Dirty Demo Days

I was almost convinced earlier this week that demolition isn't too bad. Then I started in on the ceiling this weekend. The long evenings earlier this weekend definitely paid off and I was glad that I didn't have to deal with the walls. Yet, the wall area didn't quite equate to the total ceiling area.

Despite the large task at hand and lacking troops to help, I dug in at 9 AM on Saturday chipping away at the plaster. Jen came around 1 PM just as I was loosing some steam and revitalized me with a breakfast sandwich. We continued to work and by 5:30 PM the ceiling was down.

Today was more of a cleanup day, having given the dust a day to settle and just the need to not live in a construction site. After 4 hours most everything was spick and span and 2/3 of the kitchen floor was ripped up (I plan on replacing this with oak to match the living room floor).


The worst part about the demo was tearing down the lath. There was a lot of dust and debris in the ceiling void compared to the wall. The air was thick and my hair was disgusting. Black water was pouring off of me for 10 minutes in the shower! I don't remember it being so bad when I did the bedroom, but maybe that's because I just tore into the walls and ceiling ruthlessly and expected the mess.

Anyhow, I'm super glad this part is done in just two short weekends. The bathroom is the only room left to be demolished.

The bags of plaster and wood are stacked up ready to go. I was hoping to rent a dumpster this weekend but didn't have the troops to back it up, so will schedule that date soon.


Oh, and don't forget to take in the spirit of all this with the new portrait.

Shafted!

I came home from work with the mission to do some demo tonight and decided to take the kitchen wall down. With a plumbing riser full of gas, hot water, cold water and drain pipes, I figured that it was best I tackle this one on my own so that if I busted a pipe there was only myself to blame.

You've seen the plaster, brick and lathe pics so I'll spare you. After getting the plaster off the lath, I noticed an area of water damage on the column. I chiseled at it once, twice and the third time was a charm. To my surprise a hole magically appeared. The column was also a shaft way! Shafted!

Cool outside air came pouring out the hole. The rest of the plaster on the brick came off extremely easily.


I'm not sure what to do with this find. It clearly created a pressurization of the plaster facing, causing it to come off very easily. I can only imagine at one point the hole and shaft way was use to vent stoves. Can I re-use it for a vent hood? How should I seal it up? I'll have to hunt for the answers to these questions.

Anyhow, I finished up the demo on the kitchen wall. One more small wall section to go and the ceiling. I'm guessing the ceiling will be about 60ish bags of plaster and lathe.

Project Schedule

With the clock ticking before my work permit runs out, I've got to keep things moving forward and get the majority of the work done before mid-March. Now that I have the experience, I've established a project schedule to help me move things forward and track progress.

Lots of detail work will have to be completed after all this work, but this covers the bulk of stuff that needs to be done.

Feast upon the latest edition!

Oct. 19th - Demolition, particularly moldings and removal of upper kitchen cabinets.

Oct. 25th - 26th - Remainder of Demolition, including kitchen wood floor.

Nov. 1st - 2nd - Dumpster weekend (will likely need to take a Friday off) if deemed necessary. Begin to put on furring strips and level ceiling. POSSIBLY IN LOS ANGELES!

Nov. 8th - 9th - Run cable, intercom and loudspeaker wire, begin to insulate, get plumbing estimates, begin electrical.

Nov. 15th - 16th - IN MIAMI

Nov. 22nd - 23rd - Finish electrical and insulation, frame out kitchen wall, begin ceiling drywall.

Nov. 29th - 30th - Insulate and drywall.

Dec. 6th - 7th - Mud & Tape

Dec. 13th - 14th - Mud & Tape

Dec. 20th - 21st - Sand & Prime

Dec. 27th - 28th - Install wood flooring and refinish floors

Jan. 3rd - 4th - Install kitchen cabinets/counter tops

Jan. 10th - 11th - Install kitchen cabinets/counter tops

Jan. 17th - 18th - Grace week

Jan. 24th - 25th - Grace week

Jan. 31st - Feb. 1st - Begin Bathroom demolition

Feb 7th - 8th - Plumbing work

Feb. 14th - 15th Insulate/drywall/re glaze tub

Feb. 21st - 22nd - ASPEN SKI TRIP!

