Dan’s Dirty Studio Gets Dirty

Posted on March 1, 2012 by BeatingUpwind

One thing that’s being worked on at the moment are the final steps for the staircase. Finding wide plank white oak has been a challenge. Each tread is 11 1/2″ or 12″ by 36″ by about 1 3/4″. There are 60 treads plus there are platforms at each corner which are the same idea with multiple pieces stitched together. Needless to say we had to buy a lot of pretty prime wood. They’ve got it all cut up and sanded…

In the process of cutting up all that wood sawdust was flying everywhere. There was so much sawdust being created that it has literally coated the walls of the dirty studio where they were doing the work…

The T is one of the workers starting to write his name on the wall with the air pump… They also wrote more mundane things in the sawdust on the walls…

Today the contractor discovered that the stairs aren’t square. Blame it on the foreman he had on the project initially, or blame it on the guy who fabricated the stairs, or blame it on the contractor himself for not double checking things – but the end result is that the stairs are pretty obviously out of square.

[Then again, the building isn’t square either – it’s bigger in the rear than in the front.]

So that means they have to make things that aren’t square appear to be square – which is more difficult than it should be, but the guy working on it is up to the task.

After they get things cut so they appear square, they have to stain and seal all those boards. Meanwhile another guy is painting all the steel white…

He’s actually a guy who I’ve had working for me sporadically for 3 years now. Good guy, but very afraid of heights. In the picture he’s about 40 feet up off the parlor floor. He said it was the scariest thing he’d ever done (which is why he’s wearing a harness)…

I’m pretty sure that’s just primer – so they’ll have to come back in and do it all again with the final coat of white.

Clerestory Windows Went In Today

Posted on February 27, 2012 by BeatingUpwind

In the past week the things that have been happening haven’t been all that photogenic – skim coating is something you have to experience in person, wood floors is just more of the same, etc.

But one thing that’s new and different is that the clerestory windows were put in today – and we’re liking them a lot…

The windows let in light from the bulkhead (“light scoop”) on the roof. The one above is on the 3rd floor and lets light into the den / TV room. Light actually goes both ways – in the mornings the morning light hits the front of the building and light goes from the rooms into the stairwell.

The clerestory window on the top floor is actually quite tall and lets in tons of light in the early afternoon (almost too much light)…

Because the wall is a fire wall with a 1 hour rating, the glass has to be fire rated as well. We had two options – spend $5,000 for special clear fire rated glass, or spend $900 and get wire glass. Spending $4,100 for clear glass didn’t make sense to us, so the glass is wire glass…

The wires don’t really bother us. We were mostly concerned about the frame – we wanted it to be really minimal – we’re happy in that respect…

Good Expediter = Smooth Sailing @ DOB

Posted on February 24, 2012 by BeatingUpwind

We got a VERY good call today… After a lot of frustration earlier, our PAA was approved! There’s still some paperwork that has to be processed before it’s all finalized in the system, but it’s been a world of difference dealing with our new expediter / code reviewer – Levi Reznicek of William Vitacco Associates (lreznicek @ vitacco . com). He knows his stuff, and he and his company are trusted by the plan examiners. That makes all the difference. They know how to book appointments closer together, the plan examiners don’t mind if they stop by for quick things without an appointment, etc. It’s a completely different experience working with them. DOB used to scare me – it seemed so arbitrary. But now I feel like we have someone on board who can truly expedite things.

At the end of the day the solution to our construction classification problem was to revert back to the previous building classification, which was a 1938 classification. That means we’re now being reviewed under 1938 code. 1938 code requires 5 story buildings to have a 3 hour separation between the basement and upper floors (e.g. a thick concrete floor). But we got around that by being fully sprinklered (sprinklers didn’t exist in 1938).

The one thing we’ll have to change is that the rear deck has to be fully non-combustible. There was some question as to whether Trex (the plastic wood) was non-combustible. Some of it has a Class A fire rating, but it’s not quite “non-combustible”. So we’ll have to go with an all-steel deck.

I should mention that our architect has worked with a lot of big expediting firms. The reason why he had us go with William Vitacco is because to him they seemed like the most responsive and proactive of the big firms. And that impression was confirmed as we worked with Levi to prep for today’s meeting.

We’re using Levi / William Vitacco for our C of O process – so hopefully that will be smooth sailing as well…

Yesterday’s Big Purchase – Balusters

Posted on February 19, 2012 by BeatingUpwind

We’ve been going back and forth on whether to get new ironwork cast for the stoop or buy old stuff and restore it. Unfortunately we’ve put it off so long there isn’t time for new any more (the lead time is months, not weeks). So yesterday we went to Demolition Depot and got 11 balusters…

The ones with peeling yellow paint are an exact match to what was on our house. The brown ones are the same except in one little detail.

Turns out Demolition Depot also has a newel post that’s very similar to the ones originally on our house. This is what ours looked liked…

We know from looking at our older, cousin townhouses on 127th, that ours probably had a finial at the top which was missing by 1940…

Now compare those to what Demolition Depot has…

Not exactly the same, but very similar. Problem is, it’s not for sale – they’ll only rent it out for castings (@ $2,500/week!!!) Still, I’d LOVE to have a reproduction of something that’s even close to what was there originally – though we may just settle for masonry/stucco newel posts.

What we absolutely need to find are railings. We have most of one side, but the top of one side and all of the other side are missing. If anyone knows where we might find railing, please let me know – jay@beatingupwind.com

Lots Of Little Things Are Getting Done

Posted on February 15, 2012 by BeatingUpwind

The last week or so there have been a lot of little things getting done… It’s feeling more and more complete…

The railings are being installed for our staircase…

All the steel will be painted white, and there will be milk white plexi panels mounted on those frames and wood handrails. The railings are a bit shaky because they’re so thin. We’re hoping the plexi and handrails will stiffen things up a bit.

One of my favorite features in the house is the laundry chute from the master bedroom into the laundry room.

It’s funny to find a hole in the floor exciting, but it’s pretty cool (as is the whole concept of a laundry room – I’ve never had in-unit laundry before).

And a bunch of electrical stuff has taken shape…

The lights are on the front of the building…

We’re not sure whether we like those lights or not – they were inexpensive – we’ll change them later if we decide we want something better.

The track lights are mostly in and the lights are being put on the tracks…

We like how minimal they are – the big part of the lens is just a little bigger than a quarter – so it’s pretty tiny.

And the smoke detectors have been installed, but the little protective plastic bags sorta defeat the whole point of detecting smoke…

The thing I’m not looking forward to is that NYC code requires all the smoke detectors to go off when one of them goes off. When Dan burns something on the stove it’s going to be LOUD. But on the good side, they’re all hardwired – so no dead batteries to worry about.

And the last of the bathrooms has been tiled (the master bathroom)…

That took one of the workers 3 weeks to tile… The guy is slow, but he’s an absolute perfectionist so it’s flawless when you look at it close up. The same guy is now skim coating some of the walls (like the walls in the bathroom above).

Hopefully in the next week some of the plumbing fixtures will start getting installed and there will be a big push on painting and finishing up the floors.

Today we went to Ikea to buy closets, but when we got there we hated them. They’re not nearly as well made as Ikea’s kitchens. The closet solutions at Container Store are about 50% more – so we’re not sure what we’ll do – maybe just have the contractor make what we originally planned.