Wandernesting

Lots of work to report this week as the plumbers have started putting in new drain lines and the framing of walls is nearing the end.

Garden level looking to back.

When we walked through the house last week with the GC and architects there was a lot of discussion around the parlor floor. We are fitting in a coat closet, powder room and pantry between the kitchen and living room and the space is tight (again our 18.75′ house width). It took a little adjusting but we were finally able to work everything out. We were a little nervous that we had ordered a toilet that sticks out too far when we lost a few inches in the parlor room. Fortunately when we got home we saw that  the toilet we ordered was a round front which are a little shorter than the elongated front. (We should have waited to order the toilet but got a great deal over Thanksgiving and couldn’t wait).

Parlor floor looking back to the kitchen

While the powder area is tight, our concern from the beginning was how the top floor would feel with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a laundry. Now the framing has gone up things look good. The master bath is a little snug with our desire for a double shower but everything else feels OK. It was also great to be up there on a cloudy day in the middle of winter and still have great light.

Master bath.

Kids bath looking to the front of the house.

Next week the plumbing work continues and the electricians get started. Work also begins on opening the back of the house. That piece requires close coordination between the GC, steel guy and structural engineer.

The house is just a little bit lighter this week with the removal of two chimneys and the shed.

New kitchen space.

We were glad the chimney removal occurred without issue given most of our planned kitchen layout depended on its removal. Now we can move forward with appliance purchases.

We were also pleased to see the shed come down without resistance. Here’s a before and after:

Before removal.

After shed removal.

It is nice to take a walk around the backyard and feel so much space (for New York that is – 18.75′ wide anywhere else would be a side passage)! It won’t be long, though, before we put up a deck which will provide access to the backyard from the kitchen. In the meantime you can enjoy what inspired our deck choice.

Deck inspiration.

The fig tree gets cut.

This week, the subfloor continues to go down and tracks are being laid down to show where the rooms are to be positioned.

Flooring continues to go down.

Tomorrow we are meeting with our architects and GC to discuss any changes and confirm the room sizes. We’ve had so many iterations of our floorplan it’s a little scary to think that things are about to be locked in but it does mean one steps closer to completion!

Another week passes and we are starting to turn a corner. Instead of things continually leaving the house (plaster, debris etc.), things are now starting to move in. Granted, it’s just some wood to provide temporary flooring and support but it’s nice to see something new in the house.

1st floor

Everyone’s busy schedules seemed to align, allowing us to schedule a productive meeting between the architects, structural engineer and our GC. Nothing too serious came up while they worked through a couple of decisions on supporting the new back opening and the open kitchen plan. They all agreed that things in the house look pretty good overall and were please to see some extra big support beams existing and in good condition.

Future kid bedrooms and laundry.

Last weekend also saw some decent holiday sales which allowed us to save some money on some kitchen and bath items. We were most excited about a sale on a product that we’d just seen a few days earlier in a kitchen showroom. For a long time we were going with a nice Hansgrohe kitchen faucet but that quickly paled to an amazing faucet by Waterstone that we couldn’t stop talking about. It definitely was over budget for our faucet but the 20% discount we found softened the blow. We were also able to pick up a 10% discount on a number of Grohe items that we are using around the house, plus discounts on toilets, bathtubs and other bath accessories.  More on those in future room specific posts.

Gantry faucet

Next week we hope to wrap up removal and start laying down the subfloor and framing out the rooms. Once we’ve confirmed all the measurements, we’ll be able to pull the trigger on the biggest purchase of all: the appliances. More on those in another post.

Another awesome job by our expeditors to renew licenses and pull permits saw our work start a little earlier than expected. The guys started with demolition of the top floor which was being used as a two-bedroom apartment.

It was great to walk in a see five guys making a big mess in the space that we plan to put three bedrooms, two bathrooms and the laundry.

Future master bedroom

This level wasn’t originally it’s own space so the bathroom and kitchen were added. This meant that there isn’t a lot of original detail to try and save on this floor. However we are hoping that the original doors and shutters that remained can be reused and have put them aside to see about stripping the layers of paint added over the years.

Doors to save

Now that the ceiling is removed we’ve noticed a little bit of space above the existing ceiling. We were really happy with the existing ceiling height on this floor but it would really be something if we could add another foot or so (we know we are going to lose some height with duct work etc.).

Potential ceiling height

High view to front of house

Next week demo will continue. Also, there’s a little cleanup to be done after discovering a little surprise when we dropped by today to collect mail.

On the way up to the top floor there was a little mess on the parlor floor. At first I thought it was the workers removing part of the dropped ceiling so that we could see whether the original ceiling is worth saving.

Hole in the parlor ceiling

Unfortunately I quickly noticed the floor was wet and then saw water dripping from the ceiling. It seems that when the bathroom on the top floor was removed a leak was caused.

I grabbed some buckets used for debris removal and place them under the drips, turned off the main water line and called our General Contractor. I think it’ll all be OK but 1. I’m glad that we took an early morning visit over (this was the result of about 12 hours of drips) and 2. I don’t feel so bad we are paying a little extra to stay close by while the work has done. If we’d left this over the weekend the damage could have cost more than the money we would have saved from being a little further away.

On the bright side, it did allow us to peak into the original ceiling. Unfortunately we saw that when the bathroom above was installed they cut away a fair chunk of the original detail. We were hoping for something worth working with but seeing this confirmed our suspicions. The layout of this level (which we’ll discuss in a post soon) doesn’t really match the original layout so working with the original detail may not have been that easy anyway.

Original molding on parlor floor.

We’ll confirm once the rest of the dropped ceiling is removed next week.

Big news this week as our plans were approved by the city!

Before we talk about what we are planning to do, let’s take a quick look at our plans for each floor.

The house was originally a one-family home that was converted to a two-family sometime between 1884 and the 1960s. The basement and the first floor was generally used by the family that owned the property and the second floor was rented out.

The basement currently consists of three rooms and a bathroom with an attached laundry room.

Basement bathroom

Laundry with extension

View from back.

Basement is sort of a misnomer because it has 8 foot ceilings and is above ground, but because it isn’t at street level, it qualifies as a basement in the city’s terminology. Our plan for this level is to largely keep the room breakdown intact (minus the extension). We’ll keep three spaces on the floor with a garden.

Planned basement floor plan

The room in the front will become the home office with a side room for a small gym. The backroom will become the playroom for the next few years and later a TV/Den area. In our endless search for a house we saw a house a few blocks away where the playroom connected to the backyard and we really liked that idea.

The bathroom presented an interesting challenge as we wanted a good sized bath and shower in a long narrow space. In poking around on Houzz for inspiration, we found this bathroom which we both immediately knew would fit the space perfectly. Our architect likes this layout but has said clients in the past haven’t shared his enthusiasm. We aren’t sure why.