Goodbye is even harder the second time

June 20, 2007

This is a picture of what the backhouse living room looked like when Eric and I lived there three years ago. And this is what I said goodbye to last week, when I took my last, longing look at the place:

The whole property (back and front houses) is being sold, and my job working on the rear wall repair is essentially finished. (Wow, I just realized how much bigger that mirror makes the room look!)

It's an interesting thing to go back to a place you lived in and loved, and get a chance to see it in its new form. When I started the project, the tenant who took over for us was still living there, and I really liked the way he had decorated it. It was very weird to go in while he was still in residence. On the one hand, I felt like I was invading his space. But on the other hand, it was all too familiar for me to not consider it my own.

Anyone who has ever knocked on the door of their childhood home and asked the new owners for a peek inside knows what I'm talking about. It's bittersweet. I can't go back to the amazing experience of living in a house (a HOUSE!) on the nicest block of the West Village, but I also can't let go of something that has good memories for me.

I didn't think it would be so difficult to walk away. But I felt quite a pang.

Hmmm. I'm sure whoever buys the property will do a full renovation. Maybe they need a project manager…

My work here is done

May 29, 2007

And lo, I thought this day would never come. We are finished. The backhouse project is now officially over. There is a wall. It is very pretty, no?

Okay, so I still need to be sure the interiors crew cleans up the yard and takes away their trash. And nothing is official until we get the necessary paperwork back from the Building Department now that we've filed our completion forms. But work has finished. The windows work, the wall is sturdy, the stucco looks better than the messy concrete-washed brick, and (hopefully) everybody's happy.

It only took 11 months.

Can't wait to see what my next project turns out to be.

Now I'm going to start naming names

May 24, 2007

I need to follow up to a post I put up several months ago, about a contractor I was working with who made me nuts. That guy is long gone from our project, and I just want to say that he seems to be the exception to the rule.

The team we finally ended up using included a masonry contractor (Gregory Pasternak/Town Restoration Services and Gregory Pasternak), an interiors contractor (Isaak Karpman/Nova Remodeling), an engineer (Karl Chen/Stratford Engineering), a scaffolding crew (Jimmy Downes/Everest Scaffolding), an expediter (Hannibal Galin), and a shoring company (Richard Mugler/Richard C. Mugler Co.). Every single one of these guys was unbelievably nice, respectful, professional, expeditious, and, to my delight, not in any way condescending.

The end is near!

May 23, 2007

This may look messy and unfininished, but don't let the picture fool you. That's a real live window in there, and that's a sign that the wall is almost done!!!

I took this picture at the backhouse on Friday during a site visit with the architect, Michael Lewis, the masonry contractor, Gregory Pasternak, and the interiors contractor, Isaak Karpman. It was a true lovefest.

Michael was wowed by how perfect the openings were—an even 1/8-inch gap all around the windows, waiting for some insulation chinked in, some caulk on the outside and the drywall on the inside. It was all the work of Gregory's crew, a team of delightful guys (many Polish, like Gregory), who somehow managed to install 10 windows flawlessly in half a day.

Isaak constantly impresses me too, because he's such a perfectionist. He was worried about matching the baseboards and finishing the trim just right, and always wanted to make sure they took care of every detail. But this job is just about building the wall to code and fulfill the requirements of the building permit. Likely there will be another actual renovation of the entire house following this (that's a whole other story I'll explain at another time), so nothing needs to be pristine. Still, it's nice to know these guys have such a good work ethic.

Friday I'll be back there to meet the scaffolding crew. That will be the first time in weeks that I'll have access to the area behind the house, and the first time at all that I will see the wall with stucco on it. I can't wait! I promise to take pictures!

Subterranean homesick blues

April 30, 2007

I think I just fell in love with a basement.

Recently, in order to take care of some backhouse-related business, I needed to go into the basement of the front house on the same property (the owner's house). I had known about the existence of this underground level, but had never had reason to go down there before.

Most 19th-century New York houses had a parlor level a few steps up from the street (where the front door was) and an English basement a few steps down from the street (where the servants' entrance would be, under the stoop) that included a kitchen and other servants' spaces.

Many also had a sub-basement, which would have held the coal bin (filled through a bulkhead in the stairwell to the English basement), and maybe a wine cellar, a furnace (later), or other utility spaces. When I lived in a garden apartment in a different rowhouse near this one, I used to have to go down to the sub-basement to access the breaker box or to store stuff. But it looked nothing like this basement.

Man, is this place cool. Brick archways running the length of the house, little rooms, and lots of clues as to what used to be in all the nooks and crannies. There's even some original bedrock down there, near the sump pump that I understand may be necessary because the street runs over an underground stream. It's a little patch of historic New York, preserved as it was when the house was built 165 years ago. Only makes me want that West Village house all the more.

If only I were this productive

April 3, 2007

Previously, on The Shelter Life:

When we last left the backhouse, the rear wall was totally stripped bare—denuded…de-bricked…naked, naked, naked. Miraculously, the contractors managed to leave the entire interior wall intact—plaster, lath and all.

This picture was taken in the first week of March. It is now the first week of April. Let me just show you what a difference a month can make.

Hey, that house is NAKED!

February 26, 2007

The West Village backhouse where I've been project managing what started as a small repair job eight months ago is officially being skinned. I stopped by on Saturday to find three lovely masons hard at work. They don't speak a lick of English and all had Polish names I couldn't really grasp, but they were kind enough to help me out a window and onto the scaffolding so I could take this picture. (BTW, I don't recommend climbing a wood ladder in leather-soled high heeled boots. But what can I say—I was coming from brunch.)

I love the sound of brick hammers in the morning

February 22, 2007

Stopped by the backhouse yesterday, and even climbed up the thin metal ladder to crawl through the skylight so I could lean over the roof to take this picture. (Really funny in my work clothes.) Hard to see, but on the right is the exposed back side of the third floor interior walls. As you can see…the bricks are coming down!

Not visible in the picture are the four guys working steadily on the scaffolding to get this wall removed as fast as possible.

It's like Christmas day and my birthday all rolled into one!!!

February 9, 2007

Oh yes. That is what you think it is. That is a bona fide New York City building permit. And it's ours.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!! Oh, and also, aaaaaaaaaaahhh!

Work on the backhouse wall begins Monday. I can't believe it! It only took 7 months…

For sale: one wall, many bricks

January 24, 2007

One of the more interesting aspects of doing construction in New York, I'm quickly learning, is the space constraints. No room to get equipment in, no room to store materials, everything has to be done by hand. We're actually luckier than most rowhouse renovators, because the courtyard of this house is accessible through a passageway built into the side of the front house. We don't have to move everything through the basement.

Anyway, here's a big issue: what to do with the 9,000 to 10,000 bricks that we will have on our hands when the wall of the backhouse comes down?