Gates Reno: June 2006
The last details...
Amy:
Not a whole lot of detail remains in our new house. But what is still there seems pretty cool to me. Here are some of my favorites.
Parlor floor pocket doors
Close-up of etched glass in pocket doors
Amazingly (considering how badly the building was abused over the years), the etched glass in the pocket doors survived, and it is beautiful. We didn't actually get to enter the front parlor before we purchased the house, and there's cardboard covering the glass on the back parlor side, so we had no idea it was there.
Front parlor
Second floor fireplace
There are three unpainted marble fireplaces in the house, and one that has been painted. Ms. Architect admits to not being sentimental about most of the old falling-apart details in brownstones, but she has a soft place in her heart for our fireplaces.
She does not, however, feel the need to save the plaster work on the parlor walls. I'm not sure how I feel about this.
Marble sink on second floor
I'm hoping against hope that something can be done with this. It's too beautiful to scrap.
Talking to architects
Garden-level stairs
Amy:
So, I’ve never had to work with an architect before. We e-mailed back and forth for many months, but finally got to go through the house together after the purchase went through. It went something like this:
Me: “I’d like a bathroom here and a laundry room here.”Ms. Architect: “You’ve just used up your entire renovation budget moving the pipes into place.”
So, clearly I didn’t really have a great idea about what things would cost going in to this. I’ve heard numbers thrown around Brownstoner regarding how much money you “need” to do a good renovation. We have nowhere near that amount. In fact, we have just a little over half of what our engineer told us we would need at a minimum. (Sorry to be vague, but my husband doesn’t want the numbers to be public. For some reason, he also doesn't like it when I publicize our SAT scores or my bra size.)
Our architects understand this, and so far seem to be really adept at cutting corners where it doesn’t really matter so that the money can be used where it is vitally important. Luckily, we don’t need to have a certain brand of toilet or want kitchen tile imported from a monastery in Italy. As long as something looks good and works well, it doesn't have to have the brand-name-du-jour. I'm the person you see strolling the aisles of Lowe's with 57 pages printed from ConsumerReports.org.
We have clashed a bit already, though, over things like air conditioning, a guest bathroom, and wiring for some electronic items, like intercoms and speakers. Part of me says that they’re just doing their jobs, that they’re determined to keep us within our budget no matter what. But another part of me says that perhaps they just don’t know us well enough yet to understand how important these things are to us.
When it's finished...
Amy:
When the house is finished, it will be set up like this: Garden floor will be kitchen/dining and TV/family room floor, with a half bathroom. Parlor floor will have a front parlor (with another TV area – we watch a lot of TV), and a back parlor, which will be used primarily as a playroom for our two kids. Second floor will have master bedroom, master bathroom, master closet with washer and dryer, office/guest room, and guest bathroom. Third floor will have three bedrooms and a bathroom (although one bedroom is technically the “playroom” since the slanted roof makes it ineligible for official bedroom status). Should be sweet.
A small amount of work is being done right now to make things a bit nicer for us during the renovation. We’re buying a cheap fridge and stove to use in the temporary kitchen (the ones there now are just too gross to use).
Old 2nd floor kitchen
The top floor bathroom will (hopefully) be completely finished in the next six weeks. That way, when dust is consuming us (and we’re most likely consuming it) and everything around us is caving in, we can all huddle in the new bathroom and dream of a future without plaster dust. The floors will also be sanded (after some pretty grody carpeting is removed), closets will be built, and the walls will be patched and primed (which will involve the removal of the dozens of bicycle reflectors the last tenants used to decorate the walls and ceiling).
Some background...
A friendly face to shower with
Amy:
So a little background on our purchase is probably in order. We found this mess of a house on Corcoran last summer. We latched on to Mr. & Ms. Architect and Mr. Contractor almost immediately, and figured that right about now, summer of 2006, we’d be moving in to our new, finished, beautiful palace. And the Gods of Real Estate said: “Ha!”
We finally completed the purchase a couple months ago.
The previous owner had split the house up into two duplexes. The upper duplex isn’t in terrible shape, although it’s bad enough that I’m not looking forward to living up there during the first part of the renovation.
The lower duplex was a de facto SRO. There were padlocks on every door and all the various people who lived there shared the kitchen and one bathroom.
Garden floor kitchen
Why we're doing this blog
Omer:
Here is why I’m writing this blog:
Contractor: Hmmmm…Looks like you’ll need a johnson rod inserted here…and a jigsaw fixture over here…maybe a reinforcing vanilla twist here…Me: Um…okay.
Contractor: Great – that’ll be $500K
Me: (Weeping softly)
Before everyone gets their johnson rods in a bunch – I’m not implying contractors are crooks. In fact, the architects and contractor we are using have sterling reputations – the architects travel to a small village every spare moment they have to teach cross-eyed, wheelchair bound lemurs the difference between Italianate and Federal styles, while our contractor traipses around every evening in a cape – presumably to fight crime, though that’s not entirely clear…
Fact is, I can barely change a light bulb without setting the house on fire – and yet, Amy and yours truly are about to embark on a major gut renovation of a brownstone. So…I need your help. Be honest and blunt – I already know I have no taste or ability, so I can take it. I promise that I will take all comments seriously – except my own.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read our blog and provide feedback – it is sincerely appreciated!
Now – let the adventure nightmare begin!
Amy:
I’m writing the blog for a couple of reasons. First of all, I talk way too much about what’s going on in my private life. This way, if anyone wants to know what’s going on with the house they can just go to the blog, and I can shut up about it. Second, as Omer mentioned, we don’t know what we’re doing. Luckily, we’ve hired good people so that we don’t have to know anything. But to just blindly let them do whatever it is they do would be dumb. This way we’ve got someone to bounce things off of.
I’m sure I’ll regret doing this blog after I post a paint color choice and your comments leave me in tears, but here we go anyway.
About six weeks ago we bought a four-story brownstone. The renovation will be going on all around us. With two small children, it should be extra fun.
You can see from the picture why we call it the Flintstone house. Eventually, those stones will have to go. I do think we have the coolest front doors I’ve ever seen, though.