Long time, no update.

Good grief. So where to begin? So much has happened!

OK.. let’s start with the good stuff. We met with our trusty architect, Craig, on Thursday, Jun 12. He stopped down after work with the first draft of the design which isn’t terribly different from the concept drawing that we gave him except for a few things:

- The master bath will move to the rear of the 3rd floor so that Bill the Plant has a window to look out of. He’s going to love the southern exposure back there.
- Spiral stairs to the roof are gone. Replaced with another switchback stair.
- The 3rd floor office will be made big enough to be a bedroom at some point, but for now will be just an office.
- The master bedroom front wall will be aligned with the rest of the house and have a juliet balcony instead of the original design, which stepped the top floor back a bit and allowed for a patio.

Another significant, and maybe a little sad, bit of news is that the two fireplaces will not make it into the final interior design.  One or both will find a new home in the rear yard, but the interior is too modern to really use them well. Less sad, but also gone, are the radiators. A plumber we found on craigslist came, removed them and all the pipe for free, and paid us handsomely for the radiators as well. A win-win, as they say, all around.

As soon as Craig is done with the updated floorplans we’ll post them for all to see!

In other news, we’ve closed on our home equity loan which was necessary to fund our folly into the world of renovations.

We also found out some interesting things about the water department issues we were having (see the earlier Love Notes From The Water Department post). Turns out that the violations existed for at least three months and, according to my plumber who knows “people,” the previous owners have known about this for over a year - despite the affidavit they signed indicating that they had no knowledge of any problems.  In any event, it was time to get this straightened out, so it’s getting fixed starting tomorrow.

So, right now the schedule looks to be such that we’ll have plans for at least the building envelope by sometime in early July.  We’ll go for the permit process on that portion of the work and, assuming no major hassles, we’ll be good to go for bidding out the major building demo, front wall, new rear and widening of the back of the house.  Hopefully big heavy hammers will be swinging by August.

So, next update expect to see at least building envelope drawings if not the whole set of floorplans.  Happy Summer!

Fan of Ceiling Fans

Check out the new fan we discovered while in Boston in April.  Click “Products we Like,” above.

Pennsylvania Bluestone

 Ok.. I’d never heard of it either.  Turns out that Pennsylvania is famous for more than just Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  We’re also famous for a lovely softish stone that:

• when polished, can take on the beauty of marble
• is soft enough to be decoratively carved
• is heavy enough to be used as a fireplace mantle (hint, hint)
• is porous enough to hold a light stain
• makes a mighty tough “flagstone” that can be used for paving

Turns out that 1234 Reed has not one but two, count ‘em, two fireplace-like objects made from Pennsylvania Bluestone.   According to local lore each area house with the “bluestone fireplace” has unique carvings in the face of the mantle.  The mantles were then gently stained by hand using different colors to highlight the carvings.  Later - probably several times in the mid and late 1900’s - the mantles were painted over with lead and oil based paints that destroyed the original stain, but protected the stone very nicely.  You can see the carvings, as well as the “before and after” as I chemically remove the three or four layers of paint and stain.

 

The original mantle assembly was put in place to surround the outlet of the original heat in the home - convective hot air.  There were never original “fireplaces.”  Instead there was a coal-fired furnace that heated air by convection which lofted up a brick and tin chase and naturally flowed out of a grate or outlet in the middle of the mantle.  Later, when the newfangled radiators were installed, the convective hot air grates were sealed off.

One more pic, below, of the whole kit-and-kaboodle mid-paint-removal.  Note the lovely wallpaper we found behind the mirror above the fireplace. 

 

Stuff we’ve seen and liked

** Note, I had to fix the photos in the post, so I bumped it up**

Here are some photos we took in a house at 6th and Bainbridge. This place has lots of features that we both loved at first sight. Top of the list, and perhaps most striking in the place, is the staircase. It was custom made for the house and assembled in place by the craftsperson. Although it’s large, it provides an enormous light shaft that illuminates the entire house.

  

At the top of the staircase is a small nearly all-glass penthouse that leads out onto a roof that’s made of a material that can be walked on, yet is not a “roof deck.” The downside of a traditional wood roof deck is that, when the roof below needs to be replaced, the deck needs to be removed. This style of roof deck - more like a roof patio - eliminates this problem.

 

The following photos are one flight down from the penthouse looking across the hall (left picture) into the master bath (right picture). Again, great light in this place. Note, too, the Brazilian Cherry floors. Very nice, though I tend to like a diagonal layout. 

 

Here’s an example of somthing they could have done better. In the kitchen I liked the choice of cabinets and the appliances were certainly high end consumer, but a white countertop would need to be cleaned every three minutes. The layout was odd too. It’s tough to see, but the kitchen is blocked off from the rest of the space by a wall unit that includes a small pantry and the fridge. I would have created a galley style kitchen, using the opposite side of the kitchen to replace the wall unit. I’d also have added an L-shaped counter on one side to provide a peninsula effect - instead of the less useful small island shown in the center.

 

 

Finally, we reference the SparkFire ribbon fireplace elsewhere in the blog.  This is the house where we first saw it.  Here’s how it looks in real life.

 

 

Safe and Sound

A real mixed blessing of life in South Philly is that your neighbors know all of your business.  If you have an interesting enough life to have things to hide, this is definitely not the place for you.  Fortunately, I don’t have that interesting a life.

Case in point:  There have apparently been rumors that there was a safe hidden in our new home.  How do I know?  Because a Philly cop stopped around a couple of days ago to help me “relocate” some cars that were blocking the truck that comes to pick up the dumster.  As he was doing his thing, he looked up at me and said, “Hey, you know there’s a safe hidden in that house?” 

