Stitched Up

I called in sick yesterday to work on the bathroom drywall and tileboard to get this thing moving. It was all going great until I nearly cut my thumb off.

It was pure stupidity on my part. I didn't have a carbon blade to properly cut the tileboard so I was using a Stanley knife which did the trick, but required a lot of force. It was also just after 5 PM (yeah, I broke the construction hour rules again) and I was fairly tired and not wearing gloves.

Idiot!

With one strong stroke and a small slip the Stanley knife went right across the T-square and across my thumb on a diagonal. I immediately jumped up for t-shirt to compress it and ran it under water. I called my neighbor to help me bandage it up and after a bit of inspection figured it might be a good idea to head to the ER, which is luckily a 10 minute walk away. Sitting in a chair for nearly 4 hours in
ER is an experience I don't want to relive, especially since (a) I was in 'Fast Track' and (b) the mental patient ward was right next to my waiting area. So I saw enough weird stuff for one day.


The damage added up to 6 stitches in my thumb and a sliced finger nail. It hasn't been a good few months for my left hand after whamming my other finger with a hammer when installing the wood floor.


Yet, almost all the drywall and tileboard is up. Fair trade...???

Bombing the Bathroom

It's been a long week and as you can tell I've been pretty busy. The bathroom has been the focus this week since it's really all that is left in the major construction picture.

So, after cleaning up the mess from the weekend Monday and Tuesday, I dug into the bathroom on Wednesday night. I quickly found that Travis's work over the holidays eased the process since most of what was left was plaster on lath and some tile on tileboard.

The shower wall proved to be the most difficult as the tile was on a greenboard and cementboard in some places.

Friday night I finished up the demo and Saturday was spent bagging what was left up and working on electrical and insulation. Sunday was more electrical which resulted in two trips to Home Depot which took forever compliments of slow work on the A train.

I woke up early today to tidy things up and get ready for Roy to help me hand the ceiling drywall. It took us 2 hours to cut the drywall and hang it with the main challenge being working in such a small space with one person on a ladder in the bath tub, another on a sawhorse and attempting to vault it up around corners and over the steam pipe.

After a bit of struggling, we got it all into place and it feels good to have gone from demo to insulated, re-wired with a ceiling in less then a week.

Still, there is a lot of work to do so I can get a sink back and not have to take baths (I've never taken so many baths in my life as I have this week!). It looks like the plumbing for the bath tub will need to be replaced and the subfloor has holes and oddities around the edges.



I have a few contractors coming this week to look at these elements and give their opinion.

In the meantime, I'll haul the bombed out debris to the curb each night this week and shop for tiles.

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.

Flat and Flipped

Last night a wonderful crew came together again for hauling up 10 sheets of ceiling drywall.

While the weather was cold, the pizza was warm and the beer was....well, beer. For the first time ever, the gang complained that I didn't buy enough drywall! Wow! I'll remember that next time I do this in 20 degree weather!

Thanks again to Dave, Joe C, Jen, Adam, Brian S, Rich F, Jim, and Bryant.

Mudding Still....

It's been a while since I've posted a proper blog entry, but unfortunately there isn't too much to write about. I made a push a few weekends ago to get this mudding done and was quite successful at getting the two base coats on almost everything. Yet, summer has been calling still and my August and early September have been filled with long weekends away sailing, the New Jersey shore and Michigan. Top that off with a large explosion of business at the office and I've been screwed out of doing much work at home rolling in around 9 PM. Remember, each batch of this mud takes 1 hour or apply!

Yet, there have been many accomplishments. All the plaster is off of the brick around the door and has been scrubbed free of dusty plaster. The drywall in the foyer in the few spots it was missing is up. Lots of documentation, such as stud locations, has occured as well as a rigorous pricing exercise for the kitchen (still going though). Again, thanks to the friends who helped with these little tasks. You know who you are.

With that said, I made another small push again this weekend and will do so again in 2 weekends to finish up mudding. Switching over to the lightweight mud wich is meant for sanding, I had to slightly re-learn my technique. The goal with this coat is to feather out the edge so it appears smooth and there aren't any mud 'bumps' visible on the walls. I think I'm doing OK, but the true test will be when the paint goes on.

