weekend in pictures

In my last post I mentioned Ben and I have parted ways- temporarily of course! He spent the weekend upstate, working on the house and trying to get a few more things done before he started his new job today and I split my weekend between Manhattan for my sister-in-laws fabulous bachelorette bash and Connecticut for the holiday. I've been surrounded by fun people and lots of scheduled events (not to mention I got temporary custody of the dog), but I was afraid Ben would be lonely in Saratoga (and in the house) by himself. But luckily his parents were kind enough to keep him company for much of the weekend- and I've heard they were a huge help with the house as well!

I was afraid much of the progress would go undocumented- even though I have continuously asked Ben to take pictures and write everything down. I even went as far to ask for emailed updates.. no luck. And while I haven't gotten a definite answer as to whether or not he's kept track of it all, at least I know my mother-in-law did. And yesterday she sent me lots of pictures to prove it.

So here is the weekend update- thanks to Cathy!

The Truck
Here's the back story: When Ben was offered his job he was told he'd have to buy a truck. We knew we were going to have to buy a second car, but we were hoping to hold out as long as possible.. the more money we spent elsewhere the less we knew we could spend on the house. Naturally that plan lasted about 20 minutes. And as soon as he was given the news he ran into the kitchen with a smirk on his face, told me he didn't have a choice (I was hoping we could get a station wagon) and then he basically blurted out.. "this is like my dream job!" Meanwhile I was thinking.. in a matter of minutes I lost any chance I had of buying a new sofa and then I started picturing myself going into town on a Saturday night for a nice dinner.. in a pick up. Oh well.. lots of new things to adjust to!

So Ben called his uncle, Eric Nathan- an auctioneer in Manchester, Vermont, and asked if he could help him find a truck. In days, he delivered and suddenly Ben was the proud owner of a very real F150.

On Saturday Ben and his parents went to pick it up..
I'm pretty sure the first stop with the truck was Home Depot.. but I can't be sure. I guess I'll have to get used to this scene in our driveway..

The Yard
This has become a very familiar theme on our blog..
I know you're all thinking "enough with the trees!", but the yard was really a mess and trees had to be cut down.
Many of the trees were way too close to the house and not in very good shape. Meaning any bad wind storm and they'd pretty much be in our Living Room.
They also cleared more from the street end.
Much of the yard on that half of the property was so heavily shaded by overgrown trees that no grass was able to grow and the lawn was really just dirt and mud.
The yard of brush Ben has been complaining about..
He said we have to hire someone with a chipper. I say let's call the neighbors and ask if they need any mulch. If you have your own chipper- it's all yours!

The Sink
This back story is actually pretty short: The kitchen sink was disgusting when we closed on the house- it was old, dirty, scummy.. you name it. The truth is, I didn't want to touch it- especially after working so hard on the bathroom. I just couldn't stomach scrubbing the kitchen sink on the same visit. Not to mention we were kind of up in the air as to when we were going to get rid of the base cabinets in there and if we would even really need a "faux" kitchen before our new cabinets and appliances were installed. And the dirty kitchen sink became a place to clean paint brushes, throw a garbage bag and fill the dogs water bowl.. but that was it.

Once Ben's job was set and it looked like he'd be moving up on his own the existing kitchen kind of had to function. I sent him up with our microwave, a coffee maker and he decided he'd start using the toaster oven. At that point using the sink became more and more of a necessity and that's where my mother-in-law stepped up and saved me from the dreaded kitchen sink!
It's as good as new! Maybe we should skip on buying a new one and save a few pennies!
The Hearth
While those were the only two projects Ben really shared with me, I can tell lots more was accomplished through Cathy's pictures.. and the hearth was included.

The fireplace needs a little work, but as always.. I have big plans for it! We'll definitely paint it, we're going to switch it back to the original wood burning (the previous owners changed it to gas), and we may even replace the mantle. But luckily we never really had to do much to the original marble tiled hearth... except clean it, of course. And it looks like that was taken care of while I was off getting manicures with the bridesmaids!

Motherly Touches
When I was growing up, whenever I left for overnight camp or even college, my mom always made my bed before she dropped me off. It's something about a mother leaving a child behind at a new place or in a new stage at life.. it's almost like they want them to start off on the right foot or they want the child to have the comfort of sleeping in a bed their mother made. I'm guessing Cathy skipped on that part because I had made the bed before we left Saratoga last weekend, but she didn't skimp on anything else! A couple other surprises in her catalog of photos..

Temporary shades in the bedrooms..
Should I be offended she didn't like my beach towel shades duct taped to the window frame?

