Progress - Week of April 13

This week....

• Excavation work for new extension foundation

Now that the old extension has been removed in its entirety - including a decrepit little shed - work now shifts gears to building the new extension. Step 1 is to excavate in order to pour new foundations. Hopefully we get the new foundation and footings in place this week.

• Beginning framing of the rental unit

Until this point, the staging and phasing of the work has focused on the 4 floors above the rental and the demolition of the extension. Most of the new wall assembly is actually taking place in the 1st floor which will be transformed into a 2 bedroom/1 bath rental unit of approximately 1,150 square feet. As can be seen below, in addition to the framing, the rough plumbing for the bathroom and kitchen is done.

Prior to our conversion of the space to a garden apartment rental, the ground floor was most recently a doctor's office - a psychologist we believe. To say the least, the space was not very uplifting. As a matter of fact, it was downright drab and depressing and I can't imagine any patient's disposition being materially improved by the space.

Depending on the pace of construction on the rest of the house, we hope to have this space rented by the end of the summer and hope to find a decent creditworthy tenant - all Karp family members and Cerberus employees need not apply.

Progress - Week of April 6

Work continues with the plumbing coming along quite nicely. Looks like we'll have the plumbing fully roughed in by the end of this coming week. As of last week, new cast iron mains were run from top to bottom and it now looks like the plumber is putting in the copper.

Tape and spackle is substantially complete on the top 2 floors (floors 4 and 5) and pretty much done on the 3rd floor as well. As of this past Friday, the crew had started scraping and putting up mesh backers on the 2nd floor - the parlor floor. Below photos are of the reading room and library on the 3rd floor which is more or less in "white box" condition. The 4th and 5th floors are also in this condition as well.

The extension of the house no longer exists. Literally. For those who cannot appreciate the former state of the extension - and it is very difficult to get a good sense of what it was like - below are some photos of when the extension was undisturbed from the summer of 2008:

The intrusion of water over the years caused severe damage to the structural supports for the extension such that it was much easier to tear the sucker down and just start from scratch. There was some early debate as to whether or not Landmarks would allow us to recreate the structure but after some quick research during our due diligence, it was discovered that the extension was constructed in the 1940's (plans residing at Brooklyn Department of Buildings as proof). Therefore, the structure, while not "historically signficant", did predate the Landmarks designation for Brooklyn Heights in 1965 (Brooklyn Heights was actually the first landmarked district in New York City for all you history buffs) and would then be technically grandfathered as part of the pre-Landmarked structure.

As of Friday, April 10, the extension and rear of the house now looks like this:

Yes, you can pretty much see into the house from the rear yard and the back of the house on the 2nd floor is exposed to the elements. Fortunately, there is not much there that needs protection.

On tap for this week should be another dumpstep full of extension debris, shoring of the party walls, and maybe even a little excavation of the new foundation. On the inside, rough plumbing should be done and I think the scraping, taping and spackling of the second floor will be completed.

On a final note for this post, we leave you with this...

Fast forward...

It only took us 5 and a half months to get through Landmarks Preservation Commisson and multiple rounds of objections at the Building's Department, but we are finally approved and work has commenced in earnest.

The backyard is now filled to the brim with what used to be the extension!

This is the brickwork which connects the back of the original house (circa 1830) with the party wall and structure of the extension (circa 1940). Take note how the newer brickwork is physically separating from the original! Moreover, look at the buckling bricks! Fun for the whole family!

How do you like the new solarium? This will eventually be the kitchen actually.

More details

This was the kitchen for the upper floor tenant, which will become part of the master bathroom.






Stairway from the main entrance looking towards the back of the house.

Some "lite" demolition in advance of full permitting.

One of two lovely test pits which adorned our backyard for months. These test pits were required by NYC Dept. of Buildings in order to test the compactability of the soil. This is all part of the plan to reconstruct the extension and add square footage on the rental floor, in the kitchen, and master bathroom.

When they dug one of the pits, they found a brick wall that we think was part of a primitive sewer system. We figure that if we run out of money before the plumber finishes, at least we have a Plan B for our sewage.

In the beginning...

So here's the plan. When we first looked in the house, it was in estate condition and in need of both TLC and saving from a developer who would chop it into condos. The house, despite its awful condition, was set up in a pretty traditional way for an old brownstone: the bottom floor was a doctor's office (not renovated since 1970 at the latest); the parlor floor had been turned into one living unit; and the third and fourth floors were another duplex. The attic was pretty much raw space (though we think it was used as an art studio by the nutty "artist" who was living there when the house was sold).

Our plan is to turn it back into a large brownstone with a single garden rental--a common way to use the space in these large houses today. The garden floor (basement to you non-New York City dwellers) will be a 2 bedroom (plus study), 1 bath rental.

You'll hear us talk about the extension that was added to the house in the 1940s. It is attached (and we use that term loosely) to the parlor and third floors. Our plan is to tear it down and start over, since it's structurally unsound. We will enclose it on the garden level to extend the square footage of the rental unit, recreate it on the parlor level to create our kitchen, and then use the top of the extension to create a deck off the master bedroom.

The parlor floor is in pretty good shape, aside from the soon-to-fall-off extension. It will be our main living space, a dining room, a powder room, a pantry (yay!) and Matt's very fancy, very spacious kitchen that will meet all of his exacting specifications so that he can once again put his Cornell Hotel education to use cooking for his loving family.

The third floor includes the master bed and bath, a large library, and a smaller study/reading room. The study has the bay window that you can see from the front of the house and a lovely built-in reading bench. Some day, we will have built-in bookshelves in the library, but that's phase 972.

The fourth floor is the kids' floor--rooms for the little girl and her almost-baby-brother, a playroom, and a laundry room (Melinda's very fancy, very spacious laundry room that will meet all of her exacting specifications so that she can once again put her HumEc education to good use. This includes wiring for cable so I can watch bad reality shows while wasting my Ivy League degrees and folding laundry.).

The attic is a huge, wonderful space that will someday house either 1) a guest suite, 2) a media room, 3) Matt's golf simulator or 4) some combination of those things. But right now, it's just being left alone because all of the above changes maxed out our budget!!!

And we have a garden in the back. We used to have a turtle in the garden, but we haven't seen it for a while.

Call it a unique fixer-upper opportunity only worthy of the intre(stu)pid. Below are the photos of the parlor floor with the back extension requiring major structural and cosmetic upgrades. This was the existing condition of the house at closing and probably more or less in this state for the past 10 years. Shockingly, there was someone living there as late as last July!!!!

In this picture, you can see part of the original ceiling medallion. There are lots of original detail, including 7 mantels, which is what convinced us to undertake this crazy project at all. The pocket doors are also original. Our hope is to restore or replicate as much as we can and our budget allows.

Photo of the front. Overall, the facade is in good shape although the bay window on the third floor is in need of some major cosmetic help. Roof was in good shape as well...but that's about it.

Welcome

In May 2008, we successfully bid on a wreck of a brownstone in our favorite neighborhood - Brooklyn Heights. After an arduous summer of finding a lender, keeping the seller at bay in hopes of a quicker close, and then living through the failure of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, FannieMae, FreddieMac, and AIG, we cast aside our better judgment in favor of "staking our claim" and becoming homeowners on October 16, 2008.

Come follow us from the offer through construction and eventually to our filing of personal bankruptcy. We are also condering applying for bank holding status and receiving TARP funds although Melinda isn't too crazy about the compensation restrictions to which she must adhere.