Reno Blogs
February 4, 2010
Slope Roof Reno: Slope Roof Reno Launches!
Welcome to the Slope Roof Reno Blog! When we began looking to buy our first home we had two "must have" emenities, a fireplace and outdoor space. As we began looking, both on the UWS and in Park Slope, our "must haves" quickly moved to the "strongly want". While there were a lot of places in Park Slope with some sort of outdoor space, most of them were located in new buildings with low rates of occupancy. They were attractive, with slick finishes and often beautiful, spacious terraces but we were worried about our mortgage company financing them and wary of new construction in general.
February 1, 2010
Bed Stuy Reno: Top Floor Apartment Reveal
Apartment Before and After - Rear Room Fireplace Wall
Apartment Before and After - Rear Room
Apartment Before and After - Front Room
Apartment Before and After - Bathroom
The top floor served as our base of operations for the better part of two years. It was also supposed to be what made buying a house sustainable – before buying our house we reasoned that yes, we will have a mortgage, but the house is a two-family, so we will have income from renting out the apartment to offset the cost. But when G and I bought our house in May 2006, the bottom two floors were a wreck, and the top floor was somewhat livable. So that’s where we first moved in. And it’s where we stayed for those first two years.
At that point, we just took it as a given that people normally live in the place they are gut renovating, but in hindsight, it was pretty nuts. I realize now it’s not always the way people go about it. And why.
January 27, 2010
Albemarle Reno: Here We Go A-Salvaging...
Given the current state of our house, it's hard to imagine a day when sinks will be installed and light fixtures will be hanging from a freshly painted ceiling. We've been encouraged to start shopping and I've been noodling around on various architectural salvage websites to see if we can get some old stuff to put in our old house.
January 26, 2010
Gates Reno: How to Jinx a Reno
When you title a renovation blog post “Our Renovation is Back from the Dead!” you’re just asking for trouble. To quote Toby from West Wing, “You want to tempt the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?" Well, that’s the way to do it.
In my last post, from about a year and a half ago, I detailed how, since we were almost out of money, we were going to do some small projects on the garden level – put in a back door, finish the wood floors, install the tile floors in the kitchen and bathroom, and paint. And all of those things did happen – a year after I wrote that post.
We’re a case study in what happens to a reno when a tenuous funding plan meets a completely crappy economy. It took us a year to come up with the money to do those "small" projects, but after living with a completely unusable garden floor for three years, it really felt like we had accomplished something. Once the floors were done and the walls were painted, I decided I couldn’t stand using our disgusting little 2nd-floor kitchen any longer. Even though we had no money to actually get a kitchen built on the garden floor, we decided to set up a make-shift kitchen on the garden floor as best we could – anything would be better than the buggy, mousy, disgusting kitchen we were using. Since the plumbing and electrical were done (the stuff inside the walls, anyway) it wasn't that hard - I got the whole thing done for about $800 in two days while the rest of the family was out of town.
January 25, 2010
Bed Stuy Reno: Front Parlor: The Reveal
After the Dust Settles, Semi-Studio Use
Future Shelving Project Inspiration
The front parlor major works are done. It's painted and the floors are sealed. But it hasn’t received the full treatment yet. The front parlor still serves as a flex space of sorts – G uses it as a studio for her artwork, and it’s also our guest bedroom for out of town guests. It also functions as storage space for all our still unopened boxes going way back to when we first bought the house and moved here from the East Village. It’s a large room that frankly we still need to figure out what we’re doing with.
The wall that we built in the room to create our pass-thru closet into the back parlor is pretty flat and uninteresting – the other walls still have some remaining plaster “frieze” details, or the wood moldings around the pocket doors, or in the case of the window wall, giant shutters. So for this wall, we’re thinking of building a floor to ceiling bookshelf wall around the door opening, like in the above inspiration image. Could be pretty cool.
January 22, 2010
Albemarle Reno: Interior Demo Part 1: Bye-Bye Kitchen
Sometimes it feels like this house is swallowing me whole -- and not always in a bad way. There's been so much going on in and around the joint that there's been little time to blog it.
Much to roll out in the coming weeks so I'll get right to it.
