Reno Blogs
May 8, 2008
BedStuy Reno: Lower Level Half Bath - Tile Wall
G's own inspiration, from sketch to realization. If you look at her sketch, you will see that she actually counted the exact number of tiles we needed - bright yellow turns out to be a pricey color. Basically, any tile that is a bright color is expensive. The half bath is unfiltered. It's just this tiny little room, that will have a lot, really a lot, of color. The sink will be mounted in the corner where this crazy yellow tile wall you see will frame two mirror panels. The color palette is as bold as the tile, I'll post pics as soon as we get the paint up.
May 1, 2008
South Stuy Blog: What's black and white with nickel finishes?
The last rental's bathroom!
As noted in my last post, we brought in a hired hand to help us out with the 3rd floor rear bathroom and......drumroll please...... he actually showed up, did the work and did it well.
Here are some pics to show the progression.
We decided to keep as much of the original subway tile as we could. We added the black border in order to blend the old subway tile with the new subway tile--which gave us the color scheme and design theme for the room.
We spent more on this bathroom than the others, and not just because me and T are going to be the first tenants. (We are movin' on up into it to live like human people while work is being done on the duplex.) The main reason we spent more on this bathroom than on the two other rentals is because even though it's the smallest of all the rentals and though its 1930s subway tile walls were in better shape than the others, the rest of the space was in the worst shape of all three. So money had to be spent since it was a complete overhaul. However, since we're living there for the next 6-9 months, we did spend a bit more on materials and fixtures than we might otherwise have. That said--we did save some money by buying some of the white subway tile (200+ tiles for $45) and the sink ($10) at BuildItGreen in Queens. We also saved money on the light fixture (about $20, I think), the faucet (about $20), and the shower doors (a Kohler "brand," $300) by hunting for bargains at Lowes and Home Depot--and using those coupons they keep sending us in the mail since we began dumping piles of money into their registers last year. However, we did splurge on the shower fixture.
After spending a day in a zipcar going all over Brooklyn to tile stores and being told that black subway tile is "rare" at the few places that even carried it--meaning it's both expensive and has to be special ordered--"it's just black subway tile, like the white stuff, but black," T kept saying in growing disbelief and frustration--we found the black subway tile at our very own Home Depot a few blocks away in Bed Stuy (at which you cannot find, strangely, plain white and black 12 x 12-inch tile).
The black and white hex tile was found at Bella on the LES--a great no-attitude spot--much unlike the spots we went to in Bkln. The medicine cabinet and the wall-mounted cabinet are from Ikea. Actually the "wall-mounted" cabinet,is a vanity for the sink that was supposed to go there, which was measured and picked out by our first contractor (who we parted company with many moons ago now--a lifetime, it seems). It turned out to be way too large for the space (thanks for the great measuring work and advice, guys), so we re-purposed it to make up for the storage space lost by having a wall-mounted sink (although I still have the Ikea sink and faucet and am dreading the fight when I try to return them a year after purchasing).
The medicine cabinet and storage cabinet are not just hung on the wall, but are sunk into the wall. We built a new wall using 2 x 3s to frame it in order to hide the previously exposed pipes ( we did not want to go through all the trouble of tearing out the old tile and plaster). We simply cleaned up the piping, threw up new wall over it all, mounted the cabinets within the frame, then drywalled.
I say "we" but it was almost entirely our guy Henry. Aside from picking all the materials out and T assisting where needed and doing the clean-up so the expensive contractor wasn't wasting time and money sweeping and picking up trash, our only other physical contributions to this little room entailed stripping the window frame and repainting it, which of course also meant pulling out all the crappy old caulk that was smeared on, globbed over, oozed in, and hardened all over the place, as well as doing some minor wood repairs on the frame itself.
T also had to rehang the door so that it opens out rather than in, so you can actually get into the bathroom AND also close the door. He was pretty hesitant to do it after the fiasco of rehanging his first door in one of the other rentals, which involved mounting it and taking it down at least 5 times. I participated by ...well..nagging T to hang the door, helping with repairs of the frame and by boiling and stripping the door hardware.
Once everything was installed, we were both pretty struck by the differences in craftmanship and material quality between the old subway tile and the new. The old tiles were a full half-inch thick and were mudded into the wall with big dollops of cement. They barely showed a grout line and the wall itself was a perfectly flat plane. While our guy did a great job at a really faircprice, and though he himself is conscientious and cares about the quality of the materials and his own work, it just wasn't the same. The difference is in the quality and price of materials these days and in the old-school know-how of the contractors who do the work nowadays. Of course, if you have the time and money, you can get anything and have the work look like a Renaissance cathedral, but for those of us at this price point, it's always interesting seeing the differences between then and now.
