For those of you who prefer video to reading a blog post, here is the latest walk through of the house. This one details the walls, ducts, and a few other carpentry items.
Marching Toward the Finish
July 22, 2018 by 1 Comment
What started as a dream in 2014 when I decided to look for a new house, became reality in 2015 when I bought the house, and has been a saga ever since construction started, is finally starting to look like a house that someone can actually live in. Like the saying goes, “Picasso didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in a day. A masterpiece takes time.” Despite the duration of the project, it should pay off in the end with a little patience.
The Construction Loan
Faithful readers will recall my first blog post in which I explained I took out a 203K loan instead of a traditional mortgage to finance the purchase of the property and the construction costs. The bank gave me a standard six-month time frame to complete the construction and pay out the funds to my contractor in six intervals. Well, it’s been over 2½ years now and they are out of patience. They extended me so many times I can’t remember. They said it absolutely has to be done by August 31 or they will cut me off and stop dripping funds to the contractor.
Given that I’ve been carrying the mortgage on my current home along with the mortgage on the new house since late 2015, and we are over budget anyway, this is becoming a bit of a stressful situation. I’ve had to resort to taking a loan against my 401K and taking out several new credit cards that have 0% financing for the first 18 months as a way to bridge loan myself some extra money to carry me until I can sell my condo and pay all of it back. Also, I have to show the bank that enough of the house is done to pay out the remaining portion of the loan by the end of August.
So, I had to light a fire under everyone who was working on the house. Things had been moving at an OK pace, but we needed to make sure there is literally no downtime, and that any decisions or materials that need to be ordered are taken care of ahead of time so there are no more delays for waiting for something. All of it is basic project management stuff, lay out ahead of time what is needed and what steps have to be taken, and be ready to work when the time is right.
I’m hopeful we are going to be in good shape headed into August. Plenty of progress has been made and I’m looking forward to seeing what the house looks like as it is built. This story left off with us passing the insulation inspection. I’ll pick it up from there.
Drywall
The drywall was delivered in late May. I gave a deposit check to Doctor Drywall and we got ready to proceed. As was always the case with this project, even that wasn’t without some sort of issue. Apparently, the delivery service wanted to use a crane to lift the second-floor drywall through a window rather than carry it up stairs. My street is so narrow that they would have had to had the police close off the street in order to operate the crane. So, after a week, they abandoned that idea and decided to charge me an extra $1,000 for them to carry the drywall upstairs. Not sure why we couldn’t have just done that from day one, but either way, we got all the drywall delivered and ready to go.
The upstairs drywall, had to pay extra for delivery!
The first floor drywall. I wasn’t impressed with the effort the gentleman by the window was putting in that day. I guess he wasn’t too interested in impressing the owner of the home with his work ethic.
Drywall installation is a surprisingly quick operation. I showed up on a Friday to see the drywall delivery, and by the next Tuesday, I returned to see most of it installed. They made a huge mess out of the place in the process, but we keep a clean jobsite so it was easily removed over the course of the week.
Drywall in the front bedroom
Drywall and cement board in the guest bathroom
Drywall in the middle bedroom, including the Cattywampus Corner for the fume hood.
The master bedroom being walled.
Cement board in the shower in the master bathroom.
The first floor under construction
The wall below the front steps taking shape.
Another angle of the messy first floor.
Once the drywall was installed, it had to taped and spackled. This took about a week or so and was a pretty uneventful process. No delays or issues popped up.
That’s a lot of spackle!
The living room taped and spackled.
The first floor taking shape.
The front bedroom after being taped.
This guy can spackle while walking on stilts! WOW!
There was some trouble with the basement during the process. There was a misunderstanding about how it was supposed to be fireproofed. As per fire code, we had to prove that the garage area was fire resistant, but some sort of a mistake was made when interpreting the architect’s plans and it wasn’t fireproofed properly. After a little back and forth with the architect, he told them how to fix it, and they came back and completed the job.
They got the basement right on the second try. Good enough.
