Day 104- Nearing Completion

The house is really coming together, and should be totally finished in the next two to three weeks. All of the flooring, cabinets, trim and doors are installed, and we have the alarm system up and running. At this point, we're really just finishing up loose ends and letting the subs (HVAC, Electric and Plumbing) finish their jobs. The last few items will be the things we had to special order, like the granite countertops and the handrails.

In this image you can see the tile we chose for the downstairs bathroom. The blue does a good job adding some color to the white tile, and matches really nicely with the floor pattern.



And the floor...



Here's the kitchen after we installed the cabinets. We're really happy with the way the glass corner cabinet turned out. On the left hand side, you can see the space where the fridge will go. Turns out the kitchen designer at Home Depot messed up and only left a 66" opening, which would work nicely if you were planning on putting a mini-fridge in that space. Unfortunately, we're not, and we need at least 69" for a standard-height unit. After going over several possible solutions, we decided to build a 5" platform- essentially make our own toe kicks- for each side cabinet. It should work perfectly, and after we stain the wood, it will be almost impossible to notice that they aren't factory original.




Here's the current state of the front of the house. The door came in and looks great, and will look even better after the wood is stained. It also needs to be wrapped, which we'll do after we get the glass transom. We also found someone to custom build us a new cornice, which should go up sometime next week. You can also see the large chemical barrels on the sidewalk. Those are still there from when the front brick was repointed about 12 weeks ago. We've been calling the subcontractor repeatedly to schedule a pick-up with the city, but haven't had any success. Tomorrow's project is setting one up ourselves...



Here's the oak hardwoods in the front bedroom. They'll look even sharper after they're cleaned up and polished.



Here's the upstairs hallway. We had the stair fabricator design handrails that come out of the side of the walkway, so we don't lose walking space. We also went with a design that has a decorative twist in the middle so it doesn't get the "prison bar" look. It's easier to show than describe- we'll post pictures next week when they're installed.



We finally got around to repointing the brick on the right hand side wall going down to the basement. The mason still has to acid wash the wall, and then he's going to use dye to try to get the grout to better match the stuff higher up on the wall.



The granite guy came today and took all of the measurements for the kitchen countertops. We chose a really great looking black color and a really deep undermount sink. The granite will hang 12" over the peninsula to allow a good place to eat while sitting on a bar stool.

Keep checking in.

Thanks,

Dave

Day 96- More Progress

We passed the three month mark on this project, and should be totally finished within the next three weeks. The house is painted, the trim is installed and the interior doors are in place. Today the crew is putting up the crown molding on the first floor, and then construction will halt until Thursday. We special-ordered our front door from Home Depot, which proved to be a total fiasco. Apparently the door came once and was damaged, so it was sent back to the manufacturer. Then, the door came again, but wasn't correctly marked so it was refused and sent back. The door is supposed to arrive again sometime before tomorrow morning. In the meantime, we had to push back installing the alarm, so the house isn't secure and we couldn't start with the floors or the cabinets.

One positive result of the delays is that the house will hit the market towards the beginning of September, which experts are predicting should show a lot more buying activity than this summer. The buyers in Patterson Park are predominantly single, working professionals or young couples, so buying a house before the school year starts isn't really an issue. In addition, buyers usually go on vacation at this time of the year, and should be ready to look for houses again in the fall.

In this picture, you can see how the walls were painted (this is the closet in the rear bedroom). We chose a sand-colored Behr paint for the walls and a pure white for the ceilings. We used rollers for the walls, even though we probably could have done the job much faster with a spray gun. The problem was that we already had all of the windows installed, stairs in place and a ton of exposed brick, so it would have been a serious production to cover everything properly with plastic. The rollers allowed us to be more accurate with the paint.



Here's the finished window in the kitchen. You can see the finished trim around the windows. We did this on all of the windows in the house. It's not particularily expensive and it looks far better than standard window trim.



This is the current state of the main floor. You can just barely make out the baseboard trim. We went with thicker trim on this floor, and thinner trim on the second floor and basement. Our thinking was that the bigger stuff looks better, but it also can make the room look smaller. Therefore, we put it in the big rooms but not in the smaller spaces.



This is the basement after finished drywall and paint. It's not exactly massive, but it's definitely infinitely better than an unfinished space. There are three other rehabs on this block where the investors didn't spend the money to dig this out. Which would you rather have?



