cinder block wall extravaganza!

so, there was a portion of our back yard fence that was a couple of pieces of plywood nailed together. rotten plywood. it fell down a couple of weeks ago, and after a half-hearted attempt at trying to prop it back up, thabo tore the rest of it out (and threw his back out). we decided to cinder block the gap, since the rest of the wall is cinder block.

so, cindy and i googled 'how to lay cinder block,' and two days later, this is what we got. it's a wall, it's not straight, but it's better than rotten wood. i like to think it has character.

he came from outer space...

more work on the brick wall.

last week (i think?) we did this work to that brick wall from the earlier post. we had to patch a big chunk of it that had been badly patched previously, because the bricks were literally falling out of the wall.

cindy and i bought bricks and mortar and mortar dye, and tried our hand at laying brick and regrouting the wall. it went pretty well, all things told. a lot of work, though. thabo spent an afternoon scrubbing the wall down with a cleanser, and it's looking pretty good.

these are the people we live with.

exposing a brick wall in the kitchen.

this past saturday, we cleaned out what was melissa and thabo's office/closet, and started the process of converting it to the kitchen. first things first, we dug into the plaster in front of the chimney, in the hopes that it was in good enough shape to expose it. it was....basically. you can see from the pics that at one point the center of the chimney was torn up and then badly patched. but, we think we can make it look pretty nice by the time we're done. as i write this, thabo is working on chiseling out the mortar and cement that we didn't finish up. he told me his wrists are pretty sore... next step is to clean off the brick as much as possible, then regrout, then seal the whole thing so it doesn't rain dirt on the kitchen counter. onward!

wash your face!

so, here's what cindy looks like after tearing down the hallway ceiling. at least she's still smiling...

happy halloween!

my precioussss....

cindy found these treasures behind the hall paneling we pulled down. that dollar bill must have shrunk from being in the wall for so many years. or else it's just because people were smaller back then (clinically proven fact).

anybody know if a leon roberts from 1976 is worth any money?

taking down ugly hall paneling.

demolition time...a wall is gone.

in the duplex apartment, on the bottom floor, the space is separated by a couple of walls, a closet, and a small hallway area. all of that is gone now, and our kitchen looks kind of like an unfinished hunting cabin at the moment. lots of plaster dust and trash bags full of debris. the bottom picture is melissa smiling through the pain of stepping on a nail.

the finished tread edges. attached.

refinishing pieces of the stairs; a collage.

this is a bunch of pics of me working on the edges of the stair treads. after we took them off, we used a chemical stripper to take off a few layers of paint, then a palm sander to take off the rest. then a couple of layers of stain to match the treads. the chemical stripper ate through a pair of gloves and ruined a couple of scrapers, but that just proves it works.

onward, hallway!

back to work!!! it seems that our various breaks, slacking, travelling, and concentrating on other things is over, or at least we're focusing back on the house again. last week we had a planning meeting at the kitchen table, and came up with a rough-ish plan for work on the duplex apartment. that's the one we live in together. so yes, we'll be renovating it while we live there. jealous?

this weekend, we tackled the hallway again. thabo did some drywall and trim work, and the trim painting continued in the front foyer area. also worked on stripping some pieces of the stair treads that fit around the bannister spindles. i'll post a photo montage of that whole process in a few days for a start-to-finish look at it.

we've also got a few broken spindles in the bannister. luckily, thabo's grandfather is a woodworker, so we're hoping to ask him to make a few replacements for us. i think that would add some good karma to this house, to have as much family input and ancient wisdom in the work as possible.

tapas and friends...

lull in the action, recap on flood

not much has happened since the last post. we've all taken a much needed break to focus on other parts of our lives, and to just rest a minute and not do house work. it's been really nice not to come home and change into work clothes and start on a house project right away.

oh, there was a small disaster; we had a night of really heavy rain a few weeks ago that flooded subways and a lot of basements. we checked our basement a few days later (why a few days later? umm....), and it was dry. THEN, a few weeks later, we realized a lot of our boxed belongings that were on the basement floor had wet and moldy bottoms. so, evidently our basement did flood, then drained, and we let it sit there and get good and moldy. ruined some books and (worse) personal photos. had to spend a night cleaning that up and trying to salvage photos. very depressing.

the plan is to continue working and finishing up the hallway, then we'll tackle the bottom two floors. but first, we have to figure out what we're going to do down there...

1,000 visits!

a quick note to say thanks for reading our blog! we've just reached 1,000 hits, which means at least a few of you are checking the site now and then. thanks for being interested in our project!

fourth floor rented, working on the hallway.

first things first, i'm happy to report that cindy has found our second tenant. we are now officially a full household, which is great. we're pretty darn close to our goal/timeline for finishing up the two upstairs apartments and getting them rented out, and i think we're all glad for that.

lately we've been focusing attention on the hallway. there's a bit of drywall work to be done, and we're continuing to work at putting the staircase back together and shoring it up a bit more. and we've started painting it, and it's been nice to see quick results. this weekend mike and sarin helped us put the first coat on the bannister and risers and hallway trim, even though it was ridiculously humid.

some neighbors on our block had a fundraiser for the american cancer society this weekend; the third annual event. it was pretty neat to see people from the block putting so much time and effort into a good cause. lots of positive vibes, which was really nice.

fourth floor apt. ready to rent!

here's the post cindy put on craigslist today; another milestone of sorts in this adventure:

$1400 1 bedroom, available Immediately, South Slope

---

· 500 square feet
· large eat-in kitchen with tin ceiling
· Great open feel, good light, sky light in middle of apartment
· Beautiful hard wood floors
· freshly painted
· ½ block from Prospect Ave stop on the R train
· Close to Park Slope restaurants & shops
· 20 min walk to Prospect Park
· Short term lease (6-9months)
· $1400 per month includes heat and water (gas and electricity are separate)
· Sorry no pets or smoking inside
· Please bring references & pay stubs

Email for an appointment. Monday 3pm-8pm, Tuesday 2pm-8pm
No brokers please.

sanding down the fourth floor.

this is a bit late, but i thought it would still be fun to post; these pics are from a few weeks ago when we sanded down the fourth floor, in preparation for staining them. everybody got a turn at the sander, and then we did a lot of edge sanding too. dirty work, but i think we're all pretty happy with the results. the finished pine floors (see two posts down) have a lot of character and give the space some personality. definately worth the effort.