Spiral Ducts
Once the walls were in place, the HVAC guy was able to come in and build the spiral ducts. Since this house was designed for exposed ducts, that part of the job had to be done after the walls were hung, opposite of most houses that have the ducts hidden by the ceilings and the walls.
The tin knocker efficiently installed the spiral duct work throughout the house. I had asked him to keep it as minimal as possible so that it didn’t dominate the appearance of the house but was visible enough to have an effect on what it looks like. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.
On the first floor, I asked for it to be as high as possible, and to only be as long as necessary to heat and cool the room. He made the duct such that it was close to the wall and went only as far to the north and south as necessary.
The spiral duct that travels most of the length of the first floor.
On the second floor, the ducts come down from the roof and travel through the hallway and the three bedrooms. Again, in the bedrooms, I requested that they only be long enough as necessary to keep the rooms heated and cooled.
The ducts coming in from the ceiling on the second floor.
The duct in the master bedroom.
Carpentry
While the ducts were being installed, my GC brought in the carpenter to proceed with some additional items. First, they installed the molding around the windows and door frames. I asked for the simplest look they could find, and he obliged me with flat molding with as little detail as possible.
Molding in the living room.
We also ordered and installed most of the interior doors throughout the house. I found a few door patterns I liked on line but they were rather pricy. My GC suggested we buy simple, flat doors with no color or pattern and that we can paint and decorate them at a later time.
The master bedroom again, this time with the door and the molding.
I own two cats and I wanted a place to put the litter boxes that was easily accessible to them, but out of the way. I told the GC to claim the bottom two feet of the linen closet in the hallway and leave it open so I can use the space to put the litter boxes. I think it should work out well, I hope the cats use them!
The cat corner is at the bottom of this linen closet.
The carpenter completed some of the outside work as well. He built the deck and stairs from the back door to the back yard. He also put the siding up on the front stairs landing. We reversed some of the charred boards left over from the rest of the front siding and will paint them later on.
The back deck and stairs.
Masonry
My “friend” the mason returned to finish off what was left of his end of the job. After considering if we should just get another guy after the trouble he caused in the beginning, we decided that we should just let him finish and kiss him goodbye. So, he finished off the limestone treads on the front steps, and a few other miscellaneous items on the side and back of the house. I am happy to say that he is done and out of my life!
The front steps are done, and the porch carpentry is getting there.
Painting
The GC had a painter come in and prime all the walls throughout the house. This step made it look like we’re finally nearing completion. The ceilings are actually now in their finished state unless I change my mind and paint one of them an actual color.
When the painting was done, the GC had the floor guy come in and sand down and finish the floors on the first and second floor. Then we had them protected with Shark Board so that they won’t get damaged going forward.
The first floor facing the front of the house. Painted and flooring protected.
The first floor facing the back of the house. Painted and flooring protected.
What’s Next?
There are a million plates spinning at once right now. The HVAC guy has to install the heating and cooling equipment, which will include bringing a crane in to get everything on to the roof. We ordered an outdoor railing from an iron worker. We picked out an on-demand water heater which needs to be purchased and installed by the plumber.
But the thing I am most excited about is the kitchen. The crown jewel of this house, and the feature that I have spent the most time thinking about these past 2½ years is the kitchen and it is finally getting started. I’ll have more on it in the next blog post, but I had countless meetings with my kitchen designer, and we have finalized the design of the cabinets. The appliances have been ordered and are on their way, and fabrication and installation of the cabinets should be done in the next two weeks.
In addition to the kitchens, the same designer is also building my bathrooms. Most of the major design decisions have been made and most of the tile has been delivered to the house. We were able to come up with some sleek concepts that aren’t going to break the bank for all three bathrooms.
A lot is about to happen in a short period of time. I think that Picasso would be pleased with where things are headed.
A Virtual Third Look
May 24, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Here’s a quick video walk through of the house right before the walls were put up. It accompanies the last blog post and it details the insulation installation and the hardwood flooring.