We're already scouting out new properties for our next project. We own 216 N. Luzerne Ave., which is a huge house two blocks east from this house. However, the house has two great tenants, brings in positive cashflow and already appraised for $35,000 over the purchase price (at the time of purchase). It seems there's no reason to change a good thing, so we're thinking about keeping this house as a rental. We'll keep you updated on our search.

Thanks for checking in.

Dave

Day 80- Drywall Almost Done

The drywall guys have been working in the house for the last few days and they are sanding and finishing the job today and tomorrow. On Thursday, we're going begin putting up the first coat of paint, trim and interior doors. The drywall should have been totally finished by today, but the crew ran out of drywall and then left for the day- twice. It just goes to show that you always have to be thinking one step ahead and prepare for anything that could come up in order to stay on schedule. Our floors, cabinets and rear windows all arrived last week and are sitting in a storage locker waiting to be installed.

Here's what the first floor looks like after the crew hung the drywall. There's actually a pretty large window in the rear, but it is temporarily covered.




This is the view looking in the other direction. We've decided to extend the ends of the octagonal tray ceiling all the way to the walls on either side. It just doesn't look right with the spaces on either side. The framer is coming in today to frame the sides out.



This is the new basement. Pretty amazing to think that two months ago this had a six-foot ceiling and was totally unfinished (and had been since 1880). Now it has a TV room, washer and dryer, full bathroom, desk area and several closets.



The shape of the master bathroom is such that it's really difficult to get a good picture. However, you can just make out in this one how we were able to leave exposed brick behind the jacuzzi. It can't stay exactly like this because the shower is going to get it wet, so we have to somehow make it waterproof. We're thinking about either using the Durock up to about six feet and leaving the top three exposed, or just spraying the whole thing with some kind of silicone-based sealant.




The next few weeks look like this- paint, trim, alarm, windows and doors, flooring, electric and gas gets turned on, tradesmen come back to finish, installation of cabinets and fixtures, installation and fabrication of handrails, fabrication of cornice (if anyone knows a good person for this, please let us know!), punch-out work, and finally, sale.

Keep checking in to see our progress.

Thanks,

Dave

Day 66- Posed for Big Things

The last week or so has been relatively quiet at the house while we waited for the finishing touches on the rough-ins and to complete the city inspections. We passed all of these, and by the end of this week the house should look entirely different. We're finishing the insulation today and we have 130 sheets of drywall being delivered tomorrow morning. The drywall guys will be in the house for the rest of the week and should finish in 4-5 days. On Wednesday, the replacements for the stolen windows arrive, and our kitchen cabinets will be at the house on Friday morning. Also tomorrow we find out if our offers are accepted on three other properties in Patterson Park. One is a major high-end renovation and the other two are smaller jobs that would make great rental properties.

In this picture, you can see the jacuzzi. In the end, we were able to get it to fit as originally intended. We toyed with the idea of moving around the hot and cold water controls and then adding an overhead shower, but decided that there could potentially be a problem with water spilling out into the bathroom. This layout is practical and will solve the spilled-water issue. We're going to build a tiled frame around the tub with a step up for easier access.



This picture shows a ton of different stories. First off, you can see how serious we were about securing the house after the theft of our windows. The board and the 2 x 4 on the 45 degree angle makes it nearly impossible to kick or punch in the window. Secondly, you can also see the insulation up against the framing. We started insulating but had to stop after we learned the electrical inspection had not been completed. Thirdly, notice Glen, the electrician on the left, busy putting up the black wire, which will be used to install the under-cabinet lighting after the cabinets are put into place. Notice all of the recessed lights in the kitchen- we have a total of 32 in the house. Finally, if you look up in the right hand corner, you can see that there isn't any bracing between the joists. The framing inspector commented that although not necessary, he recommended putting bracing between the joists to keep them from bending over time. This will be done today before any drywall is put up tomorrow morning.



Here you can see all of the new plumbing, HVAC and electric work on the back of the house. We're still waiting for BGE to come back and hook up electric service, which has been off ever since it was cut during the first week of work. They came and took our ancient gas meter, but we're still waiting for a new one.




In this picture, you can see the exact front entry door that we ordered for our house. We basically drove around looking at different doors until we were able to narrow it down to a few options. In the end, it came down to this door or a black, more modern looking one. We chose this one because it just plain looks classy and will let in a ton of great light.



Check back next week!

Thanks

Dave