The adventure of the weekend was putting the drywall onto the plaster in the closets. Rather then chip all of this off the brick wall (adjoining with the hallway) or skim coat over it, the executive decision was made to mount the drywall on top of the plaster on brick. Although I lose 1/2" by doing this it will make the wall texture consistent...and it saves me the time of learning how to skim coat, etc. Using trusty PL200 construction glue and a makeshift mounting system the drywall went up and is staying in place and should be stuck there tomorrow.

Mudding

With all of the drywall up on the wooden framing and the ceiling in place, it's been a big focus on the little things and mudding.

Now I know what you're thinking, mud sounds like a lot of fun. Somewhat wet, somewhat dense, cold and mushy. It even is great for the skin (facials anyone?).

Unfortunately, drywall mud is just about the exact opposite. The good stuff, known as "hot mud", requires mixing instead of just scooping it out of a bucket and slapping it on the wall. In addition to that, it has a setting time which exponentially decreases with each degree of temperature increase. Last but not least, there's a technique to all of this (especially the corners) which I'm trying to learn fast. All in all, this part is a bit more difficult and much more time consuming then I thought originally. The mud sets quicker due to the summer heat, the corners are difficult (I don't want to even talk about the first one), each batch of mud takes me an hour to apply and it's really a one man job since I only have one set of tools and space to work, mixing mud, etc. is so time consuming.

But there is a point to the mud - it hides the screws and seams making a smooth surface. There's an art to it though as you need to build up the layers so that the eye is deceived when everything is painted.

So far, I've spent a lot of solo hours moving forward with the mud and assigning little tasks to people who want to help. Each seam requires 2 coats of a denser mud then 1 coat of a lightweight mud. When that's done, everything needs to be sanded and then primed with paint.

Although the progress pics aren't anything to write home about, here's one of the bedroom. Note, the floors are clean and clear...but that's just a temporary point of beauty so enjoy it.

Finishing the Drywall

With a lot of progress made last weekend, my Dad got the itch and headed out from Michigan again to finish up the drywalling process and hopefully to begin putting mud on the walls. Somehow, he not only convinced my Uncle to come again but also my aunt. Turns out she's never flown before and never been to NYC as well, but she's braving it out to help my get this apartment done.

I grabbed the ZipCar Friday night and headed out to Caldwell County Airport (in NJ). I've got the pickup down to a science in a one hour time frame. We dug into the drywall Friday night and put up a fair amount that was remaining in the bedroom.

Saturday morning was more of the same, but I had to zip off to Brooklyn for a softball game, which I felt fairly guilty about. In the meantime, the rest of the gang made a trip to Home Depot on 23rd St. I can only imagine the look on my Uncle's and Aunt's face when they were walking into a Home Depot in the middle of NYC. After my 5 hours of absence, I returned to find most of the drywalling done and a fairly tired crew. I re-energized spirits a bit and then we went to grab dinner.

Sunday morning we focused on finishing the foyer ceiling which was more difficult then we all expected, but furring strips came to the rescue. I got a quick mudding and taping lesson from Uncle Steve and Aunt Sandy and will be doing the rest on my own (yikes!).

After dropping them back at the airport, I finished up drywalling the front closet.

So, a fairly productive weekend and a room and closets with walls again. Yeah!

Softball or Drywall? Pick your evil

With the cancellation of Saturday's softball game, I took advantage of getting a few friends together to start drywalling the bedroom. With the sheets hauled up and the insulation in most of the walls, we started in.

Of the four of us, only 2 had real construction experience, but helpful hands are always willing to learn.After a delayed start we tackled those evil 24 sheets that made us sweat. Since our experience was different, it took some time for everyone to figure out who has what skills, we got things underway.

As well, I didn't have all the furring strips put on the studs which slowed things down a bit. We soon got in to the groove and Anu and I formed team A while Jen and Brian formed team B. Here's team A hard at work.

After about 5 hours of hard work, we called it a day and had a few beers. Anu is now a drywall measuring/cutting expert, Jen can handle a screw gun without breaking a nail, Brian likes drywall glue and I have a bedroom with walls...well, 2-2/3 out of 4 at least.

Up the stairs....

I'm not sure what happened when I moved to New York City, but somehow I've found an amazing and crazy group of friends who have agreed to help me in just about any situation.