Picking Up the Pace
May 17, 2018 by 1 Comment
Things have tended to move faster once the frame was built. Of course, not nearly as fast as I’d like, but now that the house is weather proof and everything is contained indoors, there are fewer reasons to have idle time and we can keep moving.
At the end of my last post, we were getting ready to have the building inspection. We’ll pick up the story from there.
Stairs
Before we could have the building inspection, we needed to order, fabricate, and install the finished staircase from the first to second floor. There was a temporary staircase in place, but it would not have passed inspection as-is, the inspector would have wanted to see the final product.
When I was asked what kind of stairs I wanted, I poked around online and found a “waterfall” design that I thought looked cool and asked for that to be built. I thought it had a sleek, modern look to it, and I liked how the drywall met the treads and the risers when viewed from the side.
A sample of the “waterfall” stairs I found online and thought were cool. They were the inspiration for what I asked for from the staircase fabricator.
While the rough plumbing and electric work was being done, we ordered stairs from Alvaro Stairs in North Bergen. The stair fabricator noted that we didn’t have enough room to build the risers exactly as I wanted, and we needed to leave some extra space for nosing in order to meet code. So, I settled for treads that had a bit of a nose, and decorative wood on the sides that would replicate the waterfall look from the side.
Once the stairs were in, the contractor was able to build the frame to close off the staircase from the basement and frame the basement door.
The stairs as installed. They will have a similar waterfall look on the side as the sample we were working with. The treads and risers are made from red oak, and the stringers are made from pine. The drywall will be installed right into the stringers and it will look similar to the sample picture when finished.
My Friend, The Building Inspector
This purpose of the building inspection was to take a look at the overall structure of the house and the materials that were use to build it. We would need to pass this inspection before we would be allowed to insulate the house and move on with the project.
My contractor was nervous about this one, having dealt with the Union City Building Department for the entirety of this project. He told me (and I was able to corroborate this story with a large number of other people) that Union City is not like other municipalities in North Jersey, in that they have a very stringent building code standard, and they pay attention to every detail. He asked me if I could have the architect on standby if needed.
I had a few vacation days I needed to kill so I happened to be off of work the day the building inspector came. There was a four-hour window for when the inspector was supposed to arrive so I asked my contractor to text me when he showed up. I got the text that he was there and I jumped in the car. While I was on my way up (and I drove safely and didn’t check my text messages until I parked, thank you very much) I got another text: “trouble brewing, get the architect here”. So, I called the architect and he said he was free and could be there in a matter of minutes.
I arrived at the house and the inspector was staring at the plans and my contractor was nervously pacing about. They started to rattle off terms that went over my head and were somewhat confusing. The architect walked in a few minutes later and was able to join in the discussion and help things along.
After a very detailed review of the plans, a long discussion, and a big walkthrough of the entire house from basement to roof, the inspector found a few things he wanted addressed. A few of the things he cited us for:
- The roof joists were missing something that was required to keep them from compressing.
- Some washers were missing in the basement on the masonry bolts.
- The windows on the 2nd floor were too low to the ground and needed to have limiters put on them to keep them from opening for more than 4 inches. This was likely my fault for switching the original design from casement windows to double-hung and not double-checking if they needed to be higher off the ground. Because, like, I don’t know building code.
- The tin knocker put screws in the dryer vent pipe. That is a no-no and we had to take it out and replace it with one that didn’t have screws in it, only tape.
- We had made a change to the original plans to put some of the HVAC equipment on the roof. Because of that, the inspector told us we need a railing. My architect disagrees, he believes this code doesn’t apply to a single-family house, but for now, it’s on the report as something that needs to be addressed. We might try to argue as I don’t feel like adding yet another $1,000 expense to the project that adds little value. Whenever the HVAC guy is on the roof to do maintenance, I’ll just say “bro, don’t fall off” and we should be good.
Throughout my observation of the conversation and the walkthrough, it appeared to me that my contractor was overly anxious about what was happening. In my opinion, the inspector was just doing his job. Getting annoyed at him if he found something wrong would be like getting annoyed at a cop for giving you a parking ticket an hour after the meter expired. He was being fair with us.
