We were poking around the backyard this weekend, looking for signs of perennial plants and came across something not so leafy.
It looks to be part of a bayonet
I’m not sure there is any way to tell if this is the real deal or a reproduction. But in any case, it was a cool find (and yes, we found some perennials, too!)
It’s been unseasonably warm and lovely this month, so it’s time to thaw out the back yard. Among the junk treasurers left behind by the previous owner were these awesome rust covered decrepit vintage motel chairs.
I have no idea what the backyard is going to look like when we’re done with it, but it will sure include these guys.
In other backyard news: the grapevine is still dormant…. us (and the neighbors) are eagerly awaiting this years’ grape harvest.
It seems that all we’ve done for the past trimester is work on the house. We haven’t really gone anywhere, done anything, or seen much of our friends. We have made some progress, particularly in the garden apartment. But the list continues, and as always the biggest to do remains to win the lottery – so we can afford to finish up our reno…
BASEMENT:
Install water heater (DONE)
Convert boiler from oil to gas
Remove wood paneling walls
Replace front and rear hatches
Update electrical panels (DONE)
Create laundry area (DONE)
Replace flooring
Improve lighting
Create workshop area
Create storage area (DONE)
Paint access stairway (wall and pipes)
Replace lighting fixture with something more suitable
GARDEN APARTMENT:
Remove tile in hallway and replace with wood (DONE)
Paint hallway and stairs (DONE)
Replace runner on stairs
Create new apartment entrance with coat/shoe nook (DONE)
Create actual functioning closet in former scary closet hallway (DONE)
Remove upper cabinets in kitchen (DONE)
Remove island and cook top (DONE)
Patch up hole left by kitchen island
Remove built-in oven and replace with range
Install French doors (DONE)
Fix floor under removed kitchen cabinet
Create proper laundry area (using existing hookups) (DONE)
Re-grout and install new shelves in bathroom
Install GFI receptacles near sinks in bathroom and kitchen
Install weather stripping on garden access door
Remove blinds
Free panted in shutters (DONE)
Paint
Replace plastic chandelier (DONE)
Replace hallway/entry way light
Add ceiling medallions in living room and hallway
Fix kitchen ceiling
Fix kitchen radiator
Replace fireplace cover with original cast iron cover
Paint entry alcove (DONE)
Clean out storage under stoop (DONE)
PARLOR FLOOR
Paint
Remove improvised room divider between front parlor and middle room
Demo closet/bathroom hybrid (DONE)
Re-install bathroom in closet location
Create kitchen/dining area in current rear parlor/bathroom
Build deck for yard access
Remove tiles in hallway, replace with wood
Remove fake parquet, replace with wood
Restore staircase (replace broken/worn steps, address excessive creaking)
Fix bubbling plaster under stairs
Skim coat as needed
Replace copper fireplace cover with original cast iron
Re-strip fireplace to remove left-behind paint and dirt in existing varnish
Re-glaze rear parlor mirror
Fix front parlor fireplace where wood is cracked
Replace front hall lighting fixture
Add light in entry alcove
Remove random doorway into rear parlor (from hallway)
Add door to garden level for privacy
Replace windows
TOP FLOOR
Refinish floors (DONE, for now)
Address new floor plan. Move master bedroom to rear, create master bath.
Turn micro-bathroom into walk-in closet
Clean and repair stained glass skylight
Look at the possibility of moving roof access ladder from its current location to closet in spare bedroom
Free up skylight in middle room
Remove and repair ceilings in front and rear rooms
Clean up painted-over air shaft windows
Remove Dumb Waiter gears in attic for use as decoration somewhere
Skim coat
Remove tile in hallway and replace with wood
Strip both front and rear mantels
Strip and repair woodwork
Replace windows
Re-glaze mirror at top of the stairs
Paint
Create doors for existing closet
For the past few months, our focus has been to get the rental apartment in shape and get it rented. As experienced tenants, we focused on changing the things that we would like as tenants (hello laundry!) and prioritized accordingly. Unfortunately our budget does not permit a full overhaul of the place (I’m talking to you ugly kitchen tile).
This is what the kitchen tile looks like. It’s so awful it’s almost amazing. Almost.
One of the major issues we wanted to address was the kitchen. It was too large. Yes. Huge. For a one bedroom apartment the kitchen was enormous. So we set out to make it smaller. As part of this process, we removed a center island that served no other purpose than to hold the cook top, while the oven sat all by its lonesome in the prime stove spot.
Well, surprise surprise, there was no tile under the island. We looked ahead of time, but the hole we cut through the island floor apparently was not far enough in and ta-da! We’re left with this.
The area is 10 sq ft. And a much bigger headache
Great, right? I’m sure this probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But it has put a pretty major cramp in our reno. And so the great ugly tile hunt begins. As predicted, there is no matching tile to be found. After much searching around, I found a passable match-ish (I kid. It looks nothing like it, but it’s the same size and thickness. 2 out of 3…)
The background pattern and the finish are kinda similar.
It is by no means perfect, but I think in the grand scheme of things it will work. The spot is right in the middle of the kitchen and it screams for a kitchen table (and I’m guessing a rug).