“Oh?” said I.  “How do you know?”

“I had to come ’round a few times and get people out of the house who had broken in to steal the safe.  I can show you where it is if you want.”

So, apparently not only did the former residents have a safe, but enough people knew about it to cause a flurry of attempted robberies a few years back.  For the record, I did find the location of said former safe and- for anyone with bright ideas- it was removed before we settled on the house :) 

Okay, one more dumpster.

Whining is never pretty.  Especially not when it comes from a demo crew that just doesn’t feel like doing something, like bagging. 

Anyone who has ever worked with me knows at least these two things: I believe rule #1 is to make sure people have what they need to do their jobs - and my first obligation is to fight for those resources.  The other side, however, is that I don’t like to be told “I don’t feel like it” in any form.  Give me a solid business case and I love to be proven wrong - but don’t whine or tell me that you’re just not inclined to do something.  That definitely stretches my rubber parts.      

But this morning I had a strong wave of cheapness.  I just didn’t feel like having to pay another $180 for a dumpster drop, plus the cost of the landfill drop, so I asked the boys to bag the entire livingroom ceiling into a million little contractor bags that I could get rid of over several weeks through the regular trash.  In retrospect, what the heck was I thinking?

Jake whined.  Some blather about doing twice the work.  Blah blah blah.  The delivery was a bit unfinessed, but the point was spot on.  As you can see from this and other past posts, Jake and Ronnie are quite a team and have been tearing through the initial demolition of the place.  They know what they’re doing.  It would have been twice the work and I knew I was breaking my first rule.  So I gave in and ordered the dumpster.  

I came back from work this evening and had quite the nice surprise.  From the pictures you’ll see that Jake and Ronnie had pulled down the entire living room ceiling, the stairwell ceiling, the walls boundng the fireplace and the interior wall at the vestibule.  All in about five hours.  I was treated to an amazing pile of rubble with a nice, neat walkway cleared so that I could inspect it.  No doubt that rubble will all have been moved to the nice empty dumpster I’m having delivered for Thursday. 

Progress Continues

Lots of work was done by our trusty destructo-boys this fine week.  Check out the photos.  I did hear from Craig regarding the need to replace the pipes going out to the street.  He said to have them fixed and cap them off.  I checked phillyblog and found a few companies that seemed to have some positive feedback.  I’m in the process of getting quotes.

It’s Saturday morning at 7:45, we have no laundry done and I’m meeting Team Hammer and Chisel this morning at 8.  Hopefully we’ll have some significant progress today and tomorrow and I’ll have lots to tell you on tonights episde of how the blog turns.

Love notes from the water department

Hi everyone.  Ronnie and Jake were back again today for a round of demo on the 2nd floor.  Found some interesting stuff, including the risers for the original knob and tube wiring.  Very scary stuff when you think about it.  It’s amazing how many houses in Philadelphia have this old wiring - single strand copper or aluminum wire under a brittle dual layered insulation sheath that seems to be made of some kind of resin-coated fabric.  

In other news, I asked the guys to remove the plaster but leave the studs on the wall between the 2nd floor hallway and middle bedroom, opposite the staircase.  Our trusty architect-elect, Craig, indicated that he thought the wall might be bearing weight.  As it turns out, the header at the top of the studs didn’t even touch the joists above!  The wall itself was only held up by the sides.  Yeesh.  That’s also disturbing given that the header and beams bounding the stairwell are all single thickness.   I’ll draw some pictures later to illustrate what I mean.

Finally, you’ll notice the title of this post is “Love notes from the water department.”  Our friends at PWD dropped off a note sometime Monday letting us know that one of our drain pipes is leaking under the street in front of our home causing a little sink hole.  They turned off the water and said, in essence, fix it.  Once we have our proposal from Craig and can get him on board my first question to him is whether we should go ahead and fix this now or wait until it’s time to do the rest of the plumbing.

More work on Thursday.  Meanwhile, merry tuesday to all and to all a good night. 

Sunday’s progress

Ronnie was back for Day Three of the ongoing damage project.  He and the newest addition to our team, Jake (an actuarial sci student at Temple) pounded the daylights out of the 3rd floor.  Ronnie worked six hours, Jake five, and in that time they finished off the dumpster and got started on the 2nd floor front bedroom.

Not too bad for a few days work, I’d say.  Tomorrow we’ll have another dumpster delivered, Ronnie and Jake will be back Tuesday and Thursday, and hopefully we’ll have the ceilings across the second floor down and get started on pulling out that 2nd floor bathroom… although, as Ronnie so delicately put it today, “we should leave the toilet so that we have somewhere to piss.”

Ahh, construction.

First Friday and Saturday

Hi Again.

Wasting no time, I arranged for a dumpster permit before we settled, and applied online for a demolition permit just after settlement.  In Philadelphia, a demo permit is available on the web for a quick $29.  We had it in minutes.

The dumpster arrived right on time at 9am on Friday, 4/4.  We decided to start on the third floor and work our way down.  Dave, our friend Rob and I spent the day tearing out walls.  Rob brought along his Ryobi Reciprocating Saw, which - as they say - made hard things very easy.  We filled about 25% of the dumpster.  It was fun tearing stuff out, but exhausting carrying all that crap down to the dumpster.

That evening I put a note on craigslist for some help and had 25 responses by the next morning.  I brought in two nice guys - Ronnie and Carlos - for the day and they spent Saturday the 5th pounding away at the tearing out of walls and ceiling.  By the end of the day the dumpster was at 90%.  Check out the damage that was done by the end of day two.

Moral of the story - posting on craigslist: free.  two guys for 6 hours: $120 + lunch.  Not having to haul stuff down three flights of stairs ourselves: Priceless.