I know some will say that we should have just torn all the walls out and retiled with new half-inch tile and new plaster walls (as did 3 of the 4 contractors who gave us estimates), but we aren't restoring, we're renovating, and while we're very mindful of the original work and details, we aren't out to replicate everything to bring back the original beauty of the house. (And besides, this work isn't "original" anyway, it's from the first major renovation of the house, done about 40 yrs after it was built.) We're keeping what we can, and doing what we have to with the rest. I know it would look sleeker with conforming subway tiles but I like the idea of two eras coming together in this little bathroom and even like the aesthetic. So I'm glad we did it our way--because that approach is more in line not with just our wallets, but with who we are.
BedStuy Reno: Washer and Dryer: Building a Pan on the Floor
Since we didn't plan all that well ahead, G and I had a washer and dryer hookup plumbed on the Parlor Floor pass-thru closet we created, but we didn't put a drain in the floor for under the washer in case it ever leaks. Since the machine would be sitting right on the wood floor, we decided to build a pan and tile it - in case the washer leaks, which can happen, at least the water will be held in one spot until we can figure out what to do with it.
I installed cement backer board on top of a layer of plywood and then tiled on top of that. We had really limited time before we needed to get the machines in, (we were having some help with the lamination of the ceilings, and the same guys would be connecting the machines in this spot) so it was really 1-2-3, get it done. We had leftover white hex tiles and subway tiles for the curb and walls, which we got on really quickly. After I grouted, we let it dry overnight, then protected the floor and G came in and primed the new drywall in this closet nook with white primer, before the area behind the machines would be too hard to access.
BedStuy Reno: Washer and Dryer: The Holy Grail
The other week we had our appliances delivered. Fridge, dishwasher, and . . . washer and dryer. I can't really express how happy G and I are to see these beautiful, incredible, life changing machines, inside the house, so let's just take a moment to look at these pictures.
BedStuy Reno: Front Parlor Ceiling
Earlier I had posted the beginning of the lamination process to deal with the ceiling in the front parlor.
http://www.brownstoner.com/bedstuy_reno/archives/2008/04/catchup_work.html
We had wanted to save the remaining detail there, and clean up the field as best we could without a major replastering project being on our hands. We did that by "laminating" thin sheetrock to the existing cracked and hole-filled ceiling, covering up the problem areas, and then taping and spackling the sheetrock. The thinness of the sheetrock still allows the remaining detail to have depth.
April 26, 2008
Green Roof Reno: Go Green Expo
Just a quick note to say that if you are interested, you should check out the Go Green Expo this weekend. . . .
There will be some green roof and green wall suppliers on hand with their products.
The Hilton New York
Saturday 10am-6pm • Sunday 10am-3pm
See the project below from Seoul, Korea by Mass Studies Architects using G-Sky Living Wall Panels . . . A similar product by Green Living Technologies will be on hand at the expo . . .
April 22, 2008
Green Roof Reno: Into the Ceiling
So even though Spring is here . . . We're still inside trying to figure things out. Our next step was to determine the structural load capability of the roof in order to determine how to proceed with getting the deck and green roof built. So we had to go into the ceiling and look at the beams.
I was excited to inspect the roof from below – to see the size and condition of the beams holding up our roof and measure their spacing. I choose the side of the skylight to cut into the drywall so that it would be least intrusive. It would also allow us to look above the ceiling without actually cutting into it. After removing a 10” x 18” drywall piece in the side of the skylight niche, I caught a faceful of some really old air. I mean who knows when this space was last open?
What we found was true 3” x 7” beams that are spaced 24” apart on center. From what I understand this is not great news . . . the depth of the beam is the key number here and seven is just not that impressive. New wood decks are often framed off of 2x12s spaced 18” to 24” on center . . . in other words with a lot more load capability.
On the positive side, the quality and integrity of the beams seemed intact; with no dampness etc., though one of the beams looks like it had some water staining at some point. Everything up there now seems dry as a bone. We actually have about 12 inches of space between the ceiling and the roof, which means we could raise our ceilings if we wanted to. Right now, it’s not even a consideration, with all our money and resources devoted to the green roof project.
