New Plumber

Our contractor showed up this morning with the plumber to go over the project with him. As he crossed into the house, the first of many pipes popped at the seam. I like to think that it was luck that kept those pipes together since February. We did loose water for a bit in the house, and are still without hot water and use our shower, but the plumber immediately sprung into action. (Water leak pun intended.) He had the one leak fixed in no time, and cut loose the old brass pipes to the basement bathroom. A few other leaks popped up after he left, and I am rather hopeful he will make it back before the end of day to fix them. 

We are on our way to work as I type this so I am hopeful, but not expecting it. The plumber wasn't planning on starting work today so I am greatful he was there walking through while the leaks begin to spring in the first place. 

In the end, looks like we are getting all new pipes as Brass is Wack, yo. Copper (and pex) is where it is at, and while the basement is a yawning pit of doom, we are going to fix it up right. 

The electrician also walked through today. We went through the scope of work and once again, I am very happy with the contractor's regular crew. 

Before the rain began falling inside and out, I did get the last of the peeling paint scraped from the original railing out front. It is all painted up in rust inhibiting red, next year's pantone color of the year, and ready for it's final coat of basic black. 

But for now, we're off to wait some tables. Times Square, here we come.  

Basement Flooding

Our sad clogged waste line.

The title says it all. A water seepage problem that I thought I figured out and had taken care of came back with a vengeance this morning. It wasn't because I didn't have the right thing fixed, or that something else was contributing to the problem. Nope. It was because I hired the wrong person to fix it.

So after a fun morning of wet vacuuming and cleaning, I went to knock some heads together, politely that is. (Seriously folks, this is the second time I've wiped poo off of the basement floor. Thank heavens C was there to help this time or I may have completely lost it. So that said, I was looking forward to my chat with folks at  $49.99 Sewer.

I walked down the block, seething quietly, towards the Rooter Co. to have my nice civil chat with them. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a "For Rent" sign, instead of the business that was here, with a little odd feeling, part nausea part ick, I knew in a moment it would not be fixed quick.

DAMNED YOU 49.99 SEWER! 

Thankfully the contractor arrived on the scene today. His crew started on their first day of work in the basement. Rather than track down the ghosted rooter company, I've decided to hire someone I know I can trust that will take care of the problem for good. I've been seriously pleased with Barry so far and as our friend Oliver puts it, "It doesn't hurt that they are all extremely handsome men". It is like a bloomin' reality show in our basement. I'll have to get a group shot. It being their first day of work, I am a little hesitant to ask them to pose for a photo, I don't want to come off as super creepy. Once they realize I'm only "special", and not *special*, I'll think about approaching them. Maybe.

On the positive side of things, the contractor's three man team made short work of the remaining concrete in the bathroom. Here's a happy view from down the hall.

Speaking of hall ways; after much agony and a bigger bill, we'll be removing the tile in the hall. That is, what tile there is in the hall, will be removed. I was going to patch it, but the patches have gotten bigger and bigger and with the whole entry section missing all together.  It is definitely the right time to fix it and make it right, even if it isn't the right price. That isn't saying the contractor's price isn't fair, only that free is in our budget right now and work isn't free. We knew we'd have to deal with it down the line, but while everything is being torn up down there it makes the most sense to keep tearing things up instead of putting an ugly band aid on it that we'd end up ripping off in several years anyways. So, soon this blech with be covered with swanky new 6 x 24 porcelain "wood" tile. Perfect for a basement. The tile itself is a steal at less than $2/sqft. That much I'm pleased about.

Delivery!

Some deliveries go more smoothly than others. For example, our tub delivery, wasn't the best experience, and the following several days it took to correct it, also was one of the more frustrating episodes of the renovation thus far.

Finding itty-bitty 4' bathtubs was a bit of a challenge in and of itself. We wanted to keep the cast iron ones in the first and second floor hall baths from the 50s, but the plumbing was done very poorly and embedded under concrete in the party wall. So rather than open that can of worms, we're disconnecting the plumbing and putting in new copper on an interior wall. This means the drain will be on the opposite wall and our current alcove tubs won't work. Thus, the hunt for the 4' tub began. I had several options in this scenario:

1) Buy a claw foot mini tub at $1000 minimum. As an unforeseen expense, $2,000 was too much.
2) Similarly, buy a 4' deep soaking tub. Even more expensive and even less likely.
3) Revert the bathroom layout to it's pre-1950s standard tub. Appealing but not practical as the tub ran the length of the bathroom relegating the toilet and sink into narrow little alcoves. While not unusual in NY, not my favorite option.
4) Buy the only 4' alcove tub currently on the market carried only by Home Depot, even thought the tub received horrible reviews for consistency of finish. So I guess you could say that I knew what I was getting into.

