Greenlight Bookstore Renovation Blog: Week 10

This is the tenth installment of a weekly blog hosted at Brownstoner chronicling the design and construction of the Greenlight Bookstore at 686 Fulton Street in Fort Greene. Written by project architect Frederick Tang of deFT Projects. See the first nine posts here.

We’re getting really close now even though the progress seems to be incremental. With construction, it always feels like the last bits of finishing take the longest amounts of time. The past week’s worth of work has been distributed over many different places so let’s run through all the accomplishments of the crew.

Lighting:

— After a hunt for missing parts, the unexpectedly complicated track lighting for the storefront windows has finally been installed.
— The linear fluorescents that uplight the ceiling from the tops of the bookshelves are installed too. We chose the warmest lamps we could find so that it wouldn’t have that cool-blue tone that some fluorescents have. These fixtures provide a lot of ambient light for the bookstore and make everything feel bright and crisp. The digital photographs make it seem more harshly-contrast-y than it is; in reality, the light from these fixtures is much softer.
— A couple of the recessed downlights had to be relocated because of coordination issues with the air shaft millwork.

Mechanical and Electrical:

— Our mechanical engineer came by and approved all the work that was done.
— The speaker wiring was installed so there can now be ambient music.
— Internet and telephone services are up and running.

Millwork:

— The airshaft millwork has all been installed and is being primed and painted. They still have to sand down the curves a little but we think it’s turning out to be a really nice central feature piece for display shelving.
— The cash wrap millwork is being installed too. The structure is in and the finished skin has to be put on.
— The perimeter bookshelves have all been stained, thanks to the hard work of all of the weekend volunteers and the Greenlight staff. Hopefully by next week, the books that are piled into boxes in the middle of the store will move to their new homes on the shelves. We can’t wait for the books to go up on the shelves because then we can finally start taking up the floor protection and the space will feel less like a construction zone and more like a bookstore!