Patching some floors

Reid has spent a few hours over the past few weeks patching some spots in the floor that weren't looking too hot. The third floor front room (to become the master bedroom) had been damaged by fire and then subsequent water damage. You can see the waves in the original floorboards. Most of the flooring is still in decent shape. Reid just had to replace a few boards that were particularly damaged. When we purchased the property, these original floors were covered over with linoleum. I can live with the wavy floors, as long as they sand down and maintain the patina of time. The waves tell a good story.
The head of the building department also tells a good story about this space. Apparently, this space used to house quite the prostitution ring a little over a decade ago. I'm glad we got rid of the linoleum and carpet.

1700 Vine has a new facade

The 2nd and 3rd floor windows are in and have really changed the way our building looks from Vine street.

The garage is nearly finished

Building the garage has turned out to be a green project. We reused the brick that we salvaged from the demolition of the condemned 1890s addition and reused the stone roof caps that we salvaged from the Hamer Street building when the roof was replaced/rebuilt 4 years ago.

 This is where these bricks started:





Thanks Andy & Ryan for helping us clean the brick!



And with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears we cleaned and stacked approximately 6 pallets of old brick.

New old windows from the interior view

The windows are not only beautiful from the exterior. The molding surrounding the second floor windows is complete, electric boxes for sconces between the windows are in place, and the plaster has been patched and primed. This one finished wall is a glimpse of the whole finished project. It's becoming easier to believe that this will be my living room in the relatively near future.

New Old Windows

In April 2011, I posted the schematic showing what our old (1870s), weathered, rotted windows would be transformed into by Max Altman of De Timmerman....here is that schematic.

 And here is the before and after transformation....

The windows are so grand at 8' tall and surrounded with molding. We couldn't have gotten this kind of detail with replacement windows. The blue trim in the picture below is the exterior rounded molding. The 2nd floor windows were rebuilt using both new lumber and wood from our original 1870s windows. 

 

The third floor windows will be going in today and next week. The third floor windows had to be built from scratch as the originals were lost to a fire that occurred before we acquired the property.
I am just amazed at what these windows do to the facade of the building! What a transformation...

Garage doors are in

The deck is looking good

The deck above the new addition has its bones in place. Unfortunately, we have to leave it without the finished trex decking in place, a necessary cost-cutting measure so that we could complete the work within budget. Since Reid & I laid the trex on the roof deck, we feel confident we'll be able to finish this deck out ourselves when we've saved up a bit more money.

Concrete steps

The concrete steps leading into the basement of our back building are in!

The start of the basement stair

Into an eventual wine cellar (I hope)!

Parapet wall going up

Parapet for the deck is shaping up

Now there's a structure to step onto when I open the door from the kitchen on the 2nd floor of 1700 Vine St! When all is said & done, this will have a roof deck & be immediately accessible from my kitchen.

The new addition

The new addition between the two buildings is really taking shape! This will hold a new staircase for the Hamer St building, storage, house 2 rain water retention tanks and enable us to interface with our green space. Is a roof deck on top of thus structure.

Another wall's foundation poured

The garage is roofed

Roof is framed out on the garage

Many trucks = lots happening!

Two crews are working today, masonry & carpentry.

Framing out the garage

South wall is going up

This will end up about 3' above the 2nd floor so that it acts as a railing on the new deck.