Our first mum plants..
I know these definitely weren't Ben's doing!

Housewarming basket..
As if cleaning wasn't enough of a gift!

I'm sorry I wasn't able to share in the work, but clearly the house was in good hands. Maybe they can take the ride up next weekend too?!?! Thanks to all of the little elves who worked very hard and didn't get much of a relaxing weekend of their own. xo

prepping the kitchen

I'm in the process of designing the kitchen (more to come later), but in the meantime some adjustments had to be made in the space in order for my design to work. The biggest issue? The extra door into the bedroom (and right smack in the middle of my "U" shaped design).

Below is a rough floor plan of the house so you can see what I'm talking about..

(not to scale)

The bedroom to the top right has two door openings, one coming through the hall and one through the kitchen. In an effort to make both rooms more useable (at the moment the bedroom has very few furniture walls because of the doors and windows), we knew we needed to close off the extra doorway.

You can kind of see the actual door orientation through the picture below..
On Saturday Ben started hacking away at the existing door frame. He didn't get very far in terms of filling in the wall and installing studs- by the time the frame was out we took a dinner break. But he says the few more steps he needs to take aren't too involved- he keeps saying he knows what he's doing..
Apparently there was also a panel on the kitchen wall I had never really noticed before. You can see all of the left over adhesive on the wall.

I hope Ben will take pictures as he continues to work on it.

On Saturday Ben will officially become a Saratoga resident. He's starting a new job next week and I, unfortunately, am going to be living the life of a single New Yorker until all of my business is wrapped up. I'll join him here and there, as I can, and he'll be back in the Manhattan area most weekends. But until our boxes are packed and the truck arrives, I'll be sleeping on a bed in a very well furnished apartment, eating dinner made out of our All Clad pots and pans and he will be resting on an air mattress, watching tv on the floor and eating cheap take out most nights. And did I mention doing hard labor after work to finish up the house before I arrive?

landscaping continued

Over the weekend Ben took just a few minutes to work on the yard, but in that time he really did make some more huge improvements.

From Bensonhurst, the front of the house was so overgrown that you were barely even able to see a hint of a house. Like I mentioned originally in my previous landscaping post, once the spring comes we'll really work on the yard, figure out what we want to plant and where we want to plant it, but for the time being we're really just trying to clean up what is already existing. So here goes..

no sign of the house behind that mess

a good perspective- the Division Street side of the house is open while the Bensonhurst side is all closed in

Ben starting to make some progress

huge difference

you can actually see the street from the house now

Ben mentioned yesterday that while he's up there this weekend he might take some of the smaller trees down too. Not sure if it's because he wants another chance to use his chainsaw or if he really thinks we need to clear out more. Either way, I'm all for it- the more light the better!

finished floors!

What a difference the floors make..

Ben and I were in Saratoga over the weekend (very briefly) and we got to experience actually walking on the floors!
Remember we spent our last visit only walking on paper..

A little bit on the process before I jump into the big reveal..

You can read about the floor removal here, but removing the existing vinyl was just the beginning of the process.

Once we picked a finish.. Minwax's Jacobean
Found a floor guy.. we got two quotes
Negotiated with him a little.. decided it was less expensive to replace the floors in the back of the house instead of removing the vinyl floor
And set the finishing dates.. we requested to be able to get in during the weekend
It was out of our hands.

The guys began working on a Friday and we originally hoped we would be able to get in the following Friday. As is typical for most construction and finishing projects, they were a little delayed (and I didn't want to risk ruining them) so we didn't actually get into the house until Saturday morning.

The refinisher sent a round of pictures to Ben after a few days of sanding and installing, giving us a sneak peak of what was to come..
Kitchen
One of the original floors in the house, this area was covered with two layers of vinyl flooring. But luckily the vinyl came up easily when Ben removed it.

before sanding began

after sanding

Living Room
Remember the money saving tip we discovered once the carpet was pulled up? The previous owners had the floors refinished AROUND an existing area rug.

sanding around the perimeter

after sanding

Office, Bedroom & Back Hall
As I mentioned above it turned out to be more cost efficient to install a new hardwood floor over the existing vinyl than removing the vinyl all together.

new floor installed in the office

Huge improvement already, but here are some issues we ran into (and some compromises we had to make).

1. Installing new hardwood in the back of the house meant that the floor level would be higher than the front of the house. In order to create a smooth transition a saddle had to be installed. While a break in the floor and a saddle isn't always the most attractive solution, a french door that we close often, hides it from view.

