Setting Free the Wood Floors

Sometimes a burst of energy and some spare time can be a dangerous thing.

Take the first-floor hallway floor, which I had set upon with hammer and crowbar in order to liberate the wood floor underneath — as I did in the living room. A simple task to define, yet far more challenging in its execution.

First, there was a hideous green faux marble ceramic tile that was shaking loose due to shoddy installation. Under that, there was 3/4-inch plywood both screwed and nailed down. That was followed by the same blue-green linoleum tile inflicted throughout the house.

White linoleum was next. Checkerboard roll linoleum after that. A thin piece of plywood and then what was probably the original 1901 flooring with a paper backing.

Finally, relatively intact hardwood floors.

Although I had yet to scrape all the remaining paper backing off the wood, I was already planning what I would do next. I turned to Apartment Therapy for suggestions on how to proceed and received some great tips, although the most important one (for next time) was probably the advice to do all the floors throughout the house at once: More work up front, but more consistent results throughout.

I'll definitely keep that in mind for next time.

Recalling a Previous Abode

I love Brooklyn.

I love New York.

While I was born and raised here and have always considered it home, it wasn't until I had an apartment of my own in Williamsburg that I really felt connected. The location — right at North 7th Street and Bedford Avenue — was the perfect hub to from which to head toward friends, family and work. Those "spokes," per se, comprised such places as Astoria, Park Slope, Bayside and Seacaucus, N.J. Best of all, it was right on the Bedford L, one subway stop from Manhattan and literally 7 minutes to Union Square.

It was immensely satisfying to round out my meager belongings with furniture to fit the space.

In that shoebox of an apartment, I managed to fit such beloved items as a Persian rug I'd bought at a Santa Fe, New Mexico, consignment store when I lived there; my Stearns & Foster queen size bed, an armless houndstooth chair from Crate & Barrel (a floor model and on sale!), Ikea adjustable halogen overhead lamps in the bedroom and living room — with dimmers — and an Ikea Pax Malm wardrobe to compensate for the dearth of closet space.

The entire apartment was repainted in Benjamin Moore Weathered Stone with two bedroom accent walls in a custom royal blue derived spontaneously from a roll of 3M painter's masking tape. My brother, Marco, and I selected it at a Home Depot color-picking machine in order to overcome my palette indecision.

I couldn't have been happier with those choices, made after several agonizing attempts to pick something.

My reason for going off-track for a moment derives at least in part from wanting to contrast my relatively painless apartment makeover sprint to the arduous home renovation marathon in which I was now enmeshed.

I knew my current project would be much, much more work than a tiny Williamsburg flat. Except that part of me figured I'd get to the fun stuff much more quickly: I'd change a few fixtures, refinish the floors, spackle some walls and pick colors for all of the rooms.

So far, it's been way more involved than that.

Would I do it all over again? Absolutely. Only differently.

Working on Christmas Eve

Inspiration often strikes at the unlikeliest times.

Waking early on Christmas Eve because of I had become accustomed to my predawn workday schedule, I found myself with little do to and plenty of energy with which to do it. (Mind you, getting up at 8:30 in the morning was sleeping in.)

So, I took the floor scraper to the nasty blue-green linoleum tiles covering the original hardwood floors. Most of the wood seemed to be intact, which was a huge relief. The adhesive was more stubborn in certain sections, and some kind of wood filler apparently had been used.

Thankfully, I didn't have much trouble popping off the tiles, finishing the entire living room and most of the dining room by noon, after which I began my shopping.

The tedious part, as always, would be disposing of the debris. Nothing a good supply of contractor trash bags wouldn't take care of, though.

Why is demolition nearly always the fun part?

All's Well That Ends Well

How do you define success?

The biggest and best birthday party / housewarming / music festival / photo exhibit I've ever hosted — 10 cases of free beer, five bands and nearly 200 guests! — went off without a hitch.

I slept 14 hours and then started the arduous task of cleaning up.

