in this room (left image below) is relatively small and barely salvageable, i am not sure we are going to try to reproduce it given that there is so much going on with the border in the center of the room. the image on the right shows part of a floral border that has pulled away from the surface
i find all of this incredibly beautiful
these images show the two ways that the new decorative work is achieved
the left column shows how the crown molding is reproduced
and the right column shows how the floral patterns are recreated
left column: crown molding template
the device in the upper left image is a metal template created from the profile of the existing molding
it is just dragged across the wet plaster at the top to achieve a perfect match
the bottom image on the left shows the old and the new about to meet
right column: rubber mold
for the detailed floral designs, a rubber mold is made from an existing pattern
it is then pressed into place to create the rest of a design
i can't wait to see this finished
it looks like a fairy tale to me