At the end of everything, he looked at us and said “I’m going to let you insulate. There’s nothing here to make me stop you”. So, we have to address the items on his report and prove that they were done (mostly by taking pictures and videos of completed work), but we got to move on.
Gas Pouch
PSE&G showed up and installed the regulator and meter for the new gas line in the pouch we built for it. This was to close out the work I had paid them to do in the very beginning.
The new gas regulator and meter
Button Up the Electric
There were still a few things the electrician had to do. We did a walkthrough, and not everything was finished, and a few things had to change. There were a few outlets that weren’t placed properly, and a few switches and fixtures had to be added. This process dragged on a bit longer than I would have liked as it took several weeks to finish. But it had to be completed in order to do the AV and data rough wiring. We wouldn’t be able to work at the same time, we’d get in the electrician’s way.
One of the big milestones that place during this phase was to have PSE&G upgrade the service to 200 amps. The previous incoming connection of 100 amps would not have been nearly enough. We had to install a breaker in the driveway for the entire house. Due to some code regulation, it had to be there and couldn’t be inside the house. I’ll need to secure it or someone can just walk up and just shut the entire house electricity off.
200 amp service. Cool!
AV and Data Rough Cabling
The reason a professional was not doing the audio-visual and data cabling was because I lucked out and happen to have a family connection to help. My brother happens to be a professional in the field and works for The Judge Group doing corporate AV installations. He was willing to work for food which was a huge help with the budget.
So, he donated about 10 hours of his time on nights and weekends and got to work cabling the house for television, data, and audio throughout. The first thing we had to do was get the holes drilled in the frame where we needed them, so we asked the electrician to help. His drill and set of tools were better suited for the task than anything we had.
Once the spray foam insulation would go in (more on that shortly), we’d be unable to pull any more cables in the future or fix any broken ones unless there was a conduit of some sort that wasn’t encased in spray foam. We went to a local hardware store and looked around for something that was shaped like a bendable tube. We settled on what looked like a long shop vacuum hose and brought that back to the house.
Basement
The majority of the AV and telecommunications equipment will be housed in a rack in the basement and controlled remotely from an iOS app. The DirecTV whole home DVR, the incoming Internet connection (I haven’t decided between FIOS or Optimum yet), the Denon home theater system, and the HDMI switcher will all be in the rack. So, all the HDMI and speaker cables will route into the designated corner. In some cases, we used HDMI, in others, we used Cat 6 depending on the required length.
The corner of the basement where all the cables run to. Everything is carefully labeled. This is a combination of speaker cable and HDMI and Cat 6 cables.
Living Room
The living room required the most work out of all of the rooms. It is designed to be the main media center, computing center, and entertainment area for the inside of the house.
My desk will be along the east wall, so we wired for signals to be sent in both directions between the living room and the basement. The desk will house a TV, my computer, Xbox One, and Amazon Fire TV. The computer, Xbox, and Fire TV will send signals to the HDMI switcher in the basement, and the switcher will send a signal back up to the TV.
The desk wiring, using the improvised hose “conduit”.
The ceiling will hold the four surround sound speakers required for 7.2 surround sound. I ordered one set of the speakers ahead of time so when the drywall is put in, they can use them as a template for the cutouts if they’d like. If not, we’ll cut the holes in later.
The four cables dangling from the ceiling are the cables for the ceiling speakers in the living room.
The west wall is where the TV and remaining speakers are going to go. I was going to get a 65” TV, but I found out that a friend who is also renovating his home got a 75” TV so now I’ll have to do the same. I haven’t ordered the TV yet, but we measured it out so the TV will be in the center of the wall from left to right, and we put an outlet and the HDMI output behind where it will be hung so they will be hidden.
The two front speakers and the single center speaker will be hung on the wall to the sides and below the television. The subwoofers will be on the floor on the north and south ends of the west wall, and we ran subwoofer speaker cable and outlets to each area.