Flooring has been an ongoing topic – like a broken record… The Pink Lady has a ton of original detailing, like woodwork, mantels, intricate plaster detailing on the ceilings. Sadly, the floors are also original, but not in a good way. They are pine. Why? Well, because there was a time when the Victorians felt that wood floors were not fashionable and should be covered with rugs. As such, they used cheap pine as flooring material knowing they would be covering it with rugs and painted floor cloths and whatnots. (The Victorians sometimes painted canvas to look like wood and put that on top of their cheap wood floors. Perhaps they are to blame for the invention of imitation wood vinyl tiles?) A quick Google search revealed that floor cloths (or oil cloths) cost anywhere from 11 to 35 cents a yard, depending on width and intricacy of pattern.
I’m not sure about the top floor, but on the parlor floor, there would have been parquet over the pine. Yeah… we don’t have it anymore. Instead, we have cheap stick on parquet. Yey! Anyway, floor cloth of fancy parquet aside, we have to deal with pine. Splintering pine.
Anyway… back to our pine floors in present day, our progress documented here, here, here and here. The bulk of the work took place on the third floor, which was covered in many layers of sticky vinyl tile over a foundation of splinters. Some rooms looked OK, while others seemed beyond salvaging.
Peeling layers of vinyl tile with the help of my trusty Rival iron. I really hate vinyl tile. A lot.
After removing the layers of vinyl tile, Task #1 was to strip the paint. The amount of residual gunk and glue left behind from the vinyl tiles, plus the thickness of the many layers of paint made it impossible to skip this step. No sander would cut through that mess. Cue the Peel Away 6! Many weeks elapsed, many buckets of paint stripper were applied (and dutifully scrubbed off) and eventually the floor was mostly free of paint. Stripping paint is incredibly messy and unglamorous work, not to mention mind-numbingly tedious. Luckily we didn’t have to worry about lead paint. By some amazing stroke of luck, tests came back negative for lead. On the subject of toxicity, while Peel Away 6 is non-toxic and I used low odor/low VOC mineral spirits, I found out the hard way that mineral spirits and my face were not meant to co-exist. Life got a whole lot better once I got a face shield to protect me from spraying chemicals. Moral of the story, wear protective gear even if it makes you look like a demented nerd from a 1980s movie.
The paint stripping process in progress. Working in small areas seemed to work best.
Most of the paint gone. Woo hoo!
Once the paint was (mostly) removed, Task #2 was to fix the broken boards. Several were lifting and needed to be secured back in place. On a side note, I did peek under the flooring only to find, to my dismay, construction detritus dating back to the original construction of the house. I always imagined the masons and carpenters of centuries past to be very neat and tidy. Apparently not so much.
Hubs fixing the floor. All weekend carpenters wear flannel shirts, yes?
Check out the purdy floors, ready for sanding.
Once all the boards were secured, Task #3 was to sand. Since pine is a soft wood, and since there was heavy splintering in some areas, we were concerned that a belt sander might be too powerful and do the floor in. In speaking with a friend who recently did his floors, he recommended a random orbital sander. We tried it. The floors mocked it. It didn’t make a dent. Back to the drawing board we went. Still afraid of the belt sander, we went totally low tech with a hand-held belt sander. Yes. Hand held. As in on your hands and knees. After putting a lot of mileage on his knee pads, the hubs finished the three main rooms of the top floor.
Next came what was possibly the hardest decision to make about this whole floor thing: what to put on it? After spending so much quality time with our floors, we really didn’t want to do it agin in the near (or far) future. The no brainer choice would be some type of polyurethane based product. It lies on top of the floor (it’s not absorbed by it) and would provide a layer of protection between our feet and the inevitable splinters. The problem with poly is that it tends to have that gym floor look. Also, it will yellow as it ages and it will require refinishing at some point down the road. In researching options, Tung Oil kept coming up. It’s a natural product made from a nut that is indigenous to China. It is absorbed by the wood and repels water beautifully. The Chinese have been using it as a sealant on the hulls of their boats since more or less forever. Since the oil is absorbed by the wood, it unfortunately doesn’t provide splinter protection. On the plus side, should the wood ever start looking dull, all you need to do is lightly sand it with some steel wool and re-apply some more Tung Oil.
In my mind, the most serious drawback is that floors treated with Tung Oil will not take Poly later one. Whether this is totally true I’m not sure, but we decided to go with the Tung Oil anyway. The fact that it is non-toxic was a huge plus for me, given that it was the middle of winter and proper ventilation would be a challenge. Thus far it has worked well, with an unexpected side effect: when we clean the floors with a damp cloth, the room smells like almonds!
The floors are now on hiatus. We’re not sure what we’re going to do next: cover with a new layer of wood, since some of the rooms still have some areas of questionable appearance? Take a cue from the Victorians and buy some more rugs? Search salvage place for replacement boards and fix the ugly/uneven ones? We don’t really know, and since the third floor is going to be undergoing some major renovations in the years to come the floor, in its current state, is livable. For now.
