current renovation

these never fail to make me giggle a little.  enjoy!

main living area view from front door:

bedroom looking towards front:

another view looking towards the front:

kitchen looking towards bedroom:

Still catching up on posting final photos… way back when, we finished off Loft 1F.  We nabbed these shots just before the new owner moved in… rumor has it he’s happy as a clam in there!

You know you love these.  I admit it is the best part.

living room:

living room from the opposing view:

bathroom:

another view of the bathroom (and Ossie giving me the stink-eye for leaving her locked up in it):

large bedroom:

small bedroom (tile surround not quite finished)

small bedroom from the opposing view:

In the fury of party prep and last minute detailing, I’ve neglected the posting of final photos… so here’s the beginning of that backlog for those of you who didn’t make the party (or perhaps would like to re-live it)

Before & afters soon to follow!

 

You’ve been asking for it, so here it is… we’re having a party!

Come check out the place before all the tenants move in.  This Saturday, Aug. 25 from 5-8.  We’ll have snacks, beers, and Ossie the tourguide. Please come join us to celebrate the end of a great project in this big old building we’ve come to love.

So, you want to come?  Great!  Email me (Kate) at urbanspace.pgh@gmail.com  and I’ll give you the location.  You can also RSVP to the event on facebook.

With Loft 1R all done, we went back to our original plan of finishing the units from the top-down, starting with the 3rd floor and moving down to the 2nd.  Both units are pretty much finished now!  Here are all the progress shots I can give you without spoiling the final reveals to come next week…

Third Floor

 the 3rd floor has honestly been lingering at the finish line for some time, so there were just a bunch of little pesky details to take care of…

Like installing the kitchen faucet and shelving

Pouring the hearths for the two fireplaces.  Here you can see them framed up and ready to go…

I’m doing everything I can to keep this blue tiled surround.  We saved some tiles to glue back in, and I’ll have to design some kind of wood enclosure around it, but fingers crossed it will be worth the trouble!

I touched up the brick chimney in the master bedroom, and covered every surface in that freshly painted room with a layer of pink brick dust.  Heh… oops.

Of course we can’t forget the inevitable part of finishing… the cleaning.  I’ve been working my way around the building with bleach and windex, scrubbing the windows clean.  To measure how gross they are, it takes approximately 90 minutes per window.  Yup, you heard that right!

Second Floor

Installed the faucet and shelving here too…

and a new fake beam to cover the gap in the ceiling where we took the wall out instead of trying to patch the plaster between two ceilings that had very different textures on them. This one was the contractor’s idea… have I mentioned before how great these guys are to work with?

Also repaired the window in the living room, which has been boarded up for at least a year!

And then minor catastrophe hit:
Unfortunately once all the kitchens were hooked up to the drain line, it became apparent that the line isn’t quite working.  Every time someone runs water from the 2nd or 3rd floors, we end up with a large puddle in the basement.  This line was already snaked once (you may remember the brief appearance of the Creature From the Black Lagoon back in February) so we’ve got to get the plumber back out to figure what’s going on now.  Fingers crossed he doesn’t bring the Creature back with him!

Exterior

We had the fire escape inspected, as the city requires.  The engineer thought it looked pretty good, but wanted a few more bolts in there… so here they are.  He wanted a coat of paint too, but we’ll get to that later.

I had a major victory this week, albeit mostly to myself… seeing as how nobody else thought it was that big of a deal.  I finally was able to snag a Comcast installation guy who verified that 95% of the cables running all over the face of the building were not installed correctly- which meant I was finally free to tear them all down!  I happily scampered all over the building and pulled down/snipped/yanked to my heart’s content anything I could reach that didn’t involve a) using a ladder or b) giving my dad a heart attack.  Basically I got rid of everything short of climbing the pole and cutting those cables too. After looking at that web for more than a year, I am so happy to have it gone.

Here’s the design for the signage for the two entries to the building.  I am going to make something like this:

The paper taped to the mailboxes is a mockup of the above styled sign. I fortunately know some guys with a laser cutter so I’m hoping I can talk them into doing this for me… My dad and I installed the new mailboxes so the tenant for 1R would have some place to get mail.  Just no fancy mailbox numbers for now…

There you have it for weeks 26 & 27… and at that I’m off to the beach for some well needed r&r so we can avoid any more grumpy posts.  Be ready when I get back for final shots of the 3rd Floor, including the well loved before & afters!

I usually try to space out the blog posts, but I just can’t hold this one back.  I was looking at the before & after shots and practically giggling at how bad the place was.  1R, we’ve come a long way baby!

Well I just handed off the keys to the new owner of Loft 1R.  It felt like giving away my first-born.  Or maybe sending them off to college?  But at long last, almost a year to the day of closing on the building, the first apartment is officially completely finished!  After a final punch list of course…  You have no idea how satisfying it is to see a list like that get crossed off within just a day.  The place really came together and I couldn’t be happier.  Check out the final shots!