There’s a lot going on here. This will be the wall for the biggest TV in the house. It will have two suwoofers (on the bottom left and right), the right and left speakers, the center speaker below the TV, and the TV hung in the middle. It also has the conduit for the speakers and HDMI that run upstairs to the master bedroom.
We also ran the wire for the upstairs bedroom television, and the bedroom and bathroom speakers through the same conduit in the living room. The wires traveled the floor joists and through a hole in the upstairs subfloor and into the bedroom.
The cable runs on the left go disappear through a hole in the ceiling and head up to the master room bedroom.
Kitchen
I want one smaller television (45” – 55”) in the kitchen across from the island so I can watch TV while I’m preparing food. I didn’t think I needed any speakers given the proximity to the audio on in the living room so this TV will likely always have the same signal as what’s on the living room TV. Again, we hid the outlet and the HDMI cable behind the television.
The HDMI and outlet for the kitchen television
Dining Room
I’m going to transfer my only TV in my Hoboken apartment to the dining room in the new house. It’s only 55” but I think the size will work well for this room. I may want to add cabinetry in the dining room at a later phase so I don’t want the TV to take up too much of the wall. The table is also going to be close to the TV so it will be good enough. The outlet and HDMI connector will be hidden behind the TV. In this case, we ran Cat 6 instead of HDMI due to the length of the cable run.
The dining room TV layout. The speaker cable for the ceiling is in the hose on the right.
This TV will be far enough away from the living room that it will need its own audio, so we ran speaker cable for two stereo speakers in the ceiling. Once again, we used our improvised conduit to guard against the spray foam insulation.
The cable for the left speaker in the dining room. It will be over the dining room table and in line with the chandelier.
Master Bedroom and Bathroom
The bedroom will be a bit of a simpler install. I don’t have a television in my bedroom in my apartment, but I figured that since I have two floors now, I might as well get one in the master bedroom. I also wanted to listen to music in the bedroom and master bathroom as I like to crank loud rock and roll in the morning while I shower and get gussied up for work.
As such, we put an outlet and an HDMI connector for the TV. I haven’t planned a size yet, it’ll probably be in the 55” to 65” range, nothing too crazy. We ran speaker cables for stereo speakers in the bedroom and on the opposite side of the wall in the bathroom. The speakers will be on the same left and right channels in each room, they won’t be able to play separate music, which would have been silly anyway.
The bedroom TV will be hung on the shared wall between the bedroom and bathroom. The speaker cables will run to both rooms so I can listen to Motörhead while I shower and get dressed in the morning.
Insulation
I learned a new term called “R-value” as it relates to insulation throughout the design and build process of the house. The R-value is a measure of a material’s resistance to conductive heat. Standard building codes tend to indicate the necessary R-value for external walls and roofs based on the climate in the region. You have to use materials (mainly insulation) that have an aggregate R-value to meet your R-value requirements.
In the beginning, we failed our initial drawing review because we the architect didn’t have the exactly correct R-value indicated in the plans as per Union City building code. Once we had that sorted out, the plans stated that we needed the following R-values:
- Basement ceiling: 30
- External walls: 21
- Roof: 49
There were three main ways we could reach the required R-value, by using fiberglass insulation, spray foam insulation (both open or closed cell), or insulated siding. Insulated siding wasn’t an option because we couldn’t insulate the Shou Sugi Ban boards, and the color of vinyl siding I chose didn’t come with an insulation option.
So, we were left with spray foam and fiberglass as options. Fiberglass is much cheaper than spray foam, but it takes a lot more space, the higher the R-value. Because we have a 2×4 frame on the external walls, we didn’t have much space to work with. This ended up becoming problematic from a design and budget perspective. We ended up having to go with the much more expensive option of spray foam on the external walls, and a hybrid spray-foam and fiberglass for the roof to meet the required R-values.
The fiberglass insulation in the basement gets us to an R-value of 30.
The east wall insulated with spray foam. Gets us to an R-value of 21.
The aforementioned living room west wall insulated with spray foam. It is now evident why we used that silly hose to make a conduit for the speaker and HDMI cables.
The master bedroom insulated with spray foam.