There has been an awful lot of paint stripping here at the Pink Lady. It’s a slow process, more or less like picking at a giant never ending scab. Good thing that I am a closeted scab picker.
Anyway, sometimes after staring at paint in its various stages of un-painting, shapes begin to appear. This is by far my favorite one:
Charlie Chaplin with rabbit ears
It’s on the window of the bathroom air shaft. We’re working on peeling back the years of paint to let in some light in. I almost feel bad for making Charlie go away.
Honorable mention goes to this one, which appeared on the mantel of the top floor fireplace:
Dog sniffing another dog’s butt
(the paint is basically just flaking off. The dark brown spots are the remains of the old varnish. Seems like it reacted with the paint and became very wrinkly. A bit of elbow grease with some steel wool makes it all go away. For the more intricate parts I’ve been using Peel Away 7, mineral spirits and extra doses of patience. A more detailed post on the stripping of the fire place mantel coming soon).
Buying an old house is an adventure. Buying a house that needs work is like starring in your very own disater/horror movie: fun, but requires a certain amount of, um… intestinal fortitude. Thus far, our nemesis has been plumbing: our pipes simply are all manner of disgruntled. After the great Poop Gate of 2012, we thought we had the major plumbing issues behind us, but it was not to be so.
Plumbing has thus far consumed a major portion of our home reno budget. Sure it’s great not to have a feces-filled basement,or a gas explosion in the foyer – however these are all decidedly un-sexy things. It’s stuff that happens in the background and really doesn’t improve the house’s appearance (only its function and its comfort, after all it’s pretty nice to take a hot shower).
The plumbers finished up on Friday and we’re now a fully functioning household. The Shower of Sadness has been banished from existence, the gas leak has been fixed and the washer/drier/laundry tub have been hooked up. We’re like grown ups now! No more cold showers and smelly clothes!
The Pink Lady has been throwing us some curve balls lately. No, not the doorbell that rings randomly (it seems as we have a ghost that locked itself out and wants back in. I call her Constance). Our biggest problem is that the mechanical systems are organizing a mutiny and a general strike of Greek proportions. Oy!
So let’s talk about something different entirely, shall we? Here is some good before/after stuff that is far more fun that plumbing, BTUs and wiring:
Remember what the floor looked like when we bought the house?
This shot extra dark and gloomy to illustrate exactly how we felt about this part of the house
Looking towards the front of the house (the door leads to the entrance under the stoop)
Well, through the creative use of a crow bar, some elbow grease and the magic of turning round bamboo into flat flooring, we now have this:
Work in progress: the floor is in, just missing the trim pieces
There is still some work left to be done in this area, but one more weekend and it should be done. Woo hoo!
I have never been a fan of drywall. Having grown up in a house with “real” walls made out of brick and cement, it seemed odd to me that anyone could, with little to no effort, punch a hole in a wall with their fist. Where I come from, such action would require a trip to the emergency room, not to the hardware store.
Plaster, unlike drywall, is a much harder surface. It is fire resistant and it blocks sound quite nicely. It breaks my heart when people talk about ripping out the plaster in their homes simply because there are a few cracks. While we have a few walls we think are not salvageable (top floor bathroom is cracked to oblivion due to years of unchecked moisture), we plan on repairing the many many many many cracks and missing bits of plaster throughout the Pink Lady.
Here is a great case for saving plaster, as well as more info than you ever cared to know about plaster technique and historical relevance.
Since time is a-wastin’, I decided to try my hand at crack removal. In some places, the first layer of plaster is separating from the walls. I really can’t stand poorly patched walls, and I really didn’t want my patch job to fall into that category. I stared at this wall for a couple of weeks to work up the courage… (I forgot to take a true ‘before’ shot, so here it is a few steps into the plaster removal process):
Squishy bubbly walls be gone!
We removed the bubbling top layer of plaster to reveal the layer beneath it, which was in OK shape. The size of the required patch was quite intimidating.
No more plaster bubbles
And then filled it in with joint compound.
First layer
Since I hate sanding, I’m taking my time with the layers to see if I can avoid it all together. I figure it will take 2 or 3 more passes and I should be good to go.
It took 2 separate trips by Cablevision and four sets of technicians, but we are fully connected to the world outside now. Woo hoo!
During our 27 days of cable/internet hiatus, we did things the pioneering way: went to bed early, read books for entertainment, attempted to watch TV on our cellphones – OK, that right there? Neither old fashioned or effective. In any case, some actual work on the house also got done.
After much hemming and hawing about paint color, we decided on a combination of dark/light gray and pure white for the garden level hallway and staircase. The wainscoting and the spindles will be light gray, the banister and the steps charcoal gray. The doors and door moldings semi gloss white and the walls flat white, like so:
The new floor will be going in this weekend and I will post full before and after pics – from muppet flesh tone orange, to monotone awesomeness.
This is actually really out of character for me, since I’m a fan of color. I have no idea where this love of muted monochrome tones came from. For the third floor, I’ve been debating the finer points of way too many shades of white, something that I will get to as soon as we deal with the cracks in the plaster:
A Pink Brownstone in Brooklyn 