One key thing to note, the load-bearing walls do not extend to the ceiling (12 feet) but stop at the fourth floor ceiling (11 feet). In this case, the load-bearing walls are the interior walls that run down the center of the building separating our apartment from our 4th floor neighbor. So what that means is that we will consider cutting into the roof and building up that load bearing wall to form a 2’ high parapet in middle of the roof. We would then frame the deck, and if need be, the green roof off this parapet and the side parapet.
But, we still have a lot of questions - What can we expect to pay for building up a 2’ parapet from the load bearing wall? How does this differ price-wise from using steel? We would like to still consider using steel, but want to know the price differential between these options. Is steel two times more expensive or ten times more expensive? Will the 3x7s at 24 inches on center be enough to support the 17 lbs/sq ft of the green roof modules?
April 14, 2008
BedStuy Reno: 200th Posting Spectacular: Lower Level Half Bath!
Unbelievably, this is the 200th (!) posting of the Bed Stuy Reno. I feel like attaching a cheesy 1995-era animated gif of balloons and streamers. But I wouldn't know where to find one, and I'm not sure it's a gif I'm even talking about.
Appropriately, this posting is about tiling. Above is an image set from the Lower Level half bath - you can see the floor prepped and ready for tile, G (on the phone even) preparing the tile and pattern, and then me installing it.
We had fun with this one. G decided to invert our typical field of white hex with black hex making the pattern. Where the star shape is corresponds to the future placement of the little wall-mount corner sink above. And near the toilet, G added a randomly placed Spirit Flower, inspired by one reader's comments in regards to the top floor bathroom tilework. So web 2.0.
April 11, 2008
BedStuy Reno: Kitchen Chronicles, Part 3
People have asked for complete pics of the island, and I promise I will get to that. But first I want to document the progress. Here you can see shots with the complete wall cabinets in place - including the missing cabinet, picked up by P's brother R in Boston. After the countertop installation on the island, G set out to tile the the backsplash with leftover subway tiles. Her efficiency is crazy at this point. But we ran out of tiles. This is as far as we got before a trip to Nemo to get more. After we used up what we had, we cut and installed the wood countertop on the back counter - the cutout you see is where the gas cooktop will sit.
April 9, 2008
BedStuy Reno: Kitchen Chronicles, Part 2
On continue!
The first round of installations took care of the wall, minus one wall cabinet that was mysteriously missing from our order . . . we were able to fill in that blank thanks to P's brother, R, who went to the Stoughton, MA Ikea before coming for a visit to Brooklyn one weekend. He bought and brought us the missing wall cab, doors for said cabinet, and some Behandla, Ikea's proprietary oil for their wooden countertops (which we bought, incidentally). "Behandla" was said about a thousand times that weekend. It's a funny word.
So, the second round, or weekend, basically, of installations netted us our island. This was a little more complicated since the cabinets wouldn't be attached to the wall. We had to locate and mark carefully the island boundaries on the floor and then arrange the cabinets accordingly. Each cabinet did connect to its neighbor, so that gave the whole assembly some strength and rigidity as an object. We also had bought what are basically finishing panels to cover the exposed sides of cabinets, which we cut to size and then attached by screwing through the cabinet walls into the finish panel. At the island, where we have back-to-back cabs, this is especially important for hiding seams. In the pictures, the finish panels are the ones with blue tape around the edges. We put that on to protect the edges while cutting the pieces.
The island came together quickly, so we kept going, following up with . . . the countertop! Unbelievable, to get to this moment. These things were just giant boxes for so long, it was crazy to open them up. The wood countertops are really nice, they are solid strips of wood laminated together in a butcher-block style. Super solid, and super heavy, by the way. Cutting these to size was nerve wracking, since we didn't want to screw up. We didn't have a lot of room for error. Cuts involved cutting two giant boards to size to cover the countertop, and creating the cutout for the sink. (The sink is Ikea's version of what people call a "farmhouse" sink. It's large. It looks cool, but what's strange is for its size, the basins are kind of shallow. Oh well.)
Cutting the countertops was hard, we used a circular saw, when clearly a table saw would have been ideal. But we don't have one, so, circular saw it was. We did ok. Seams are not perfect where the two pieces butt together. Decent, but not perfect. G told me not to stress it, so I didn't, and I don't. We screwed the countertop pieces into place and then lifted the heavy ass sink into place, and caulked like crazy around the edges where it meets the countertop cutout. Not bad for a weekend's work.
April 8, 2008
BedStuy Reno: Here Comes the Kitchen!