Feb. 28th - March 1st - Tile Work

Tile Treasures...and a beer

Having worked hard during the week to clear out the remainder of living room items, the weekend was filled with demolition. After making a huge mess earlier this year, I've gotten a bit smarter about deconstructing the plaster walls. Although more fun to swing the crowbar and take out a huge chunk in one swipe, it creates a lot of dust, makes a huge mess and is noisy...not good when you have neighbors in close proximity.

So the plaster was slowly pried off the lathe, bagged, removed the lathe, took out the nails and bagged it. In addition to the mess reduction, this was also a good technique since there are now a lot of pipes to be dealt with, particularly on the bathroom wall.

The most interesting and annoying part of the demolition was the amount of debris found underneath the tub. Left over tiles, chunks of plaster and a random Schafer beer can (date TBD) were the majority of the bits and bobs.



In addition to wall demolition, I tackled the kitchen cabinets too. I was able to take down all the wall cabinets with ease. What a crappy installation job. Here's the before and after.


At the end of the day, there were 36 bags of plaster, lathe and a few bundles of wood. Monday night will mark the beginning of taking out the trash again.

I've established a schedule (to be posted in the next entry) and the next few weeks will require a lot of work, but I'm ready to tackle it and move this project forward quickly.

The weekend was rounded out with some fun at The Blaze, a festival with 4000 carved pumpkins. This picture reminded me of my apartment and the blog....there's more to see, even if it kills me.

No show

There haven't been many disappointments in this project so far and the ones that have jumped up have been very minor.

This past week/weekend I had my first major disappointment - the floor contractor no showed and didn't return my messages.

Now many of you might be saying "typical contractor" right about now, and I agree to an extent. It just seems super odd that someone with great references, who called me back promptly and gave a decent estimate would do such a thing. I can only believe that something catastrophic happened since his wife runs the business with him and she didn't call back either.

After 5 days of phone calls and waiting I've given up. It was somewhat of a toss up to do the floors now anyhow, the real advantage being that I would get the closets back. Yet, I would be stretching money a bit right now and I'm still moving stuff back and forth between rooms. Maybe it was for the best.

To keep things moving forward I began the task of clearing out the living room and moving everything back into the bedroom last night. I hope to start demolition this weekend and get the walls and some of the kitchen cabinets done, leaving the ceiling and the rest of the kitchen for next weekend.

Why worry about wood?

I never really lived anywhere with hardwood floors until I moved to NYC. At first it seemed like a luxury since each apartment ad would point out "HARDWOOD FLOORS!"

I quickly learned that almost every apartment has them, varying greatly in their quality.

I wouldn't say my floors are anything to oooooh and ahhhhh about, but they have the potential to be nice with a bit of care, which I haven't been giving to them by knocking down plaster and dragging tools across them. The closet floors were painted over at one point and then had linoleum laid on top. Although they all are a bit wavy, it will be nice to restore what I belive is likely some of the original character to the apartment.

After a bit of thought, I've determined it is not worth my time to learn how to sand, repair and refinish these floors. This is common work in NYC and it doesn't take much time or money.

So after 3 estimates I've picked Brian Huch of Groundforce Restoration to re-finish the floors. I know a good contractor when I see one and Brian met all of my criteria. He showed up on time, was well dressed, had formal proposal sheets, wanted 10% down and offered references and his insurance for the co-op managing agent in our first meeting. Best part was that his price was competitive against the other two bids.

To my surprise, the floors are a red oak (who would have thought?). They should lighten up a bit when they have been sanded, which I think will be great.