We bought the Bootz 4' tub from Home Depot. The original shipping information was lost somewhere between the delivery company and Home Depot's online crew. They then reordered the tubs to be delivered directly to the house. The two tubs arrived at the house, and I also received a notification that the tubs had finally reached Home Depot for pick up. From 0 to 4 tubs. I thought I'd at least have several to pick from in case one arrived damaged. Well, one did arrive damaged. Off to HD we went to exchange it. Turns out, customer service had no information on any tubs delivered for us. The information in the confirmation email I had, and the confirmation number when pulled up on their system, didn't match. We ordered two tubs, only one showed up as ordered on the in store HD system. Also, it was coming up under someone else's name. After an hour long ordeal, we finally got them to accept the tub for return and I bought a new one online. It was one hot hot mess. And we drove that hot mess all the way across Manhattan to Secaucus, New Jersey where the HD showed 14 of the Bootz tubs in stock. We attempted to pick up the online order upon store opening at 6am. The tub that was pulled for us, shockingly, was not the right tub. So more waiting for the one guy scheduled at 6am that could drive their cherry-picker-fork-lift-thing-a-ma-jig. Minute by minute I imagined the Lincoln Tunnel filling with cars until we were forever trapped in New Jersey. Did I mention the Pope is coming to Manhattan today? When it's your one day off, you've got to just drive in - balls to the walls people.

Eventually we pulled away from Secaucus with the right tub, undamaged, and relatively unscathed.

By 8am we were back in the neighborhood accepting delivery of our HVAC equipment, windows, and kitchen tile!

Almost smooth as buttuh. Windows arrived, all present and accounted for, ready to install next week. The HVAC has already hit a bit of a hiccup as we now have to find a 36" diameter space to run the air return from second floor to the basement. We were not originally informed of this and did not plan for it. Also, turns out we need two air returns, not the one quoted, and we weren't informed that the return vents are twice the size of the old vent.  The vent is nearly the size of our entire entry way where the old one sits snug against the wall.  From what I read and was told, a high velocity system has the bonus of being able to fit into old walls with minimal damage to the plaster, whelp, not so much. We were told we also had to open more walls than we were already planning on for other construction. Communication problems abound. Time for a run and a long think.

Now you see it. Now you don't.

Upon finishing the demolition for the second floor and basement, I got a hold of a clean out company and said goodbye to the evidence of all our hard work. Finishing the demo doesn't keep me from waking up in the middle of the night thinking of some small thing that we forgot to take out or remove before the cleanout crew paid us a visit. That sounds very ominous now that I think about it. It brings to mind big white vans from Jersey pulling up to "clean up a nasty mess". But they were very polite and even attempted to half-heartedly sweep up after themselves. The great news is that we can see the floor! The bad news is that we can see the floor! Here are some before and after shots for your viewing pleasure.

basement bedroom and game room

basement exercise room

2nd floor kitchen and living room looking into bedroom 

2nd floor small front bedroom and back yard

The clean out ended up costing us in the ball park of $1500. Yet when you consider all the concrete block hiding under that red awning in the middle of our back yard, concrete backed tile from the basement demo, and the plaster and lathe we took out from the second floor, it was a heavy truck and a half of trash we got rid of. They did recycle the metal. We didn't see the money from it, but I do like that it was recycled. I can't imagine finding the energy to take it down to the recycle center myself at this point, so someone else might as well.