The one thing I wanted to find was the missing bottle of Dom Perignon, given to me by Oleg Cassini a few years ago. It had thoughtfully been placed in the living room recycling bin.

Empty, of course.

It was a small price to pay for such an amazing time. Not to mention it was my fault for leaving it in the refrigerator in the first place. Other than spilled drinks and a basement handrail that ripped out of the wall, the house is still standing. Thank goodness.

One guest reports: "I partied my ass off.

"Literally.

"When we were all dancing in your living room towards the end of the night the back right pocket of my jeans ripped right off. Now that's a party."

Thank again to everyone who helped make it a success — especially the bands and Lagunitas Brewing Company for its very generous sponsorship of the inaugural Bushwick Rocks!

Now, back to working on the house.

Planning a Celebration

Nothing motivates like a party.

Although there was still plenty of work left to do, the stage (i.e., house) was set for the inaugural Bushwick Rocks! indie rock concert / combined birthday party / Fotophile.com photography show / housewarming party.

It was nice not to care about a mass of people possibly "ruining" the ugly green linoleum tile floor, but the walls had not been painted in who knows how long. So, with three days to go, I set upon a late-night painting marathon that took me into the wee hours of Thursday morning.

Breaking open the five-gallon container of Kilz Original primer, I soon gained a new understanding of the company's branding: It smelled like petrochemical death. Donning a respirator, I went on to apply two — in some cases, three — coats of primer, then promptly forgetting about the odor.

Until I was done.

The smell was akin to gasoline, but not quite as sweet. (I actually enjoy the scent of service stations.) Thankful to have closed the bedroom door, I was able to go to sleep without asphyxiating.

The following day, when friends Gillian, Ryan and Karen showed up to hang their photographs for the visual part of the Saturday-night celebration, the olfactory offender was absent. The good news was that the Kilz did a fine job of covering up the discoloration on a wall that was in rough shape.

At least now I realize why low-VOC paint exists.

A Close Call

After being inundated with leaks from the second floor, PVC cement, grout, Thinset, sawdust and falling debris, my bathroom (on the first floor) finally received the attention it deserved.

For almost two months, I went without a bathroom, having demolished it and then having had to take care of one emergency or another — from electricity (going without for 2 weeks — more on that later) to hot water (none for 2 days that i knew of), from rotting joists to water seepage though the rear brick wall, from a leaking skylight to tardy contractors (seriously, better late than never).

I hunted down the non-standard toilet (with a 10-inch "rough-in" instead of one with the usual 12-inch space between the center of the drain and the wall) I needed (at Brooklyn Plumbing Supply — small, no-nonsense and really, really out of the way joint) and speed-installed it before dinner. It took maybe 20 minutes.

"How many toilets do you own?" my brother, Marco, asked.

"One for each day of the week," I texted back. "If you count the one I threw out."

Then, I rehung and framed the door (swapped with one from the hall closet) so that it swings inward instead of into the narrow hallway and chiseled in the new lock. I'll probably replace the door with one made of solid wood when I have the funds, but it works for now — and it was good practice.

I replaced a few 4-by-4 wall tiles and had hoped to install the sink, but I couldn't find that spare drain tube I had laying around. So instead I used that momentum to demolish the basement's acoustical tile drop ceiling for the plumbers to route new natural gas lines for the conversion from oil heat.

My efforts resulted in my being showered in several pounds of drywall, bits of concrete and other random debris in the ceiling space. In the process, one of several giant flourescent light fixtures — like the type in offices — came loose unexpectedly and swung by its metal (BX) cable before crashing to the floor. Thankfully, it missed me.

Shortly after that point, I called it a night and attempted to make enchiladas.

Taking Stock

The novelty of living in a construction zone wears off more quickly than you might imagine.

But it helps a great deal to keep track of the accomplishments, however small, as well as to set goals, however tangential they might seem.

Looking at what I call the dining room during one sunny October weekend, I was satisfied with the work-in-progress look.