January 8, 2010
Bed Stuy Reno: Front Parlor Sanding
Front Parlor, All Ready for Sanding
Work in Progress
After a Day of Sanding
Sealing the Floor After the Guests are Gone
Sanding the front parlor was our most intense sanding experience of all the rooms we sanded. We were on a tight time constraint. G’s sister and her husband and their two kids were coming to stay with us for a week that night – they were flying in from Brussels and were landing at JFK at 11pm. We had a friend’s car and were picking them up – but first we had to start and finish sanding the floor of the room they would be staying in. That day. And then vacuum the hell out of it, getting all the dust and things off the floors, walls, and out of the air. Also, we were trying to minimize the amount of dust spread throughout the house, which is always excessive when sanding floors, so we sealed ourselves into the room by taping closed the doors with plastic.
It was hard work, and there was the added stress that we HAD to finish that day. Sanding really is fatiguing. G did passes with the drum sander, we started with a heavy grit and worked our way down to a fine grit. I was on edger detail, which I hate. I absolutely hate the edger. It kills your back, is loud, aggressive, heavy, and the particular edger we borrowed had a broken off switch. The only way to turn it on or off was by plugging it in or unplugging it, which always added another layer of danger to something already kind of scary.
We did get through it, and spent an hour vacuuming the place down. Then we had to scramble to set it up as a bedroom. It was one of those things where it was so down to the minute, we had no time to shower after our day of work. We finished setting up the room, and jumped in the car, covered in saw dust. (Temporarily, because after G’s family left we had to clear the room out so we could actually seal the floor).
January 6, 2010
Albemarle Reno: Tapestries Revisited
You may remember these tapestries
in our dining room
from an earlier post. The opinions from the Brownstoner community about what to do with them were, as always, plentiful, varied, and informative. Architerrorist mentioned a carpet and textile specialist living in Ditmas Park. That very specialist's husband commented that his wife would be willing to lay her discerning eyeballs on our tapestries and tell us what's what.
Elizabeth Parker is Department Head of Rugs and Tapestries at Christie's and PBS tapped her expertise and telegenic visage for several seasons of their popular The Antiques Roadshow. See her impressive resume by scrolling down to the bottom of this page and passing the mouse over her name. She trudged over in the aftermath of the season's first snowstorm and enlightened us about the age, condition and value of our wall-coverings.
They are early 20th century machine-made tapestries woven on a Jacquard loom that uses a punch card for the design and requires some human oversight to produce. They are likely based on 16th or 17th century Flemish or French tapestries. and were very common wall-coverings in turn of the century houses. Ours are too faded and damaged to bring back to anything resembling their original condition. We told her commenter Brenda From Flatbush's idea about preserving some pieces in frames and she agreed that that would be a nice way to save some of the less damaged parts. Some possibilities:
Elizabeth saw a lot of our type of tapestry on the Roadshow and when it came time for the iconic treasure chest to slide across the tv screen, sparkly bells of valuation a-ringin', Elizabeth would have to break the news that the worth of the tapestries were "less than $100." She told us this is the show's lowest price category and basically a nice way of saying they're worth about $10.
Fantasies of funding the renovation from record-breaking auction spoils aside, this is great information to have. It gives us permission to not be precious about the tapestries and to do whatever we decide best suits the look and feel of the room as it starts to come together. We'll protect them from the dust for now and entertain all options as the reno moves forward. Many thanks Elizabeth!
December 24, 2009
Bed Stuy Reno: Happy Holidays: Jace was here!
Our friend Jace, an artist from La Reunion, a small french island off of Madagascar, was staying with us a couple of winters back and asked if he could paint our garden. Jace is known around the world for his "Gouzou" figure, which pops up everywhere. It being winter, and the grass thinned out as it is, we said go for it. This certainly won't be for everyone, but we love it.
Update: This post got picked up by the Wooster Collective! Check it here.
Bed Stuy Reno: Front Parlor Painting
G Cuts In / Work Progresses
Finished Product - Next Up: Sanding the Floors!
The most ridiculous part of painting our front parlor was the fact that we didn’t have any paint for it. Not specifically, anyway. We knew more or less what color we were looking for – G and I both felt that since we had gone bold with the back parlor, what would be our bedroom, that for the front parlor we were feeling something more light and airy. The idea was that the walls would be light, and that the moldings would pop subtly by being just a bit lighter. We still had a white for the moldings leftover from the back parlor (Benjamin Moore’s Swiss Coffee, in semi-gloss), but we did not have a paint picked for the walls.