I'd rather spend my energy fixing up the items going back into the house. I've been working on picking paint colors for the cabinetry and stumbled across a great clean white from Benjamin Moore called Snow Fall. I decided to test out their Advanced Alkyd Paint on something small before tackling all of our kitchen doors and drawers. I am in no way feeling like our kitchen is small when I look at the pile of doors that I have to paint. I tried finding a company in town that would take them and paint them in a spray booth setting but alas, for NY, our job is too small and no one wanted to mess with it. So, that leads me to this:

I love the size and quality of this bathroom medicine cabinet but I do not love the faded gray-brown wood finish that has antiquing in all of the crevices. It doesn't go with anything else I have picked out for the bathroom but I figure a lovely semi-gloss paint job will spiff it up nicely. I prepped it per instructions, cleaning, lightly sanding and wiping off any excess dust with a tack cloth. I removed all the hardware and the two mirrors that were accessible. I patched a few dings in wood as well. I bought the brush that the Benjamin Moore dealer suggested and went to town. I was a bit bothered by the bubbles that formed in the self leveling paint. For the most part, it did indeed smooth out over the course of it's drying cycle but there are still bubble holes that I had to sand down and I am hoping a second and third coat will alleviate the problem. 

I am suspicious that the brush I used for the first and second coat, which super smooth, wasn't soft enough. I ended up with some fine brush marks left in the finish. The whole reason I threw down the cash for the Advance paint was for its durability and smooth near factory finish. I will be sanding between the second and third coat and using a different brush for the top coat. Fingers crossed.

Buy all the things

I'm so tired of buying all the things. I have shopping fatigue. This is a real thing. I am trying to make sure every possible item that we need is ordered and delivered so that when the contractor begins his part, he'll have not only the specs on everything, but the actual products available for installation.

We have lights, fans, faucets, plumbing valves, toilets, you name it, arriving via our friendly UPS man. It is almost a daily occurrence, which gets tricky here since packages aren't left outside, but instead have to have someone available to accept them. I'm starting to think he's trying to arrive just around the time we get home from work so that he doesn't have to keep taking our haul o' goods back and forth. It could just be luck, but I prefer to think of it as a benevolent act of kindness.

On the topic of buying, we bought a couch. A sectional to be exact. C's parents gave us a generous gift to help with the purchase of an appliance or some other renovation related expense. We already purchased our washer/dryer and are using lightly used hand me down appliances for our kitchen, so we started dreaming of a new couch. Our current couch is a bit of a mess and is known to leave our backs in a bit of a mess as well. I got it as a floor model back in grad school and it has moved from Colorado, to San Diego, to San Francisco, to New York. It has seen a great many places and a great many years. So when Ethan Allen sent me an e-mail advertising a much coveted sectional 20% off until the end of August, I persuaded C to go to the store and sit on all the couches with me. It was met with much approval. We have my side of the family coming into town over Christmas and also hope C's family will come stay with us for an extended period of time soon after the house is finished. We need seating, seating that won't leave a person begging for mercy or for the number to a local motel. So, after a few hours pouring over fabrics, we have a couch, or at least an order for one. I'm so excited for it in all of it's stain guarded, performance grade, velvety softness. I expect to spend a few afternoons sprawled in it's embrace as the breeze wafts through our new screened in windows. Such dreams I have.

But the reality is that we're still a ways off. The couch will arrive mid to late November and we are crossing our fingers that the house will be mostly complete, allowing tenants to move in upstairs in October.

I took a photo of the couch fabrics as a happy reminder in the weeks to come. The amber fabric and ivory fabric are accent pillows, the gray is the couch. It doesn't show very well in the photo but it has a nice texture. The small gray/green rectangle is our paint swatch. Happily the black floors and white baseboard of the show room helped me visualize how it will look with our kitchen cabinetry as the living room, dining room, and kitchen will all be open to one another.

On our 'finished list' is C's hand tilling of the back yard (see we neeeeeeeed that couch to sooth and provide a resting place for his aching muscles):

It looks so much tidier now. I am itching to get it planted up, but we need to work on our fencing a bit and some of the concrete before hand. The pretty things are always the last to go in. We'll plant next spring, but that hasn't stopped me from dreaming of lavender and cone flowers. At least I'm not dreaming of the pet cemetery we stumbled across back there. What's that? I didn't mention that while tilling C found a large stuffed duck that looked like it was buried by a dog? It was a few inches under the topsoil. We thought it was a bit odd, but not too odd to put up any red flags, after all we'd been picking out other various items from the dirt, including but not limited to : marbles, glass, nails, a hanger, a sponge, broken toys, a domino, utensils, bottles, wrappers, razor blades (multiple blades, yes), a sock, etc, etc, etc. Turns out that big stuffed duck was buried with a big dead dog. We weren't sure at first what it was seeing as how the owner of said buried dog decided that once again, duct tape was the perfect material to wrap it in, turning it into a scary mummy package of eeeek. I understand the burial of pets, what I don't understand is burying a dog 8" below the surface in a rental property that has barely enough soil to plant flowers in it let alone a large dog! But I find myself being thankful it was a dog and not a someone.