Already, the drop ceiling had been taken down in the living room, dining room and second bedroom of the first floor. (The only downside was the amount of trash it produced, which brought its own set of logistics.) The walls had been restored, taped and replastered — with a mixture of joint compound and plaster of paris — and the ceiling had been stripped of its cake-frosting-like texture.

Although I had little fondness for the green linoleum tile inflicted upon the first floor, I was also planning a large housewarming/birthday party/art opening/indie rock festival while the space was relatively raw. For the time being, I would be OK with guests putting out their cigarettes on the floor or writing on the walls.

With so many elements of home renovation to tackle, I had yet to get to such basic tasks as moving my bed boxspring into the bedroom, which I believed to have been the original dining room.

The idea of putting out the closest fires first seemed a natural method of triage, though I would later learn it wasn't the best.

Getting a New Floor

Thank goodness for knowing the right people.

After having panicked over the disastrous state of my second-floor bathroom, I called around to see who knew how to proceed. One of my phone calls went to Ireno, the local jack-of-all-trades who had helped strip the hardwood floors down to their original 1901 splendor. (More on that later.)

Ireno surveyed the damage and said the floor was fine as it was. Normally, I'm appreciative of the no pasa nada approach, but in this case my senses were screaming something entirely different.

It turns out my brother-in-law, Arturo, worked regularly on home renovations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. After determining that new joists were needed, he and a friend proceeded to replace the 3-by-8 sections of lumber.

Cutting into the masonry, they went on to shore up the framing that was already there and properly box off the plumbing for the toilet drain. Underneath all the soggy tiles and poured concrete, it looked like a plumber had simply cut the joists to accommodate the commode.

That reminds me of a story my very capable — and highly recommended — building inspector, Matthew Barnett at Accurate Building Inspectors, told me:

You learn two things in plumbing school. On the first day, they teach you how to throw away the instructions. On the second day, they teach you how to cut wood.

I laughed, not knowing how true I would learn that to be. Matthew was also the one who asked me a poignant question following his inspection of the six-unit building at 289 Harman Street that I had originally planned to buy.

"Are you a general contractor?"

"No," I said.

"Well, you're gonna be."

Unexpected Trouble

One of the cardinal rules I learned soon after buying a 1901 limestone brick fixer-upper was: Expect the unexpected.

And how.

One Saturday morning, I awoke to find my bathroom flooded, its ceiling bowed and dripping water. Panic quickly took over and I ran upstairs to look for the source of the leak. No one was yet living there and we hadn't done any plumbing work yet other than installing a new pedestal sink, so I was bewildered.

The second-floor ceramic tile seemed a bit damp, but there was no geyser to deal with. That's when I decided to start chipping away at the tiles to discover wet subfloor concrete and joists — originally 3-by-8 — that had nearly rotted through to about an inch's thickness. What little wood remained there was spongy and unnaturally dark.

A call to my brother, Marco, led to us stripping it down to the bare joists.

Later, a visitor to the house to whom I had related this story remarked:

"Oh, you really have no bathroom floor. When you said that, I thought there was probably a hole in it at most."

These days, I'm not much for hyperbole.

Trouble From Above

Looking for photos of the house after we took down the drop ceiling, I came across quite a few surprising images. I had almost forgotten what the dining room ceiling once looked like because the changes seem to be so incremental — and because I'm often focusing on what needs to be done next.

The dining room — and the living room — sported an old, crumbly faux-stucco texture overhead that was actually a relief to discover, though only because it meant that there was still a ceiling. Yet, it would have to go.

Even with the walls and ceiling in need of some TLC, the rooms already looked brighter and airier.

The plaster ceiling medallion was not in great shape, apparently having been "patched" with joint compound for some reason I couldn't possibly imagine. The other point of concern was the area around the steam riser that leads to the second floor. There seemed to be a bit of water damage to the plaster and signs of rust on the section of one-inch cast iron pipe that had been hidden above the Sheetrock.

I hadn't even turned on the boiler yet, thus had no idea whether there was an existing leak or whether it had been fixed. It was still warm outside in October and plenty of other stuff to get to before I would tackle this.