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I spent a few days in Texas with my folks for the holidays, so I expected to see some good progress when I got back. Still no walls, but just about everything else seems to be done.
There's a new panel below the electrical box which I assume will attach to the washer/dryer.
Here's the view from the living room. On the left, panels of sheetrock are waiting to become walls.
The guys have been working so hard they didn't even finish their nacho cheese doritos. Or maybe they're for breakfast tomorrow.
One victim of the renovation has been the plant in my bathroom window. It's getting smaller and sadder-looking every day. I'm going to blame the construction dust rather than the fact that I keep neglecting to water it.
Things seem to be coming together at 10J. Right on schedule we have a new electrical box installed in the new laundry room and wiring to all the new outlets and switches.
Here's what the whole mess looks like now, from the living room:
Another few days of rough carpentry and they'll start adding real walls and floors and things.
On Friday they framed the new laundry room and part of the new ceiling in there.
My neighbor stopped by to tell me that my plumbing work had completely messed up the hot water to his kitchen.
Now another weekend for the dust to settle. More rough carpentry next week, and hopefully fix my neighbor's plumbing.
Yesterday was the first day of plumbing. Some suspicious-looking pipes were sticking out under the sink, and the super eventually figured out they were pressure-reducing valves for my apartment and the adjacent one. My best guess is when they slapped the building together back in the '20s they just left them under my sink. So the plumber moved them back behind the wall and ran pipes to the new fridge and sink locations.
As far as I can tell, in the past couple days they've also started on the floor and moved in a bunch of lumber and framing.
Electrical work is supposed to start happening today.
On the third day we made a little bit of progress - there's a new frame for the wall that will separate the hall and kitchen. And there are more toolboxes.
Below is the view from the living room to the front door. Notice the hallway is narrower now to accommodate the new wider kitchen. I wonder if the new appliances will fit through the narrow hallway.
.. and the view from the front door:
Also, I finally sold the dining table. I almost crushed the piano flipping the table over to take the legs off, but everything survived with the exception of my index finger.
Day 2 was apparently all about taking away the garbage and some of the dust from yesterday.
I'm all in favor of garbage removal, but I was annoyed to find plastic wrap lining the common hallway from the elevators to my front door.
This was around 7pm Friday, so I guess the contractors planned to leave it there all weekend. That seemed like a pretty uncool thing to do to my neighbors, so I called Larry the construction manager. He claimed the super had given him special permission to leave the plastic there, even though the alteration rules don't allow it. So I ripped the stuff up myself. For what I'm paying these guys I shouldn't be cleaning up after them on a Friday night.
First task on the project plan is 'Site Prep and Demolition', scheduled to take a few days. I dropped in last night to see for myself how much demolition 5 guys can do in 8 hours.
I guess they were busy. All the walls are gone, most of the appliances removed, floor tiles are gone ..
The construction zone is sealed off from the bedroom and living room with plastic sheets taped to the doorways. Really glad I decided to move out for a while.
After years of fantasizing and six months of actual planning, my kitchen renovation is finally underway! I got back from my spring roadtrip in June and hired a local Brooklyn renovation company to do the design, approvals, filings, and construction. My main responsibility is paying the bills.The idea is to overhaul my little cantaloupe-colored kitchen with new appliances, floor, countertops and lights. I'm combining the existing dining room and kitchen to create a brighter and bigger kitchen. And I'm making a laundry room out of the front (junk) closet. No more shlepping to the 8th floor to wash clothes.
Here's the current kitchen and dining room, same as they've been for the past six years.
Ugly, eh.
A team of mean-looking contractors arrived at 9am sharp to start tearing down walls and ripping out the floor, ceiling and cabinets. I grabbed a couple bags and relocated myself to Sam's apartment.
Here's what the final product will look like, sometime in Mid-February.
