here is the house...

Jody Shelton Band @ The Bitter End 6/21/06

Yes, it's true.  Sometimes I do things that have nothing to do with real estate.  It's rare, but it does happen.  Here's a video of Eric's band, now tentatively called The Jody Shelton Band, performing a cover of Hank Williams' Ramblin' Man at The Bitter End in NYC last week. 

Check out Eric's awesome guitar solo (as a side note--that's my guitar!  And that's the most action it's seen in years!)  Also make sure to check out the part where Chris stands up and plays the bricks and other various things on stage as drums.  Not their usual type of song, but the boys are sure having fun. 

Hell is a Laundromat

One of the side effects of living in the temporary apartments during the renovations is the severe lack of amenities.  We’re dealing with semi-functional, hideously decorated bathrooms, a small, nearly unusable kitchen, and a total and complete lack of dividable space.  Regardless, I don’t have much to complain about.  We spend out time rhapsodizing about 48” stoves, dishwashers, central air, closets and actual bedroom doors.  But nothing commands my fantasies more than the exquisite possibility of the elusive Washing Machine and Dryer.  Oh how I pine for them. 

We just got back from the huge laundromat on Metropolitan, which easily houses 200 washers and even more dryers.  Yet for some reason tonight every single one of those washing machines was taken, and as we scrambled around looking to snipe some, dozens of loud brats spiraled around us.  Hell must be a laundromat.  Sigh…only a few more months left to go.

Here’s the part where I quit my whining and show you more renovation photos. 

The first floor is starting to really take shape!  The bathroom is all framed out, as is the hallway with some of the closets. 

Everyone was excited about this cement vibrator.  Something about cement and air bubbles and vibration…I guess it’s a good thing...I didn't quite follow.  I've been refraining from saying anything bad about my contractor or architect since they both read this blog, but I have no qualms about telling you they both giggled like little school girls about this vibrator.  So there you go. 

Soon this will be a fixed window in the master bathroom shower, hopefully slightly frosted or not entirely see through, for obvious reasons.  But it will look out into the sunroom and not directly into the backyard

Speaking of the sunroom, one day it will be here instead of a hammer, some radiators, an old 386, the shed remnants and a bunch of weeds.  Ah luxury!

And speaking of the backyard, here it is in all of its weed-infested glory.

But here’s the best part—our neighbor two doors down just put up a new high fence.  All the fences in the backyards on our block were 4 feet tall and we were told that was "the rule", but now that appears not to be the case.  Our architect checked the code and we are indeed allowed to have 6 foot fences—yay!  It’s a ways away, but it’s good to know it’s an option eventually.

Repurposing the Stairs

The stairs between the first floor and the ground floor are gone.  It's kinda odd to see the space without them

Now you can see three floors down where the stairs used to be--freaky!

But ever resourceful, the guys moved the old stair into the big hole so they can use it temporarily to get up and down

We could save a lot of money just keeping these stairs and not doing the fancy metal ones

Here's a meeting of the minds between our architect and contractor.  I believe here they are bonding over a common enemy. 

I had to sneak up on them to get a photo of them in their natural environment

But oh, there's more!

New pipes.  Electrical?  Gas?  Who knows!  Either way, new pipes make me very, very happy. 

Here's the guys framing out what is soon to be our master bathroom

And, here's some fun photos of our new found vertical space

A Giant Hole in the Floor

By the time I got home from work on Friday it was already pretty dark out.  I poked my head into the first floor, but since there are no lights in there I couldn't see what the guys had done that afternoon.  It's a good thing I didn't go exploring in the dark cause this is what I would have run into

It's definitely pretty scary to see the joists cut like that

If I back up and get a running start, do you think I could make this jump?

The double level openness already makes the space pretty dramatic

Imagine what it will look like when it goes down another level to the cellar.  Sexy!

An Eventful Week

Now that things are actually moving with the renovations I have to make sure to post every day or else too much happens to recap.  So this will be a long entry with lots of photos, but hopefully going forward I can post a little bit every day to keep things simple. 

So, last time I reported from the front line, we were hauling lots of trash into dumpsters.  This is the reason we needed the dumpsters so badly. 

The space really opening up after the trash was finally gone

The guys put up this temporary wood stud walls for support when the load bearing walls come down.  It's a good thing, cause I would be kinda pissed if my house fell down. 

They started digging in the basement to prepare for the footings.  The holes are about 3 feet deep so if you stand in them you get a pretty good idea of how spacious the basement will feel with the ceilings are 2 feet higher. 

Anyone want to buy some dirt?  Cheap?  We've got plenty...

We had a bit of a plumbing mishap when one of the guys bumped into the pipes and they just broke right near the main water inlet.  It was so old and busted the pipes were literally just fused together with rust and it took just a little tap to break it.  Oops.  Luckily we were able to get back up and running within just a few hours using these garden hoses.  The water pressure goes to hell if the hose gets a kink or someone steps on it, but this should be sufficient to get us through the next few months. 

