Super floored!

Today was a long back breaking knee grinding day laying down the kitchen floor...but it looks awesome.

The flooring took us a bit longer to complete then I expected. We had a bit of a learing curve with the manual nailers Dad got from a friend in Michigan. The short story was that you really have to hit these things a lot harder then you think.

Once we sorted that out, we got a system going where I was tapping in the boards and holding the nailer while Dad swung away to pound them in.



We finished things up around 4PM, 4 hours later then I expected, but that's OK. Both of us were extremely tired and sore from crawling around on our knees all day, so we decided to call it quits despite the large amount of mudding left.

So much was accomplished this weekend and I'm excited to finish up most of the mudding this week and hopefully begin priming half of the apartment this coming weekend.

Merry Christmas

The holiday glitz and glam of twinkling lights and Christmas carols quickly left with my tree on Saturday morning and construction dirt and grime started back up again with my Dad and brother in town.

Saturday was a busy day. I orchestrated the team and put Travis to work in starting the process of demolishing the bathroom.


Dad tackled finishing up framing the kitchen wall, primarily so we could level it out and place in boards to eventually mount cabinets to.


While this was all happening, I worked on mudding until we were ready to drywall the kitchen wall. Once it was done, it looked great and I was happy to say good riddance to the wall that has slowed this whole process down for the past couple of weeks.


The bathroom was a bit of a disaster with all the trash and other items in the tub we we could mud the walls in the living room and kitchen.


After a long day of work, Travis and I went out with Jen to grab some bar food and drinks...and pomegranetes.

Sunday was spent mudding. Dad and I tackled what we could but still didn't finish it up.

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off of work to lay the wood floor in the kitchen. I don't expect it to take too long, but we'll see.

"Trucking" Ahead

I can't believe how fast the past few weeks have gone by. A lot of work has been done with help from many hands, and trucks. I've been in the local ZipCar Toyota Tacoma all too much in the past 4 weeks. I think that I may be the only person renting it as the mirrors and seat position always seem adjusted perfect for me.

Yet, while the price of gas has gone down the cost to rent the ZipCar hasn't, nor has drywall and other construction materials. Yet, just about everything I need to finish the major construction is in the apartment now.

The plumbing was even finished on the 16th. The sink was successfully moved over 2.5' I know, it was probably dumb for me to pay that much to move the sink over but I really feel it is going to make a world of difference.


Although the plumbing is in, my permits haven't cleared yet compliments of someone else in my building who has a violation for construction without a permit...grrrr.

The lesson of the week has been to relate the finishes to the placement of the infrastructure. In my hurry to get the electrical done on the last visit from the Michigan crew I forgot about the mounting height of the outlet boxes in relation to the picture frame molding. Long story short, I ended up moving every electrical box down a few inches...which proved to be difficult for some.

Despite my earlier lack of attention to detail, everything else has been moving forward. The last of the drywall was hauled up on Wednesday night last week and I began to hang it last weekend. More was tackled this weekend and I'm really happy with how the room has been shaping up. I spent a fair amount of time last week running all the power and light switches to the island position.

Today was a bit frustrating as I tackled re-doing the 2x4 framing for the kitchen wall. The pipe re-routing threw a bit of a kink into the original location for 2x4's, but I think I worked out a decent solution. My internal interior designer started thinking about whether or not to extend the wall to the door or stop it at the drain pipe. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to extend it to the door but I'll sleep on it tonight.

Finally, I wired up everything for the kitchen - 2 counter outlets, 1 dishwasher whip (loose wires), 1 stove outlet and one whip for a range hood.

All this took much more time then expected so my ambitions to finish the ceiling were kill joyed.

Yet, I have started a bit of mudding and plan to do more this week in preparation for Dad and Co. arrival on Friday. The ideal plan would be to have everything mudded before they get here so we can sand, prime, install wood floor and demo the bathroom walls/floor.

More to come this week.

Last Lug

I am still amazed at the wonderful core of people I have helping me with this renovation. After last month's complaining, this month's drywall haul should be a bit more memorable...physically the next day at least.

I (hopefully) made the last run this evening to Home Depot with Jim and his big truck. This time, I ordered everything I need for the rest of the renovation ahead of time. When we showed up, it was all stacked up and ready for us to take it out the door. Thanks HD!

But the even larger thanks goes out to Jim, Joe, Rich, Anu, Jen, Roy and Dorn for sparing the time to physically kill themselves hauling drywall up five flights of stairs. You're all officially on my road crew. I'll let you know when we go on tour.

Jacked Up

A bit of radio silence for the past few weeks, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been progress. After a early AM trip to Brooklyn and a few weekends of work, the ceiling is insulated and the drywall is up. Leveling this ceiling in this area was a bit more tricky with the twisted beams. I tackled it as best I could but its far from perfect. Hopefully it won't be too noticeable.


Furring strips are up on the wall and I made the important decision today to glue/screw on 2x4's around the kitchen window. For some reason the plaster was directly applied to the brick on the West wall in the kitchen, unlike the living room. Of course this never posed a problem when the 2 rooms were separated by a wall, but now it is a different story. This should turn out to be OK.

Besides the basic labor of gluing and screwing there have been some other bits to figure out with flooring and plumbing. Moving the kitchen sink to the right has become more complicated then I first thought. All of the piping needs to be moved over quite significantly which involves shutting off the building water in addition to filings with the DOB. Making a long story short, I got three estimates that ranged from $1275 - $3300!!! Guess which one I went with...yes, the cheap one. Work starts on the 16th of Dec.

The flooring quest has really just been one to find a cheaper way to do the kitchen. After debating whether or not I could install flooring I just convinced myself I would learn how to do so. That's what the Internet is for, right? I got the goods and they are sitting in a warehouse in NJ waiting for me to pick it up. The plan is to install this when Dad is here just after Christmas.

I may appear a bit behind on schedule, but I'm around every weekend through the end of the month, so I feel I'm make some more progress rapidly. I expect to start mudding the ceiling this week and I've already scheduled another drywall haul for next week. Back to the grind after entertaining my friends from the UK who decided to sleep in this crazy mess for a week. Who knew these wonderful workhorses could double as dinner tables?


In the mean time, the Christmas tree will take up a bit of space to add to the holiday construction cheer.