The door thresholds won't be replaced. I'm trying to go for a continuous look to the floor. If I don't like it, I can always buy new thresholds.

While I'm out of town on Thursday thru Sunday he'll begin repairing the thresholds, various spots where the trim was cut into the flooring and the water damage from the radiator in the bedroom, front closet, bedroom closet and foyer.



With the room cleared, my living quarters are stuffed.


Careful in the bathroom as we don't want anyone to get a sliver when you use the toilet.

Primed in 26 hours

It's been an extremely tough week at work. I've been getting home after 8 PM typically and jumped right into mudding so that all would be ready to go for the weekend.

Luckily Friday was a easy day. I woke early and rushed down to Sherwin Williams on 46th St to get supplies. Somehow I managed to connect with a friend who we hunt with to set me up with a contractor discount there although it still bit $79 out of my wallet!

Dad flew in early to tackle sanding when we could be legit about making noise. Unfortunately a dual failure of the alternators on the plane kept him in NJ much longer then expected so I started in without him around 5:15 PM.

After he arrived with Kathryn at 6 PM and I spent 35 minutes to find a parking spot we dove into the sanding. I set 10 PM as the cut off time for using power tools and shop vacs, completely ignoring co-op rules but with the knowledge from my neighbor Brian that it only sounded like I was vacuuming.

You may recall my description of mudding and how much "fun" it is. The fun of mud has now been surpassed by sanding seams. I literally thought I was on a TV set where it was warm but snowing. Our eyes burned multiple times from dust flying into them and choking/sneezing seemed like a normal epidemic. I thought about taking a picture of this, but feared I would damage the camera with all the dust.

By 11 PM, we had finished 90% of the bedroom and bedroom closet seams. Dad and Kathryn went to bed while I touched up some spots with mud and finished seams I hadn't gotten to in the closets til 1 AM.

Saturday morning's 8 AM trip to home depot sucked my wallet dry a bit more, but we also discovered Stew Leonards which was a grocery shopping experience similar to the Disney World ride It's A Small World.

With a ladder and food stuffed in the trunk we unloaded and finished up sanding by 1 PM. Jen joined us for some painting and by 3 PM the first coat of primer had been applied. With a quick hour topcoat time, another coat was applied within 40 minutes. This work goes real fast when you have 4 able hands to help.














Jen split at 5 and Dad started prepping dinner while Kathryn and I finished sanding the front closet, cleaning, etc.

By 8 PM, everything was done and we were all proud of what we had accomplished in just 26 hours and I went out to wash down the dust with a few beers.

It was nice to make progress again this weekend and its funny how paint on the walls makes all the difference, even if it is just primer.

I have to admit that I was getting discouraged this week, questioning why I was even doing this. I thought about the support from my close friends who have also spent many hours here with me as well as my crazy family who brings me tools and labor all the way from Michigan.

Maybe one of the best parts about the weekend was when David Cunningham stopped by. He's the architect who I paid to make my DOB drawings and stamp them. It was great how excited he was to see the progress and seemed happy at the attention I'm giving to the details such as the trim.

David also asked me if I had any regrets of doing it on my own. I paused for a second and then told him no. I've learned so much about construction as well as how much related services and materials cost. He made a good point saying that it makes you think a lot about when you design something and how sensitive a client may be to the cost associated with it.

But enough of the deep thoughts. It's been a few long and laborious weeks and weekends so I'm off to bed. Floor sanding takes place this week, but more on that later. Here's a parting shot of the near finished product.

Transporting Mud

Making the big push this week before this weekend's priming, I ran out of mud last night. Last time I carried it from Home Depot on 23rd street in plastic bags. Carrying a floppy 25 lbs bag of mud mix that far is never fun.

This time I was prepared and brought my hiking backpack to stick it all into. Although 50 lbs of mud on your back plus the pack weight isn't easy, it was certainly a lot better to transport this time.

I've got less then 24 hours so on with the work.