With the floors finished and the walls primed on the Lower Level, G and I finally got down to the moment we'd been waiting for: installing our kitchen. Now, whenever I say this to people, they are shocked - how have you lived without a kitchen for all this time? Well, we haven't. We have been using the small kitchen on the top floor in the future apartment, where G and are living while we do all this work. In the meantime, our future kitchen has been sitting in boxes on the Lower Level for about a year and a half.
The boxes had been stacked inside the future little half bath on the Lower Level, so getting set up to install the kitchen involved first moving all the boxes into position, sorting out cabinets from doors, and setting up a staging area for cabinet assembly. As I've mentioned, we got our kitchen from Ikea, and the running joke is that by the time we're done, we'll be able to grab any missing parts from the new Ikea in Red Hook, which at this rate, will certainly be open before we are done with our place!
The first order of business was to install this track on the wall where the wall cabinets were to hang. The Ikea system is pretty brilliant. Hang the track, tying back to the studs in the wall, and the cabinets can slide into place anywhere along this track. Once the wall cabinets are up, you are supposed to follow up with the base cabinets, where, along the wall, you install a strap which the back of the cabinets rest on, so they are all in line, and the front of the cabs rest on individual legs. The whole thing works nicely.
The first wall cabinet we had to cut to allow the vent for the microwave/exhaust to pass through. Same for the second wall cabinet, which we also had to cut at the base where the microwave vent would pass through it. The microwave took a couple of tries to align with the holes in the cabinet above, but once we got it, everything else moved along pretty smoothly. We felt pretty damn cool after getting the microwave up - our first appliance! We hung it ourselves! Let's hope it doesn't fall down!
As the kitchen started to take shape, it was super encouraging. These are pics from the beginning of that process, basically taking you through the first wall of wall cabs and base cabs, before we started to install the center island. Stay tuned for another kitchen installment (pun intended).
April 4, 2008
BedStuy Reno: Lower Level - Finish Floor
Here's a look at the finished salvage pine floor before G and I began the installation of the kitchen. As our readers will know, we sanded and then finished the boards with Waterlox. The first coat went down really orange, and a lot of people were very supportive about, telling us not to stress too much. With each successive coat of Waterlox, the orange became slightly more intense, until finally, we finished it up with a coat of satin finish, which really mellowed the whole thing out, and gave the boards a much more finished and subdued look. Success! In the end, it was four coats of Waterlox - three Original, and one Satin.
April 3, 2008
BedStuy Reno: Catch-up Work - Front Parlor
We have been hard at work chez P+G. Hence the lack of blogging! But a lot of great stuff has been going on, and I'm going to attempt to catch you all up on it. One of the major developments has been the nearly complete installation of our new kitchen, setting another of G's tile creations in the little half bath on the Lower Level, and a lot of plaster work and some last drywall work.
One of the things we've been doing is addressing the front parlor - we've finally got walls! It is awesome after staring at studs for so long. We decided to laminate our ceiling, to save what detail we have left, but to smooth things out in general. In the top four photos, you can see the beginning of that lamination process - we took 3/8 sheetrock and laminated it directly over the plaster ceiling - conveniently hiding holes and cracks and all the other imperfections, yet being thin enough to allow the mouldings and medallion to still have relief depth.
Stay tuned for some kitchen updates!
April 2, 2008
Green Roof Reno: The Meeting
Finally we met with our structural engineer, “Bob,” an old timer who seemed to know his bricks from his beams. Bob was recommended to me by a friend in the construction business who talked about him as someone who “knew how to get things done in Brooklyn.” We had chatted on the phone so he had a good idea of what we were after.
Bob was a wealth of information – both practical and historical. Although typical homes in Park Slope allow for a load of about 40 lbs/sqft, Bob said that sometime around 1950 they realized they didn’t need quite that load and resized things down a bit to 35 lbs/sqft. Since our building is from 1920 we should theoretically be able to handle more weight than some newer construction, but I guess we would also have to factor in the age of the beams. One thing we didn’t think of was that the ceilings of our apartment have to be factored into the load calculation, as they hang off the roof beams. Also included in that number should be the roofing material, of which there may have been three or four layers applied throughout the years.
I was beginning to think my green roof modules were doomed! At roughly 15-20lbs/sqft when saturated – could these work on our existing roof? Bob had a lot more questions, for instance - Where are the load-bearing walls? What size are the beams and how far apart are they?
His thought was that our type of building, a 29ft x 60ft building with a central staircase, would typically need to be supported by two load-bearing walls in order for the single wood beam to span the 29 ft across without sagging. A quick trip to the basement confirmed that our building had load bearing columns each about 10ft offset from the side walls of the building. See the image below for the 1936 basement plan with my annotations – my trip to the DOB was worth it after all!