Shortly thereafter they ripped up the entire first floor original wood floor so there was nothing but exposed joists

Somewhere along the line the guys found a poster of a chick in a bikini.  I think it's a photo of Milla Jovovich that must have belonged to our ex-squatters.  Wow, this is the first time they've exhibited some sort of good taste.  It's hard to tell from this angle, but she's larger than life in this poster--it's freakin huge!  She was there on Thursday of last week but shortly after I joked about it to my GC she disappeared.  I wasn't offended by her presense or anything, but I think it was taken that way.  I wonder where she went?

Once the floor was up we actually found some damage near the back fireplaces.  It looks like there was some extensive water damage at some point. It's not too bad actually, but it will need to be fixed

The floor also had some deflection in the back of the house towards the middle.  It's about an inch and a half in the worst section, which is not that bad considering the house was built in 1890.  So they spent a lot of time shoring to level up the floors. 

Then they are laying nice, even plywood down for the subfloor. 

Whew!  We've been busy over here. 

Another Day, Another Dumpster

This morning the carting company came to remove our first dumpster and drop off another empty one.  I was kinda curious to see how they would do this.  Basically they back the truck up to the container and attach it to some sort of hydraulic lift.  It was actually pretty impressive.  This was the scene at around 9:00 am. 

Then they came back a few minutes later and dropped us off a fresh one

The guys working downstairs really hauled ass again today getting the trash out and ripping up the floor.  Here's what the it looked like at around 3:30 pm.

Crazy thing is they packed even more into that for the next two hours.  They'll pick up this container tomorrow morning and then we'll be done with trash removal, at least for a little while.  Pics of the inside coming up shortly...

Conveyor Belt

Our contractor rigged up a conveyor belt to move trash from the first floor out to the street with the greatest of ease--it totally worked! 

Unfortunately it wasn't as dramatic from the front steps as it was from the window upstairs...so I said "Boom" to make it less anti-climatic. 

What A Difference...

...a day makes

Here's the dumpster at 8:30 AM

And here it is now (3:00 pm)

Yay progress!

Plaster=1, Me=0

In the never ending battle between my sinus cavities and the tons of plaster dust now swirling about this house, I’m sad to say that the plaster has bested me.  The last few days of my life consisted mostly of hanging around areas covered in plaster dust taking band photos, talking with my contractor and Architect amongst tons of plaster dust and cleaning tons of plaster dust off of every surface in this damn house.  With all that I was bound to get sick…again.  It’s pretty unavoidable, as plaster dust seems to permeate every nook and cranny of the house.  As dust goes, plaster dust seems to be the most insidious.  Perhaps this is the arch nemesis I have been looking for? Damn you plaster! Since I was just sick about 3 weeks ago, this new sickness is highly unexpected.  Breathing has been a problem for the past few days--it kinda feels like someone is sitting on my chest, which is no fun at all.  I’ve been doing Neti at least 6 times per day but it just can’t keep up.  Today I bit the bullet and went the western medicine route, antibiotics and antihistamines from my doctor--yay health insurance!  Hopefully I’ll be back to normal in a few days and ready to kick plaster's ass

And So it Begins…sort of

Today work commenced on the Longest Renovation Ever (now known as LRE for simplicities sake)  Stuff is happening already, but mostly prep work and kitchen/bathroom fixture removal.  A few weeks ago our GC hand delivered the notifications and spoke to all of our neighbors (both sides and behind us, totaling 3) of the impending excavation, so that is all taken care of.  We were just waiting on the permit, which we finally got yesterday.  As a side note, the front wall of the house is very thin and the windows aren't insulated very well, so when people stand outside and talk smack about me and this blog, I can hear every word.  Please be a bit smarter going forward.  Or don't talk so damn loud. 

It looks like next Monday will be the real start date, but we’re gearing up for it now.  So what’s going on during the pre-renovations you ask?  Well, our contractors put up a snazzy door at the bottom of the stairs leading to the top 2 apartments, and covered the openings with some pretty thick tarps to keep the dust to a minimum.  It’s still pretty dusty up here, but not as much as it would be without this fancy getup. 

The kitchen sink was removed from the ground floor apartment (where our illegal tenants were residing) and we discovered the mystery of their seemingly endless supply of nasty bugs:  yet more shoddy, illegal plumbing work! 

The 1950’s kitchen was removed from the first floor apartment to reveal this beautiful, grease streaked wall!  I can’t wait to see all of this crap gets ripped down.

They’ve marked out the walls for impending demolition with stylish fluorescent orange X’s.  Here’s Eric posing with one, drink in hand.  Actually I think that’s just water.  Give us a few more weeks and I am sure we’ll be switching to whiskey.