We had a lot of leftover colors though. We had quart cans of orange, purple, yellow, and blue, all the crazy colors G had picked for the doors in the apartment on the top floor. (Which reminds me, I should do a post showing how the apartment turned out . . .) We also had large 5 gallons of the basic white by Behr’s you get at Home Depot. So, we just decided to go for it. We mixed. It’s hard to tell from the pics, because it shoots different in every picture, but the color we got was pretty much what we were looking for. Kind of a mayonnaise-y beige-ish light color with a lot of cream. And the white moldings subtly pop.
Again, it was one of those nerve wracking should-we-or-shouldn’t-we moments, but we went for it. The downside of course is that the paint can never be recreated if we ever need to touch up or put a fresh coat on areas. The upside was that we got a color we liked, and didn’t have to leave the house (taking away from precious production time) to get it. And of course didn't need to shell out any more cash. For the moment.
December 22, 2009
Bed Stuy Reno: Front Parlor Prep
The front parlor always served as the forgotten step-child in our house’s family of rooms. We used it for storing materials, tools, supplies, bath tubs, pianos, the usual stuff. Much like the rear parlor, we had to crank the front parlor out quickly all of a sudden, since G’s sister and her family were coming to town. G’s sister is married, with two little daughters, so we needed a lot more space. The front parlor is a large room, so the plan was to get it painted and sand the floors and let it serve as a bedroom.
The room had been sheetrocked, taped, spackled, sanded smooth, and in some cases skim-coated already. So prep work was a matter of moving all the remaining stuff into the middle of the room so we could access all the walls for priming. We primed everything, put up some trim around the front windows, reattached old baseboard trim that we had saved, put up some trim around the pocket doors that we added to the room, and G did some scraping of the pocket doors too.
December 20, 2009
Bed Stuy Reno: Kitchen Curtain Collage
In the back of the house, there are no built-in shutters like in the front of the house. So, in order to have privacy, we were going to need some type of window treatment. For the kitchen, we wanted to bring in some color and visual interest, especially since the walls are white, and the tile backsplash is also white. But, like everything else with the house, our budget was tight, and when we looked into different window treatments, a lot of what we liked was expensive. So we had to figure something out on our own.
The concept was born that we would create a sort of collage pattern for our curtains. The above sketch showed our idea for a roman curtain, something that could completely cover the windows when lowered, but still be colorful above the windows when open. G and I both went to our respective architecture offices and raided the materials libraries for cool samples that had a lot of flash and pop, and were of significant size. We each came back with bags of material samples and sorted through the mess, separating by color and pattern and texture. G does a lot of collage artwork, so she had an eye for laying out our curtains.
The project really came together with the help of G’s mom, R, who was in from Brussels. She is incredibly handy herself, and great with crafts. R has experience in the curtain department, and came with all the equipment required to make a roman curtain. G and her mom spent the better part of three days sewing together the material samples into two curtains, and then outfitting them with the roman shade equipment. In the end we had two very unique curtains, made with “borrowed” materials and at a cost that was really within our budget.
December 14, 2009
Albemarle Reno: Bids Are In!
Reading the first reno bid felt like being plunged, naked, into an iced-water bath. The enormity of it, both in the scope of work, the time it will take and the cost left me in a cold stupor that gave way to a hot prickling anxiety from my shoulders to the top of my skull.
Why were we so shocked? We're naive first-time home-buyers for one -- but also the scope of work has grown since we first put a number to what we thought the cost of the reno would be. Updating the systems of the house became a top priority when we realized that replacing them over time would be more costly in the long run and more disruptive -- walls would have to be opened up, closed and repaired each time. Taking care of electric, plumbing and a/c now really bumps up the numbers, but will save us money and time down the road.
December 2, 2009
Albemarle Reno: Probe Holes
I had to wipe the smirk off my face when a GC first suggested making "probe holes" in some of our walls, ceilings and floors -- yes, I have the sense of humor of a 14 year-old boy. Turns out, probe holes are useful investigative tools when planning a renovation.
The ceiling of Mr. Albe's office, in the 3rd floor turret, is the site of an active leak.
November 30, 2009
South Stuy Blog: Looking Up
Yeah, its been awhile but we are still alive and kickin over here at SouthStuy. We have had more trials, tribulations, and road blocks than we would like to recount but are thankful that we have made it through them (at least thus far) and we are thankful, not to mention considerably warmer, now that we finally have a ceiling on the parlor level.
When we bought the house, the parlor had a drop ceiling that was demo'd fairly early on.
Earlier this year, part of the tin ceiling was installed.
We also had insulation and soundproofing put in.