Essentially what this means is that we could cut through the roof and build up from that load bearing wall to create a low wall, or parapet, in the middle of the roof. We could then frame the deck off that wall and the side brick parapet. Obviously the next steps are contingent on the investigation of the beams, but Bob’s feeling was that the green roof modules would be okay! Let’s hope those old builders in the `20s overcompensated on their structural load calculations.
Without original building plans, we will have to do some investigating into the beam size and spacing. So . . . we’re looking forward to cutting a hole in the ceiling! We always wanted to see if we could ever raise our ceilings higher – now here’s the chance. We’ll let you know how that goes . . .
We were also a little surprised to learn that architect, engineer, and permitting fees could be close to $5000 for even something this simple. In most cases, design and permitting fees should be between 10 and 20 percent of the total construction cost. So these projected fees definitely have us concerned, as they could be more than we’ve planned for. In any case, we’ll feel better about having it permitted, both for our own peace-of-mind and ease of resale somewhere down the line.
While this meeting was productive in moving the process forward, we still felt left with more questions than answers. Until we do our own investigations (i.e. the pending hole in the ceiling) we won’t really know anything. We also left feeling that we wanted a general cost comparison between using and not using steel on the roof. All you structural engineers out there - feel free to weigh in right about now!
Although we don’t want to get into specifics on finances, we understand it may be difficult to budget for these types of projects, so we will answer your budget questions by email. Also, we know how hard it is to find good people, so . . . we would be happy to share additional info about our structural engineer and other friends. Drop us an email at greenroofguy@gmail.com.
March 23, 2008
Green Roof Reno: Tomorrow and the D.O.B.
Sorry to have not followed up on our last post . . .We had some minor scheduling issues with our structural engineer (actually his secretary made a mistake and we were stood up). But we finally have our meeting scheduled for tomorrow. Sound like déjà-vu? Yeah, us too. But we’ve looked for the silver lining in this small setback and expecting tomorrow to be great!
The delay did give us an opportunity to do a little extra research. We realized it might be a good idea to take a trip down to the DOB and try to find the original plans and/or structural modifications to the building. I followed the instructions found in a great comment here:
http://www.brownstoner.com/forum/archives/2008/02/help_finding_in.php
We know our building was built in 1920 and was last modified in 1987. We were hoping that the original plans might be on file. We were also hoping to find any drawings relating to the structural modifications in ’87 which we believe included reinforcing the staircase and adding a central beam in the basement.
So the DOB is quite an adventure . . . After getting my block and lot number via PropertyShark.com, I headed downtown last Wednesday. A friend told me if I had my block and lot number I should just go directly to the 1st floor. Well, that turned out to be wrong . . . They sent me to the 2nd floor, who sent me to the 7th floor who sent me to the 8th floor where I finally found the correct window, only to be told that I needed to get a ticket and this form signed at that other window before they could help me. I felt like I was in one of those futuristic movies of bureaucratic hell (a la Brasil) . . . finally, though, when I reached the person who brought up the records, they were very helpful and the process only took about 15 minutes.
Unfortunately for us, we totally struck out. Our building had no microfiche plans and the folders of past DOB filings only included permits and an old basement plan from 1946. We’re hoping the structural engineer can tell us more . . .
March 18, 2008
Windsor Terrace Reno: Guest bathroom - abbiamo finito!
Hmm..could it be that this is the final renovation update? Hard to believe. Have I missed anything you want to see? Of course, there is a lot more on my personal to-do list but putting the renovation part behind me seems almost surreal.
Unfortunately, I didn't leave a very exciting one for last. You've already seen this room a few times in prior posts (save the tile, power of paint, flush me down, etc.). But just for completion sake, I figured I'd do a post dedicated to the upstairs/guest/hallway bathroom. (We haven't really settled on what we call it yet)
This is the bathroom as we found it when we bought the house
The sink that got resprayed and reinstalled in its original location
And the tub that got moved downstairs, resprayed and painted silver for the parlor bath
Despite its state of neglect, I really loved this bathroom. It helped me see the whole house in the way it looked back in its heyday. If it were possible, I would have loved to keep most everything in here as is and just clean it up. But that wasn't really an option as we had to replace all the plumbing and electrical. We did save as many of the wall tiles as we could and reused them in our kitchen backsplash. We were also able to keep the sink here and repurpose the clawfoot downstairs. I think we did the best we could in terms of re-using what we had in a practical way.