Okay folks I’m in a super grumpy mood, which may have to do with a blistery rash to be pictured soon…  So in light of the grump, what I’m going to do this week is just post a bunch of the pictures with minimal comments.  You know, if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say (much). And all that.

This week my dad and I pressure washed the outside of the building and the sidewalk.  It barely made a difference.  Egg stains are still 80% intact. Boo.

I weeded the sidewalk, which did make a difference…

A difference that can be mainly found on my arms.  And neck.  And shoulder, eye, and I’m pretty sure my hair.

The guys worked on the final details of the studio apartment.   It looks good, but it feels like it is taking forever…

Got the pantry we decided to keep all painted up, and almost in working order.  I’m wondering if they just think I won’t notice that 2 of the drawers don’t have bottoms on them…

Got some of the light fixtures… this is the porch light for the studio apartment.  I like the utilitarian look of it, and it was super cheap.  Score.

The most expensive light fixtures in the place were the ceiling lights for the studio… they look awesome and seem almost worth what I paid for them.  They have a nice washing effect on the brick walls.  Cool.

Not sure what the heck happened with the shelves in the bathroom… usually the guys are pretty good at making things line up, but all I can say here is “uhh…”  I dunno maybe they did it in the dark.  That’s an excuse, right?   That or we can blame my architect OCD.

I also got a shipment of light fixtures that I ordered online having never seen in person.  This worked out for about 75% of them, but I’ll get to that next week.  The funny part is that most of the boxes have the word “farm,” and at least one picturesque pasture scene somewhere on them…  I don’t think this is a coincidence, as I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed this week, cranky, and just wishing I was off on a farm somewhere hanging out with some ponies next to a babbling brook or something…

Alas I’m here chasing down parts and people and numbers… but we’re almost done!  That’s the good news.  The sad part is next week should have been the last and final week of construction, but it’s definitely not going to be.  The studio’s all ready for me to pass it on to its new lover, but there’s still a ton of work to do in the other apartments… but some day, eventually, we’ll be celebrating. Promise.

We’ve got a tenant moving into the studio apartment on August 1, so 85% of the focus this week was on that space…  but the whole place is really coming together.  Check it out!

Once again I’ve broken down this week’s work by apartment:

Third Floor

This apartment is basically ready, with the exception of all the small details like hardware, appliances…. oh, and a kitchen sink and working bathroom  Right.  Well I got high all week on varnish fumes, finishing the counter tops so the plumber could come back and install all that stuff.  The finish on the counters is really super nice- a little glossy for my taste, but definitely a good seal.  If you are really on top of things you may also notice that the appliances kinda disappeared since last week.  While shopping for the appliances for the downstairs apartments, I came across a sweet deal on some really nice ones so I paid some dudes to move the appliances we had already installed up here down to 1F so this apartment could get the snazzy ones.  This decision may have been slightly influenced by the fact that I am thinking of moving into this apartment myself…

 My sister stopped by on Friday night and I put her to work on finishing the scrubbing on the chimney I started back in April and never made it back to.  Then Inspector Ossie (my dog) came by to make sure she did a good job.

Second Floor

Work in this apartment pretty much halted, with the exception of installation of the appliances and me finishing the countertops.  The missing fridge also showed up so this kitchen is complete… not totally assembled but at the very least all the pieces are there.

 First Floor- Front 

The guys moved the cabinets up to the height they were supposed to be.  It’s so much better!  I also had the appliances from the third floor moved down here.  With the appliances in, I realized a major “oops” of mine.  I focused so much on the 2nd and 3rd floor kitchen layouts that this one kind of slipped through.  Luckily though, the gas line isn’t in yet so rearranging things isn’t a huge deal.  Phew.  So stay tuned and I’ll explain the thought process on that one.

First Floor- Rear 

This apartment had the least amount of work done on it, and it’s going to be the first one occupied.  Go figure.  So pretty much all the focus has been there.  To bring the building up to code, we had to install fire rated doors at the corridor, so the guys wrestled them into place this week.  The doors are really cool steel… I am tempted to leave them unpainted but seeing how dirty and fingerprint-y they got while being installed, I doubt they’ll stay clean with people constantly opening and closing them.  Neat idea though.

     

Inspector Ossie checked things out and thought the place looked pretty good.  Especially the garbage can.  Oh, and the place needs more paint.

After my desperate plea for help, my friends Sarah and Danny came over and buffed the brick in the kitchen.  They such did a fantastic job that I didn’t even have to go back and touch it up after they left.

The guys also installed the cabinets (hidden under the drop cloth) and the new back door!  It’s amazing how much of a difference that made… who would have thought getting rid of boarded up windows would make the place seem more classy? I also inhaled more than my fair share of Waterlox and finished the counter tops so the sink can be installed next week.

The basement floor was also finished.  It looks great!  Now it actually looks like a place you would want to store things.  Ossie concurs.

 That’s it for week 23…  stay tuned for the finishing touches, as well as a p-a-r-t-a-y when this thing is done so all our family and friends can come check out what we’ve been slaving over.  Details will be announced soon!