Free appliances


I have a free Maytag washer and a 2 door frost-free refrigerator that needs a handle to give away to anyone who would like to come to the house and load them up (which means taking the refrigerator down from upstairs, and the washer from the downstairs kitchen inside the house). Both work fine and do not appear to be all that old – the washer older than the refrigerator. Both are white in color. Someone broke/removed the refrigerator door handle at some point but you can still open the door from the side or get a new handle. I have no use whatsoever for these appliances and they would go to the curb for recycling but I hate to see them go to the dump if someone had a rental apt or workshop that could use them. Call my cell 479-970-9545 if interested. I’ll be over at the house at 43 Orient Ave (Williamsburg) this afternoon around 5 if anyone wanted to come have a look and take them off my hands.

By greenpoint_southerners | 05/17/2011 1:08 PM | Comment

Debris Removal Recommendations?


Looking for someone to come haul off some of our initial rehab debris. We wIll have the contractor haul off the stuff they remove, but so far we have taken down lots of paneling, torn out some shelving from closets, a few hollow core doors, some old paneling that was stored in the basement, etc. Nothing worth saving. At this point I don’t see the need for a dumpster since the contractor will do that for the major plaster and stud stuff, but have quite a pile of trim pieces (mostly plain jane modern cheap stuff – nothing detailed), doors, and paneling I need hauled off – more than I would want to cut up, bundle, and put on the curb. Any recommendations?

Categories: Demolition
By greenpoint_southerners | 05/15/2011 8:46 PM | Comment

Looking for contractor for wall removal


We closed on the house in Williamsburg this week, so we are now looking for a contractor to come give us estimates on removing a couple walls and closets, and enlarging a doorway into the entry. Two of the walls are simply room partitions, horizontal to the room/house. The doorway to enlarge and a partially opened up wall in the rear kitchen are most likely load-bearing or semi-load bearing as they are vertical to the house with matching walls upstairs. All walls are real plaster. There is some minor electrical to be done as well since the walls being removed each have a single light switch and receptacle in them to reroute. No plumbing though. We would like the walls removed, electrical rerouted, debris carted away, and the exposed areas/beams simply sheet-rocked back so we can finish out everything and paint. Would like someone who could take this on quickly as we would like to have it done in the next few weeks although I assume getting the permits for the two structural walls could take a while? The cheaper the better. Any recommendations or any contractors on here looking for work?

Categories: Renovation
By greenpoint_southerners | 05/12/2011 11:21 PM | Comment

Dirt Square in Basement


The house we are buying has a strange area in the middle of an otherwise finished concrete floor in the unfinished basement. The rest of the basement is nice and smooth albeit 90 year old concrete, with a drain, etc, but there is this strange 6′ x 10′ or so area right in the middle over to one side that is dirt. You can tell they used some old board frames when they poured the basement to exclude that area and it isn’t even perfectly square. The dirt area appears to have been surrounded by some old wood stud walls with 1 x 3′s with 3-4″ gaps in between nailed up to the ceiling – almost like an animal pen – however only one wall still remains – the owner’s son removed the other walls 20 years ago when he was making a work area. She says she never knew what the area was for originally. The house was built in 1920. I’d like to eventually dig down the dirt and pour in some concrete to finish out the basement as a rec room, and the dirt area isn’t part of any of the foundation or support beam areas – just an open square area of dirt in the room so digging it out a few inches and filling it in wouldn’t be dangerous to the house as it is more or less in the left center of the room. Does anyone know what this area might have been used for and has anyone else run across this before? This room isn’t a cellar, its about 50% below grade with front and rear doors under the stoops with 4 windows and about a 9′ ceiling, so it’s a basement and not a cellar and there is no sub cellar underneath, it’s just never been used for anything but mechanicals and laundry.