Unfortunately, the tin ceiling was neither properly installed (fish-mouthing throughout) nor even completely installed. In fact, that contractor measured the room incorrectly and did not order sufficient cornice panels. When we tried to order the missing panels several months later, we were disappointed to find that Abbington Tin had gone out of business (which is really too bad because the place was an old family-owned business). We searched the web and found Tin Smith in Bushwick and although they carried the same panel designs, they did not have them "pre-treated" as Abbington did. Another thing that made Abbington so great was that they built their own corner pieces on site, as well as providing a number of other basically custom treatments that they didn't really charge anything for. The problem now, though, is we don't know how Abbington treated them--we have tried a number of treatments to no avail.
As you can see, there is quite a difference in color between the treated panels and the non-treated panels (which are bare tin meant to be painted).
Any Brownstoners out there have any ideas how or with what the panels were treated or how we can get in touch with anyone who used to be at Abbington Tin?
November 23, 2009
Albemarle Reno: Dining Room Dilemma
Here's our dining room (not our furniture)...Lots more photos, and a question about the tapestries, below.
November 18, 2009
Albemarle Reno: Beneath the Surface
Picking flaky skin off day-old sunburns is irresistible to me. Peeling off the damaged dermal layers brings an odd satisfaction. As the contractor walk-throughs continue and bids are calculated there is some excavating we can't help but do on our own.
Above is our vestibule floor. Could I have lived with this for awhile? Probably, but I couldn't help wondering if the linoleum masked something more interesting. . .
November 10, 2009
Albemarle Reno: All Systems, Go — Away?
A photographer once shared this with me: "You know you're one of those people who photograph better than they look in person."
Ummmm. . .thanks?!
But this is a bit how I feel about our Albemarle house. The high ceilings, woodwork, copious natural light and expansive rooms tease the eye away from what's roiling below the surface -- outdated (and dangerous) electrics, lead and brass plumbing, walls with little to no insulation, and a terribly inefficient heating system groaning in the basement. Here's a taste of what we have now:
Electric fuse boxes courtesy of Federal Pacific:
One contractor walking through remarked, "Oh yes, the old Federal Pacific firestarters." -- and that was before he saw this:
concealed behind this...
November 9, 2009
Bed Stuy Reno: Back Parlor Sanding
Removing the Paper After Painting
The First Pass with the Drum Sander
The Finished Results
After painting the back parlor room, G and I switched gears the following weekend to sanding the floor. We still had the sander and edger we were borrowing from our generous neighbor, with which we had previously sanded the kitchen floor.
We needed the back parlor habitable by Thanksgiving, since G’s mom was coming from Brussels to stay with us. At the time, G and I were camping out on the bottom floor and trying to get the top floor rented. The last time G’s mom had come for a visit, we were still living on the top floor, where we had just finished painting and sanding, and the bottom two floors of the house were still deeply “in progress.” We wanted to show G’s mom that the house had evolved since her last visit, and also give her a comfortable room to stay in.
We had about three weekends to go before T-day, so we needed to crank through the sanding and get on to the sealing, so we could let the floor dry, and then try to furnish the room in some kind of inviting way.
When sanding, G works the drum sander, and I work the edger. I hate the edger. It’s heavy and awkward to use, and extremely powerful and aggressive, so requires a lot of control. It’s also incredibly loud, and the whole thing creates a lot of dust too. The experience of sanding is really intense, kind of like spending a day inside an airplane engine. But the best part of it is the transformative results.
The back parlor floor cleaned up pretty well – I wouldn’t say perfect, being that there were a lot of stains and weird marks to begin with. We got maybe 80% of all the stains and marks up, but the floor still bears some evidence of its history.
November 6, 2009
Albemarle Reno: Welcome to The Albemarle Reno Blog
My husband and I, together with our intrepid architect, have been plotting and planning since we closed on this house on Albemarle Road in Prospect Park South about three weeks ago. We are first-time home-buyers who have rented brownstone apartments in Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill since 1992. The renovation we have in mind is extensive. It includes restoring the kitchen to its rightful place (it was shunned to a back hallway in 1959 to make room for the owner-dermatologist's suite of exam rooms). Also in that era, the ornate, oval dining room slummed as a waiting room, while the walls, baseboards and molding throughout the house served as track for stapling miles of alarm system, intercom, phone and, yes, electrical wires. If you click through below, you can get a good sense of the beautiful house we are getting--but also the range of work that lies ahead. We're looking forward to documenting the project as well as benefiting from the input of the Brownstoner community as we go along.