This bathroom is the smallest and will likely be the most abused in terms of future guests and children. So as a trade off to some of the splurges we made in the other bathrooms, we went with a low-key (read: cheap) plan in here. The wall tiles are the same stock ceramic subway tiles & trim we used in our master bathroom. The floor tiles are an unglazed ceramic black & white hex that seemed vintage without being expensive. (I had originally wanted to do a pattern that included square and hex tiles in a custom pattern for the little floor but after seeing some of the early issues we had with our contractors, I decided to keep it simple and get the black and white hex.) The toilet is a Toto Promenade, the faucet are Kohler Pillar Taps and the tub is a Kohler run of the mill cast iron.
As you might see from the photos below, we had to give up the window in here in exchange for a place for other ducts, vents, and piping. Sad to see it go but it was worth it to not have soffits in the kitchen and hallway.
The one thing we did in here that I would call a splurge was adding a skylight. Its a small thing really but it makes this very small room seem a lot more spacious when there is some natural light filtering in from above.
Some in progress photos
And without further ado, the offcial "after" photo
I don't think Ill add much more in here except for a little care package when we have the random overnight guest. Honestly, I still don't love the paint color but Im trying to make it work with the striped shower curtain from Target and keeping everything else pretty bare. That's all she wrote for the Limestones bathrooms.
March 8, 2008
Windsor Terrace Reno: What lies beneath
Just when we thought we were putting stressful renovation problems behind us, Mr. Limestone walked into the cellar last night to find this.
And this (viewer discretion strongly advised). Lets just say that ain't just water!
Mother#$&*$!
Mr. L leaped into action to get it under control. He moved the boxes out of the way and manned the wet vac to keep the damage to a minimum while he got all necessary parties on the way to get it fixed. By the time I got home, he had done it all which is a very good thing because while I wouldn't consider myself the type to be overwhelmed by house problems I call uncle when those problems involve human feces.
All the signs pointed to a sewage line collapse. Aside from the grossness factor, we were both pretty depressed at the thought of another huge bill as well as the major aggravation factor of ripping up sidewalks, getting more permits, etc..
I'm really happy to report that we were wrong! We had a sewage company come over with crew and camera. Evidently there was a blockage from rocks/bolts/other crap that must have come from the renovation debris. They snaked and sucked and water jetted the blockage until it was no more. We're a little lighter in the wallet ($900) but it was no where near as bad as it could have been ($10K+).
March 6, 2008
Holland House Reno: The plumbing edition
Hi everyone,
I have some catch up to do. Renovations were moving swiftly until the first snag... the plumbing sign off. After some confusion as to what we need, we should be filing next week and sign off (fingers crossed) should happen the week after. As a first time renovator one of the most frustrating things is that you don't know what you need and the fees are piling up...
Anyway, I attached some pictures of our new plumbing. Question for you, the plumbing of our new bathroom is right above the dining room. Should we be concerned about noise (toilet flush etc..). Does insulation help against noise?
BedStuy Reno: Sanderson Files: First Finish Coat in the Kitchen, Sanding in the Hallway
Ok, here are shots of the first coat of Waterlox going down on the floor, and it looking quite orange. We were hoping for a very light clear coat, but it's looking orange.
Also, shots of the lower level hallway (the level on which we are building our kitchen), which changed quite dramatically after the first pass of the sander! This had been covered in carpet, linoleum tile, and finally there was this mess and remnant of mastic. The boards cleaned up so well, and what is great is that these are the subfloor boards we have throughout all the hallways of the house. Which means of course, that when we get to it, we can make them all look this nice.
Green Roof Reno: Judgement Day . . . Maybe
Sedum Trays
These are all 4 inch aluminum planting trays manufactured by Green Roof Blocks out of St. Louis, Mo. This is an extensive module sedum tray system and one of the better products we have seen in the lower price range. With an unlimited budget, we would love to install a seamless, integrated green roof system (more like a carpet as opposed to the modular system shown here, and unfortunately, for small sites, more pricey, too), but most of the companies that do this type of work focus on much larger projects, usually upwards of 5000 sq ft.
Steel – Yay or Nay?
Our day with the structural engineer has finally arrived! We’ll definitely snap some candids and post on the momentous event that’s happening tomorrow morning. Also, we’ll talk about the whos and hows and whys of dealing with a structural engineer after we have a chance to meet with them.
Thanks for reading.