Categories: Floors
By greenpoint_southerners | 04/22/2011 9:45 AM | Comment

Work Requiring Permits or Licensure


Is there a form/booklet somewhere that tells what kinds of work can be done by a homeowner without a permit or license? I have searched the DOB website and can only find bits and pieces and they all seem to be related to specific projects such as decks, room additions, etc. We are going to start rehabbing the house we just bought after closing and can do just about anything ourselves from many years or rehabbing properties we have owned and lived in out of state. We want to hire a contractor to remove a few walls, beam as necessary, etc and I’m sure permits would be needed for that, but am more curious for things like swapping out light fixtures, wall switches, receptacles, new toilets and sinks, adding a dishwasher, swapping out the gas range, replacing the entry doors (in a non LPC area), laying tile or new wood floors, wall tiling, etc. This is a legal 2 family but we are going to be using the whole house as a one family – although for future resale purposes we would like to keep it as a legal 2 in case someone ever wanted to convert it back. I assume you can legally use a 2 family as a one without doing anything special right?

Categories: Permits
By greenpoint_southerners | 04/14/2011 10:03 PM | Comment

Kitchen Hearths?


So the house we are closing on in a couple weeks has a couple of strange looking fireplace hearth things in the kitchens both upstairs and down that they currently have gas ranges sitting in front of or slightly into. They kind of appear to be the back side of the fireplaces to the house next door but they are about 5 feet tall and are square recesses about the width of a conventional range which probably had some sort of wood stoves recessed into them when the house was built? It’s obvious that they couldn’t be easily removed – especially if they are indeed connected to the house next door as they are brick and this brick appears to run all the way to the ceiling on both floors. Does anyone have pictures or suggestions about what to do with them to incorporate them into the rooms and what they were for originally? The house would have originally been a 1 family so I find it odd that there is one upstairs in what would have probably been an upstairs bedroom. We would like to make that room into a master bath. In the matching room below, which is the going to remain the kitchen we would like to somehow incorporate it into the room but we would also like to get a nice Wolf or Viking stove so I don’t think one would fit back into that recess, but it would be cool if it indeed has an open chimney that could double as a vent for the stove. Downstairs they do have a ventahood stuck into this slot and have glued on some copper colored tiles all around that area. Curious if anyone else has these in their houses and what you did with them? I suppose the one upstairs could become a linen closet or something as there are also regular type fireplaces on the opposite walls in what will be the bedroom upstairs and the dining area below that we will refinish as decorative or put gas logs in. Would love to see pics of what others have done with these things and know what their original purpose was. I tried to post a pic but for some reason it wont upload.

Categories: Fireplace/Mantle
By greenpoint_southerners | 04/08/2011 9:19 PM | Comment

Approx cost to remove parlor wall


We put in an offer in on a 18′ frame townhouse in Greenpoint. It is attached typical style townhouse with the entry stairwell with the parlor to the left with a small single door. If we win the bid, before moving in we would like to open up the parlor to the entry, but leave the airlock vestibule, which would result removing a span of about 12-15 feet to open up the living room. Given the width of the house and the stiarwell, I assume it will need to be beamed with a header and soffited and we would like to leave the sculpted plasterwork around the two ceiling areas intact. In the rear parlor someone has already opened up the wall between the two original back rooms and made the side room into a kitchen, but we would like to open it up taller and wider than it is as well as do the same thing upstairs in the rear bedroom to make a wider master bedroom. That wall is also about 15′ long and is on the top floor so not sure it would need beamed, but we would want to have a shallow beam anyway to preserve the tin ceilings on both sides. For someone who has taken out a parlor wall, what is a typical ballpark figure just to take out the parlor wall and install a wooden beam including removing the debris? We will be getting an engineer, GC etc, but at this point prior to even purchasing we were just curious if we were looking at 1K, 5K, 10K per wall or what? We would finish it out ourselves, so we really just a rough estimate of what removing a wall, carting off the debris, and beaming it back would cost.

Categories: Renovation
By greenpoint_southerners | 03/08/2011 9:47 PM | Comment