2. When the floor was originally installed they used a different species of wood in almost all of the rooms- meaning the floors finished differently in every area. We contributed to the craziness of it all by installing oak in the back of the house (it's turned out to be much grainier than the pine that was used in the Living Room).

oak

pine

This turned out to work because the living areas (ie kitchen and living room) are very separate from the sleeping areas, and the different woods still work together because they are the same finish.

3. As mentioned during the garbage removal post the house is overwhelmed by radiators and installing new hardwood underneath them is not always possible. Because capping the radiators was not an option (too much $$), the wood finishers had hoped that they could lift them in some (or all) of the rooms. Unfortunately they weren't able to lift every radiator and instead had to cut out around them. Not ideal, but the truth is, you can't even tell unless you're lying on the ground staring at the foot of the radiator- and most of us don't generally have time for that.

4. The finish we picked was dark. If you look at the Minwax chart its the last brown before ebony, so I expected the floors to be really rich in color. I knew I wanted to go dark originally because the existing floor stain (as much of the other woods in the house) looked very orange to me. I knew that even if the stain was sanded out, the orange tint would remain. I figured the darker we went the less the orange would show- and I was right.. about both. The floors didn't come out as dark as I had expected (again with the different wood species and how they react to the stain), and there was a hint of orange. But luckily with the stain I picked, the orange is less of an issue- it would have driven me crazy if we went any lighter than we did!

I think considering this was the first big "investment" we made on the house, we did pretty well. But you can be the judge..
Kitchen & Mudroom

kitchen

This is Ben's favorite floor in the house.. too bad it will be covered with base cabinets shortly. Notice the guys were nice enough to unstick the kitchen window that was painted shut.. shocker!

mudroom

This was the hardest floor to do- it was covered in moldy/wet carpet. As you can see the floor was badly stained and the guys couldn't properly sand it because of the tightness of the space. Not ideal, but definitely not something to get upset over- especially since #1 it's still a major improvement and #2 the floor will be covered with mats, snow boots and hopefully a bench (if the current budget allows).

Living Room

Living Room

The refinisher was concerned because he wasn't able to get all of the stain out of the floor. In some areas you can see a hint of a darker spot, but it doesn't bother me. In fact I'm not even sure anyone would really notice unless they were actually looking for it.

Front Vestibule

front vestibule

This floor came out in a way I had never seen before. I actually really like it- the little space will look great with a fresh coat of paint and some grasscloth on the walls, but the floor almost looks more like a faux bois than actual hardwood. Not sure why that happened (or what kind of wood they used), but at least I can say we might actually have a one-of-a-kind.
Side Note: Ben so nicely pointed out that every time we take a picture of Henry he's either trying to escape from the house, dig his way back to Manhattan or he's sleeping because he's exhausted from planning all of his get aways.. poor dog, I hope he'll get used to life in the suburbs.

Office, Bedroom and Back Hall

office

bedroom

back hall

Henry trying to plan another escape route.. It's hard to see the floors with all of the wood surrounding. Luckily the guys installed new base moldings. We just hated what was there so we purchased and primed the molding to prepare it for installation once the floors were done.

from the hall looking into the living room

A terrible picture of the transition from the back of the house to the front.

A few things to consider..
- If you're doing this the right way, you'd ask the floor refinisher to do some sample boards for you so you know what the exact stain is going to look like. Due to time constraints and our current address (3.5 hours south), we picked a stain and they literally started the next day.
- Keep in mind that wood is natural and old or not it absolutely isn't perfect. While imperfections in the wood or the refinishing may bother some, generally floors are covered with area rugs anyway, which helps to mask any issues that came about along the way.
- Most of our decisions were driven by money. I firmly believe that you should do something once which is why we opted for the new hardwood to begin with, but with that said our budget is not endless. We have a lot to do and very little money to do it so we had to make some sacrifices that we knew wouldn't be terrible in the end (like installing new floors in the back of the house).
- And finally, yes Ben and I have done this before.. for other people. We have never actually had our own floors refinished so it was absolutely a learning experience. It's very different when you're working with your own money, on your own schedule and making decisions with your own husband!! Just a quick example.. I am always bothered by clients who want to rush things and get them done, not taking their time to make sure the color is right or that it's the best way to do it. I've always said "be patient and it will be perfect." What a hypocrite I've become!

demolition days- garbage removal

On Tuesday morning the dumpster arrived..
We had planned on leaving Saratoga and heading back to the city on Thursday afternoon so that meant we had 48 hours to go crazy and fill that baby up!