All right, shake it off, shake it off.

Here are a few small projects I've been working on. This is our new towel hanger for the basement bathroom. The wood was a scrap I found laying around from the wood paneling in the basement. I ordered the black hooks from Home Depot for around $1.25ea. I cleaned the board up a bit, I still wanted it to be a bit rustic with knots and cracks. I then drilled a few quick pilot holes and used my handy dandy bolt cutters to shorten the provided screws. This was probably the quickest project start to finish I've ever done, not to mention the cheapest.

The mirror took a bit more prep work but it turned out lovely. This will also go in the basement bathroom. We got this mirror as a hand me down from my parents. It had a few wood blocks attached to the frame which I pulled off, removed the old staples, filled in the holes and sanded down. The black paint was a sample can I picked up from Benjamin Moore, onyx, as a possible kitchen island color. I think it is a keeper.

Demo Down

OOPS, left this post languishing in "drafts". UPDATE: Our portion of the demo for the second floor and basement are complete! The back yard is also in a much better place. Update to follow.

We are nearing the end of demolition that we can accomplish on our own. We have one more opening to create in the upstairs unit that will be used for the new laundry closet! We've finished opening these two bad boys up so that we can get new doors in the right place for the closets and Jack and Jill bathroom that will occupy the left hand side of the middle room in the photo. 

And speaking of laundry closets, our new washer and dryer was delivered a few days ago! We have no hookups yet, but I lovingly caress them everytime I pass them, letting my hand trail languidly aling their glossy white...ahem...yes, we have a washer and dryer. There was a slight scratch on the door of one of them so I refused delivery.  They got it back on the truck and called Lowes back, they didn't want to gonthriugh the return as I am sure they would loose money having it returned then having to sell it again as damaged. C agreed to take it back into the house if they refunded $100. Soufs like a win-win to me. We can use every cent we can get and I figure everytime I see that scratch I'll see $100 instead of a brand new machine already dinged. 

While we wait for another cleanout to clear away our demo debris, we gave our hands a break from the power tools by spending a few hours in the back yard cleaning things up. 

It still feels like America's Most Desperate Landscape to me but it is getting better bit by bit. 

And for the daily pretty, we pulled the trigger on this queen pullout couch from West Elm. It is on sale now and hopefully will arrive just about the same time we are ready to finish up the basement recroom. 

Come to me my pretty!

Basement Bathroom

This is one small project that snowballed into a full tear out. Silly me. I thought for a brief hot minuet that only the bathroom shower needed to come out and we could replace it with a shower kit. The old shower was leaking and we saw old evidence that it had leaked into a part of the closet behind the shower. Well, that old water stain on the dry wall was masking a whole pile of rotted out studs. The studs behind the shower were pure black silt and once the adjoining closet door was removed, the wall sort of gently waved in the breeze. Oh, to be on a tropical island.

I can almost feel those sea breezes silkily curling across my sun baked skin. Almost.

I'm pretty baffled that someone would build a bathroom without any sort of waterproofing. We removed the studs in the bathroom and just continued down the line until the whole closet was removed as well. All that remains of the bathroom walls is a mulch stained footprint.

We decided after prying the concrete and tiles off the bathroom walls that we'd leave the shower pan for our contractor to remove with some more serious horsepower. It was a bit astonishing to see the tiles were just thickly back buttered onto the brick party wall with concrete. We are pretty sure it was concrete because we found a rotted empty bag tucked behind the pipe in the wall once we took out the tile.






















But it is a bit airier down here now. After eating lunch and restoring some of our blood sugar, we've decided that we won't rebuild the closet. I think keeping it as a mudroom with a bench and wall hooks will help the basement hall not feel so closed in once the bathroom walls go back up. We also plan to remove the closets under the stairs and simply have the railing exposed to help it feel less like a creepy descent into a basement. There are plenty of other closets down there for storage and a whole room in the back where we can put shelving if we find we still need to squirrel things away. For the time being, it's nice to see the bad going out and hopefully soon we'll have the good going back in.