Tonight I was able to band together 7 able volunteers to help me haul up 24 sheets of 1/2" drywall 5 flights of stairs to my apartment. Can you believe it?! All I had to get them was beer and pizza. Wow!

There's not much else to say except thanks for sacrificing a good chunk of your night and sweating your butts off in the humid summer heat. Roy, Maite, Rachel, Rich, Dave, Anu, Brian and the trusty driver Jim are great.

2 Milestones in 2 Days

With such a big project on my hands, it's hard to see the little changes and bits of work completed as progress. There have been many of those throughout the project thus far, but as of today there are two big milestones that are complete.

1) The bedroom and closet ceilings are drywalled!
2) I've taken all the plaster out to the curb! Complete in just over 2 months! Remember?

Can you believe it? I barely can! We worked hard this weekend to get it done though. I was up til 2:30 AM on Friday night getting things ready to go and ensuring that the AC units were in the windows since the weather report called for a hot 95 degree weekend.

At 2 AM I realized that I didn't have enough insulation to get the job done. After 3.5 hours of sleep, I hopped in a Zipcar over to Brooklyn to get more of the recycled denim insulation. It's 3 times the price of regular insulation, but to me it's worth the extra costs since it's a green product and there is no dealing with fibers all over your skin or worry about breathing them. After unloading, returning the car and bringing it up to the apartment, it was time to get my Dad, Kathryn (his lady) and my Uncle Steve from the airport in NJ. They got in just after 9 and we made a 30 minute Home Depot stop for supplies. $147 later and a 30 minute car ride and we were ready to rock.

After assessing the situation and a sandwich, we started in. Kathryn and I busted out the insulation while my Dad and Uncle started hanging drywall. We had too many people as it was, but it was nice to have a bit of a utility role to hand up tools, etc.

I was a bit intimidated by the drywall hanging, but not anymore. With the drywall jack, things were fairly simple. I'm confident I can probably even finish up the foyer on my own (although I won't...but I could if I needed to). First you level/shim, measure and cut the drywall, put it on the jack and test fit, glue, raise and screw. Easy, right? Here's a sequence of a sheet going up.

We worked through til 10:30 PM, finishing the bedroom, insulating everything and wired and partially pulled the remainder of the cable. We called it a night and sat on the roof with a few cold drinks, gazing at the moon and bridge. For the first time in months, there was an actual bed in the bedroom.

Sunday was a bit more of the same, but we were all moving a bit slower and it was harder to work in the tighter spaces of the closet. There was a bit of reinforcing of the framing too as well as some electrical wiring for the j-box in the foyer.

I can't thank my Uncle enough for braving the trip out to NYC. He's not a big city person and I know he stepped outside his comfort zone a bit. I hope it wasn't too bad for him and that maybe next time I can show him a few of the sights of the city.

4 is the Magic Number...sorry 3

Tonight I went and picked up the ceiling drywall I'll need for this weekend's activities. Rachel and Jim were able to sacrifice some of their evening and Jim's truck was invaluable as we easily laid in 10 sheets of 5/8" fire rated drywall. I had heard rumors that this stuff was heavy and the rumors quickly became the truth.

Getting up to Home Depot in Yonkers and back was no big deal. It soon became apparent that unloading this stuff was not going to be easy. While Jim watched the truck, we attempted to put a piece in the elevator. No luck. We backed out and went to plan B - through the courtyard and up the stairs. To let Jim go, we unloaded the 10 sheets and set them down in the courtyard. My neighbors, Maite and Brian, we're kind enough to agree to help me unload. Poor suckers.

The first sheet was a bit difficult. We could easily take it up the stairs and partially into the hallway, but then getting it around the next corner/over the railing was a bit difficult. By the third sheet, we had a system down. One person on the door, 3 people on the sheet going up the first set of stairs. The middle man scurried ahead and became the receiver as we flipped it over the railing. The then empty handed opened the door and became the new center person.

By the time we had this figured out, it was about 6 minutes per sheet. 4 was the magic number for the job. It took us a while to get it going smoothly though and we all needed a few drink breaks. In about an hour and 10 minutes, it was all done.

I can't thank my friends enough for all their help. This really saved me an invaluable amount of time this weekend when the labor and expertise will be here.

Sorry, on picks for this one...maybe next time as I'll have to do it again soon.