Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Mixed Bag

We have been working on a number of fronts at the Georgian reno. The demolition continues and we are starting to wonder if and when it will ever end. We ripped all the lathe and plaster from the walls leading up to the second floor and all the walls at the top of the stairs. We also took the ceiling down at the upstairs landing. We had always planned on doing this however the job took on additional importance as we would like to add a skylight upstairs. Our framers weren’t convinced we were going to be able to due to structural issues surrounding the engineering of the new roof on top of the old one. Well the good news is that Halim, our framer is now “99 percent sure” that the skylight can be done after taking a look at the situation. We are really happy about this as it is an architectural feature that will really make the house stand out not to mention give us some much needed natural light to both the upstairs landing and the main floor foyer.






Strassburger delivered the balance of the windows this week as well. Rommel will begin installing those soon. He installed the new window to the old main bath last week.

Strassburger also sent their technician to come in and replace two mistakes that they made with the windows in the addition. See if you can spot one of the mistakes.


Joe and Nando Caruso finished the stucco on the box bay window area. Once the caulking is done we will be able to have Frank come over and take all the scaffolding away.

We hired John Greco to come in and do some more concrete work for us. His crew will be breaking the old concrete floor in the furnace and laundry room, installing steps in the bench footing, and once Tony from Tri-Vent Plumbing comes in and puts in the new drains, they will be pouring a brand new concrete floor.

We went shopping and bought our hardwood flooring. Final decision was 2,100 square feet of brazilian cherry, otherwise known as “Jatoba” in a deep dark brown stain. We absolutely love it. The planks are 4 inches wide. It is going to look fantastic, but meanwhile the old flooring all has to come out. Ugh...more demolition!

We have also been shopping for countertops. More on that later…

Still trying to find our aluminum guy so the outside can be finished…

We have decided on our contractor for the HVAC installation. We anticipate our permit to be issued this week and the work will begin in earnest on that front. More on that later as well…

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Stuck on you

Now that the brick is done, we are working on completing the box bay windows. We are Stuccoing the area, and including some sills and trim. Caruso Contracting is doing the work. They are fantastic and the proof is in the job they did on our garage over 5 years ago. No problems with that whatsoever. They will be applying a “Venetian” finish to the stucco to match the garage and the color has been matched to that of the window frames.


Inside the house right now, we have been doing even more demolition, having now removed all the lathe and plaster from the ceiling in the basement. This is to make way for the new heating and air conditioning system, new electrical, new gas line, and new plumbing. Upstairs Sandro from DeRock Electric continues to convert our house from old knob and tube wiring to current code.

We are also in the process of getting our HVAC permit from the city. Brian Scott our mechanical engineer put the finishing touches on the drawings for the new system and we expect to have our permit by mid October. We are currently getting pricing for this work as well. All new ductwork, hi-efficiency furnace, central air, and tankless water heater, plus the typical add-ons like media filter and bypass humidifier. We hope to have our contractor chosen this week.