You might be thinking "what perfect planning on their part!", but don't give us too much credit. We really went back and forth on whether or not it was worth it for us to have a dumpster delivered so early in the renovation process, so we didn't plan ahead. It wasn't until our second day there when the garbage started piling up and it was hard to determine what was trash and what should stay, that's we decided we should have one delivered. We were looking up garbage removal companies (our county dump required us to get a permit- a lengthy and sometimes pricey process), but because it was Labor Day weekend, we were out of luck (I'm sure if we were doing the renovation in New York City we'd get a response pronto but upstate they like to have their holiday weekends). So on Sunday we really started to feel like it just wasn't going to happen when we got a visitor. Literally I'm not even kidding, a man was driving by, noticed we had just purchased the house, pulled up and told us to let him know if we needed anything because he owns a waste removal company! Welcome to the neighborhood!

Once the dumpster was dropped on our driveway the first priority became filling it. During the first few hours cleaning, landscaping and stripping wallpaper took the back burner.

Brush
Ben was told that we should load the brush in first- mostly because it would flatten out with all of the other garbage on top.
The guy who delivered it also suggested that we hold out that larger trees because he would use them for firewood. Because we were being charged for the dumpster rental and the weight of the garbage, the more he took the better- he was saving us money and we were giving him free firewood, so it all worked out.

Radiators
If you haven't noticed, there are radiators throughout the house- a sure sign that it was built in the early 1900s!
I really hadn't considered the radiators and how we were going to treat them during the first walk through and inspection of the house. In fact, I wasn't even sure what we were going to do with them until the demolition process began. My father in law mentioned that the wooden radiator covers (all existing) are really just like blankets over the radiators. They make the heating process in the house much less efficient because the heat is often times trapped inside the covers and very little is able to escape.
First reaction? Toss them! I want this house to be as cost (and energy) efficient as possible- there's no reason to waste gas.
Once we removed all the radiator covers I started feeling as if the old radiators were less intrusive- the rooms felt and looked bigger. I also wanted to embrace the fact that the house is old. And I think it the end I might really like the look of freshly painted (vintage!) radiators.
Originally when we decided to get rid of the covers we started putting them outside just to get the out of the house. Remember this picture?
But as soon as the dumpster arrived Ben took a mallet to them (he saved a couple for me) and broke them into pieces so they wouldn't take up too much room.

Kitchen Cabinets
We were debating whether or not we should keep the base cabinets with the sink because realistically we may be without a kitchen for some time, but we also wanted to take advantage of the dumpster- we aren't sure when we'll have one again. We decided the sink was too valuable (and because we are keeping a row of cabinets there the floor didn't have to be finished underneath them), so we kept the base intact. The upper cabinets were another story.
I'm not exaggerating when I say they were being held onto the wall with two, very old screws. And even more crazy than that- the top of the cabinets was actually just a piece of plywood set inside (not attached).

There are two corner pieces in the kitchen that are original to the house and for a couple minutes I thought that was a reason to keep them-
then I changed my mind. The thing is, I use my kitchen, so it better suites me if we continue the kitchen around to those corners (I'm hoping to install a "baking" station in one of them- an area I'll use frequently).
As you can see above, Ben tried to remove them, but that's when he discovered that they are so original to the house that they're built into the wall! As soon as he began tugging at the shelves with a crowbar, the wall started pulling away. So instead of making it into the first round of the dumpster he decided to save that project for a rainy day.

Miscellaneous Garbage
There was so much of this I'm not sure I'll remember to post about it all. It all ranged from being either dated, completely broken or just overall ugly. Here's a quick list..
The TV antenna..
One of Ben's more brilliant moments..
The window treatments..
First I made sure none of them worked with our new decor.
The ridiculously heavy garage heater..
We literally rolled it down the driveway and somehow wedged it into the dumpster- still not sure how that worked but I'm pretty sure that's where my shoulder injury stemmed from.

The stairs that were literally disintegrating..
Ben built this temporary set to make it through the winter.
They'll be great as soon as the floor guy sands down the top step because you can't open the door at the moment.. (he never claimed to be a carpenter!)

Believe it or not, those few items were enough to fill the dumpster.. and clear out the house. On Thursday morning our time was up and while we were packing up to head back to the city, they picked up the full dumpster and the extra wood..
Suddenly our house looked a lot less like a construction site and a lot more like a home. Our week up there had come to an end and while it might not look like we made a huge amount of progress on the computer screen, you'd be amazed at the transformation if you saw it in person. And it's just the beginning!