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...???

The Joys of the Noise

After returning home from vacation, I received a letter from the building's managing agent that he had received complaints from people in the building I was making construction noise on weeknights and weekends. He kindly reminded me of our stupid construction hours (8 AM - 5 PM Mon-Fri, no work on any public holidays) and stated that further complaints would result in legal action.

I was pretty ticked off at first and rampant that there are so many people who aren't forward thinking about improving our property and their apartments. Here I am, a young 20 something guy trying to make a better place to live and eventually get a nice return on his investment and I've run into so much opposition, it's not even funny.

But then I realized I've gotten away with a lot of stuff the past year. I've sucked all I can out of the NYC Department of Sanitation, done construction on weekends for almost a year now, received my own building permits from the NYC Dept of Buildings and was able to convince the Board of Directors to let me do all the renovations to my apartment on my own (given that I follow regular working hours and raise my insurance....I did the latter). Not bad.

So, if my fellow neighbors can't get it and are whining about noise, then I'll abide by the rules...and ensure that I start any construction which may be noisy at 8 AM. Since my neighbor below me has been the real complainer, I'm sure he'll enjoy power saws, drilling, etc. at that hour.

Ah, the joy of living in NYC.

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.

Insurance and Stuff

Things have been moving forward slow and steady. My co-op board has been dragging its feet a bit, even though I'm on the board. I have been trying to get by with lower insurance requirements to save money and the hassle of dealing with State Farm any more then I have to. That didn't fly. Now, after a bit of waiting and money, I have $2M of personal liability insurance. Luckily, it only raised my insurance premium by $100/year. Not too shabby.

Recent vacations and a surge of work at the office have slowed me down a bit in getting this process done, but a few more signatures and I'm there. Hopefully we'll wrap it all up next week.

Busted - Part 5 - Details Complicate Things

Obstacles to overcome in obtaining building permits:
1) Workers Compensation Insurance
2) Contractor's License
3) Co-op insurance/owning shares in a corporation

These are the three things I need to figure out in order to get building permits. The Workers compensation is actually no big deal. I just need to get a form filled out and notarized and fax it into the Manhattan NY Workers' Compensation office. I should be getting that back in 5 days.

As for the contractor's license, I need to prove I'm doing the renovations to my own home to the Department of Buildings. This would be fine and dandy, except that technically I don't own a home. I own shares in a corporation, which are assigned to my apartment. Not one single expediter I've talked to so far knows how to deal with this either. I need to figure this out in order to get work permits.

The final piece of the puzzle is the insurance requirements my co-op has for contractors, which is a minimum of $2 million personal liability. This sounds like a lot, but it's easy for me to get $1 million with my home owners policy. Going to $2 million is a bit tricky, so I've requested that the Board of Directors accepts $1 million in this case as it seems fairly special. They approved all my renovations this week, given that I get the permits and have the proper insurance coverage.

All in all, I think I may be the first person in the building who has properly gone through this mess. It's clear that the Board and managing agent have little idea how to handle it. I hope we can all learn from this and make it easier for residents to do their own renovations in the future.

Busted - Part 4 - Expediters are robbers

Would you pay someone around $2000 to fill out some simple paperwork, stand in line, and get a few permits for you? If so, you believe in expediters. This concept/profession seems like a joke to me, similar to the state mandated law in NJ that you can't pump your own gas, only an attendant can.

Sure, I bet these guys know the building code in and out and have a good time bull crapping with their buddies they see everyday they go down to the Department of Buildings. I'm sure they do the job efficiently and timely. I'm sure they deserve $2000 for some work they do, but there's no way I'm going to pay that if I can avoid it.

I've started to gather the paperwork I need to fill out but it looks as if there may be a few complications. I will definitely need to hire an architect to stamp/draw the plans up. No biggie, as this shouldn't cost more then a couple hundred dollars.

I figure a day or two of my time off work will be well worth the $2000k I'll save as my piggy bank isn't endless.

Time to get back to the research.

Busted - Part 3

So it's been a few weeks and I've been travelling and too busy to actually do anything in the apartment....well, I couldn't if I wanted to, so no big deal.

The building's engineer has come to inspect the wall. The most annoying part was that it took him 10 seconds to say it wasn't a load bearing wall. Thanks for the known info.

To top it off though, he decided to also put in his report that my electrical work needed to be filed for as well. Isn't my managing agent supposed to be dotting the i's and crossing the t's on this? Especially after all the paperwork I had to give him for the electrical work. Grrrrrrr...

Now I need to get building permits for the wall, which I can feel in my bones that it's going to be nothing but a big pain in the butt and cost me more money. As well, I need to get board approval for all the other work I want to do, which is extensive and I hope that they don't freak out.

More in the near future.

Busted - Part 2

So the managing agent has finally contacted me as a result of the wall and ordered me to stop all work. This has me 1) freaked out a bit, as the co-op could kick me out if they wanted to, 2) ticked me off as all work I was planning to do with my Dad cannot be done and 3) delayed the whole project!

They have decided to send out an engineer to look at the wall, mainly to verify it's not a load bearing partition. A load of bah humbug really since I feel they don't trust my engineer and they are just looking to make money off of me.

In the meantime, I'm going to head off to Green Depot in Brooklyn to buy some denim insulation. It's a pretty cool product because it's natural, eco-friendly and is easy to handle. No glass fibers or masks need to be worn, so it's worth the little premium compared to fiberglass insulation to me. Plus I'm sure it will add value to the home and help keep my apartment cool in the summer and more moderate in the winter. I hope I can fit a few packs in the back of a Subaru!

Busted

Today I was busted by the super of my building. I had this one coming to me, but thought I could defy the laws of grumpy/overprotective new yorkers. Wrong!

I knew I wasn't supposed to knock down the wall without board permission. I also knew I wasn't supposed to do construction on the weekends. It turns out that a lot of dust fell into the steam pipe collar in my kitchen. When the heat kicked on recently, the expansion and contraction of the pipe resulted in dust falling into my neighbor's kitchen. I politely dealt with him about this and offered to seal it for him. I thought this was a normal occurrence in every NYC apartment, so I didn't think much of it.

Apparently, it kept falling for 1 week while I was gone at Greenbuild (kind of ironic how I'm at a conference about building for the future as my old building is falling apart in a sense). My neighbor continuously phoned the managing agent who then told the super to check out my apartment today, the day the electrical work started.

I assured the super that it was fine and that my structural engineer had looked at it, assuring me it wasn't a load bearing wall. He freaked out, telling me the ceiling would fall down on me. It's funny how much these guys don't know and they take care of your building!

Anyways, no consequences yet, but I plan on hearing soon about it.