649 6th

the end of the beginning

candy barred

Second round of who-knows-how-many prepping trim boards. Primer both seals the wood and raises the grain, which when sanded results in a smooth, slick surface for the paint. Is that totally obvious to everyone? Takes time, of course, but fortunately the primer soaks in and dries fast. Result looks almost stained.

This time we cut the boards before finishing. Curious to see if it makes any difference to installation. For example, if a board needs to be slightly trimmed then end will need to be repainted. Not a biggy -- on par with cutting away a bit of pre-painted board. Exciting stuff.

All in the wind-up for tomorrow's pitch when remaining third floor base boards are installed. Windows will take a few more days; need to finish the frames before installing trim, but that's pretty much the last reno task on that floor. That IS exciting. From attic to bedroom/studio in how many days?

But for now, hallway looks like a chocoholic's fever dream. I'll pass on the Oompa-Loompas.

day 27: preparing for the blitz

Today was a prep day. My niece Lily came to visit this afternoon. Unlike my sightseeing niece that was here last week, Lily has come to work. She'll mainly focus on the painting the second floor. That's right, this weekend we go color and are greatful for the additional set of hands.

I essentially have four days left in my month long vacation / reno jump start. I've been saying June all along, but I'm going to kick in Sunday July first as bonus to try and show a little more progress. Michael will continue to focus on the bathroom. We finished up the most complicated wall of tile last night. We're hoping to have all of the tile done and some (if not all) of the cedar installed by the end of the weekend.

The last major focus for the dwindling days is the entry way. I keep saying that we've finished demo-- a couple of times now in fact. Well, I found another place that needs a bit more peeling back. The entry way is a clogged artery of four or five layers of sheetrock. If I peel it back I should get up to an inch and a half of much needed breathing room on either side of the front door. Luckily I should be able to knock out the demo and debris removal in an hour or so in the morning. After that I'm all drywall finishing, all the time.

In preparation for this big push I spent the better part of the day assembling materials and getting the the task list ready. All I can say at this point is "Go team!"

day 20: being a good host

My teenage niece Sophie came to visit today with one of her friends from Florida. They will be here until Sunday. I don't expect to make a lot of progress on the house while they're here. Trying to be the good host and show them around NYC a bit. Saturday is the mermaid parade at Coney Island and that has them pretty excited.

Today while they were napping I cut and installed a few pieces of corner bead. It's about that time again-- drywall compound is not that many days away. I have most all of the paint for the house ready to go. It will be probably next Wednesday before I'll be ready to roll (literally), but I can't wait to spread around a little color. I've got so used to primer white it's hard to imagine it any other way.

The other thing I did was spray a bit more of the canned foam about. I've really tried to stay away from finding out whatever reason it is that I shouldn't be using the stuff. I works wonders. You can cut and shape it with an exacto knife and finish over it. I know it's a cheat, but when making the "modern" lines come together it can work wonders. Shhhhhhhhhhh....

The only other thing going on right now is, now that we have the dryer fixed, the washer is on the blink.The water pump that empties appears to be busted. It never empties before the spin cycle, truly annoying. As usual I did my best blink evaluation of local appliance repair vendors. I got " a guy" coming tomorrow. Let's hope that the washer fares a bit better than the former dryer.

Tomorrow is the longest day of the year. For me, of course, that means a haircut-- for you, get outside, get a little pagan and enjoy the late evening light.

day 12: two man gang

I've said it before I'll say it again, it's amazing how much work you can get done when you have more manpower. Today was Michael's first day of vacation, and we checked a bunch of stuff off the list. I really like the days when the white board get's full of detail. It's normally accompanied with a flurry of activity.

The white board has a colorful depiction of a possible garden lay-out. I was reading way back in the blog today and realized that sketches like these turn up from time to time. One day even the outdoor space (now workshop) will be finished.

Today went like this:

1) Ordered screens for all of the windows. We didn't have cats when we they were installed, now we do. Nuff said.

2) Cut the tile for the bathroom floor. This was the first time I used the "tile king" blade. Wow, what a difference, cuts like butter. I highly recommend spending the few extra dollars to step up from a composite stone blade.

3) Built the plywood box cubby at the base of the tub. It'll be lined in same cedar as the walls. Wondering how well this particular application will hold up in a dampish area.

4) Mixed up a batch of thinset, taped the Hardiebacker seams and installed the remaining floor tile. We ran just short on thinset and will have to finish last two pieces in the morning.

5) Demo'd the front entry. This is final vestige of the previous occupant's work. A victorious moment.

6) Installed an electrical outlet in the last wall to be finished in the kitchen area. Tomorrow we pop on a couple of pieces of drywall and checking things off the list continues.

After it was all said and done we cracked open a fine bottle of wine with a good stinky cheese. Not bad for a day's work.

in with the old

house jacked

what a day! we're jacking up our house!!

started out demolishing a slice of ceiling and part of wall on first floor to get at the 2nd floor joists. yes, we bought hard hats. no, we're not re-enacting the village people. (as always, please remember that any photo on the blog is clickable and will open a larger version.)

found evidence of an angled wall and tin ceilings. none of it the sort of thing you'd want to preserve. in the end we'll just cover it again with another drop ceiling.

once the mess was cleaned up, we built the temporary beam that will carry all the lifting across joists.

we hung the beam from several joists using deck brackets. didn't read about that strategy in any of the material i found online regarding installation of a beam, but certainly made the job of installing jacks and posts easier since we could just continue to hang material from successive members until we were ready to put on the pressure.

which shouldn't leave you with the impression that this was an easy job. we re-installed one of the bracing jacks FOUR times in attempt to level it properly until we finally realized the screw wasn't true. in fact, in this photo you can clearly see the angle of the bolt coming out of the jack is not aligned. i have to admit home depot took it back no questions asked. literally, they didn't even want to know what was wrong with it.

as for the lifiting power, it's all contained in this little red bottle. note to self, make sure the release valve is completely shut before walking away. we were marvelling at how unsqueeky the 2nd floor was when there was a loud crash. hydraulic jack had settled just enough to let the post slip free. now it's back, everything's true, and it's all we can do to not give the little fella another pump.

don't know jack

step one of the Great Lift is complete. today we cleared a bunch of space in basement, ie finished finding places for everything we removed from 1st floor, and installed support jack to brace the 1st floor beam, which will be placed under significant load when we start jacking up the 2nd floor.

the support jack is really just the little black metal tube that's sitting at intersection of wood cross we built to distribute load into the basement floor. the jack is pressing on 4x4 post that's finally braced against the beam. the white stripe behind it is the original wood post that inspector told us should be replaced with metal so it's less prone to failure due to fire or stray saw blade. we'll be putting in a proper metal post (or two) with concrete footings soon.

engineer recommended a direct line of contact between hydraulic jack and foundation, which means positioning it over the beam, but also providing support between beam and sub-floor. caught a lucky break with location of 1st floor joist, which can be seen where we pulled section of basement ceiling down, in that it's located EXACTLY beneath the lowest joist in 2nd floor, ie the one that needs the most lifting. if we were talking about newer construction i wouldn't be surprised to find the joists vertically aligned, but so far there's absolutely nothing standard about the original construction of this house -- it's 100 years old after all.