The roof insulated with spray foam and fiber glass. Gets us to an R-value of 49, baby! That’s some hefty insulation right there!
The insulation cost came out to roughly double what was budgeted for. This was my least favorite cost-overrun of the project, given that it’s not something that you can even see. The bright side is that this insulation should work very well to keep the sunlight from heating up the house. It will also help me save on heating and cooling costs as heat will not be able to enter or leave the house very easily.
Hardwood Floors
The flooring was pretty straight forward. The architect had rendered the house with a very light-colored wood flooring material. After some back and forth with samples, I decided on 3 ¼” red oak select floorboards.
While we were waiting for the insulation inspection, we had some time to install the floors. The flooring guy had the materials delivered and installed in a matter of two days. He added some filler where there were gaps in between boards. At a later time, we’ll have it sanded and covered in three coats of polyurethane. I’m not going to have it stained so it will retain it’s light coloring.
The hardwood flooring on the first floor.
The hardwood flooring on the 2nd floor.
The Insulation Inspection
The insulation inspection was very straight forward. The same building inspector came back and passed us for insulation. He still wanted a few things cleared up from the original inspection before he gave us our “sticker” to continue the project, but he gave verbal approval to move forward with drywall. This will be the last inspection until the very end. Major milestone passed!
What’s Next?
In the immediate future, we will begin installing the drywall in the ceilings and walls. This will be a relatively simple project. We have to plan for the fireproof ceilings and walls in the basement, and the moisture-proof walls in the bathrooms upstairs. Also, getting the drywall inside the house is apparently going to be a bit of a logistic challenge. From what I hear, it is going to require a big truck with boom lifts to get it through the windows.
Following that, we can work in parallel on the HVAC installation of the exposed duct work and the required machinery. We’ll finally begin what will be my favorite part of the project, building and installing the kitchen cabinetry and appliances!
Time Check
I get asked 100% of the time when the move in date is. I still have no idea. I bought the place in December 2015, and we’re still working on it in May 2018. You do the math…
A Virtual Second Look
April 26, 2018 by 3 Comments
This is another video walk-through of the new house, to show progress since the first one. This one includes the new siding, electric, plumbing, lighting, and A/V wiring.
Scatter-Brained and Over Budget!
March 26, 2018 by 4 Comments
I woke up the other day and couldn’t believe I still live in Hoboken. I was supposed to be out in late 2016 in my worst-case scenario. Yet, as I headed into year three of the construction phase, the light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to show. Progress has been taking place at a rapid clip, and it’s a lot of fun to watch the house get built. It is a fascinating process that I never knew anything about until now. I’m also getting to make more and more decisions about how I want it to come out. The questions are coming my way fast and furious from the contractors and it has made me a bit scatter-brained, but this is the fun part and I’m certainly enjoying it.
Homemade Japanese Siding
The siding project took an interesting turn, and unfortunately set the project back a few weeks, and of course jacked up the price! I recall asking my architect early in the process what the siding on the front of the house was supposed to be, I couldn’t tell from the renderings he showed me. He muttered something about using “charred cedar planks” and I didn’t think much of it, assuming that we could just go to the lumberyard and buy some. I turned my attention towards other aspects of the project and didn’t ask about it again until the framing and roof were done.
As it turns out, I should have asked more questions a lot sooner in the process. As I mentioned in my last blog post, the architect wanted to do use Shou Sugi Ban siding, and that is definitely not something that you can just walk up to a local store and buy. In late November, we found ourselves in the position of having to buy it from a specialist (nowhere near new Jersey) or build it, or pick a different siding material. Since I wanted to remain true to the original plan, I decided that we should go ahead with Shou Sugi Ban siding. This decision set us back some time as we then had to figure out what to do. If I had asked more questions earlier, we could have gotten ahead of things and had the siding ready to go on time. Lesson learned for the next time (just kidding, there is NO next time!).
We looked into buying it, but the cost of the materials and the shipping was absolutely prohibitive. So, my contractor had to learn to become an expert in Shou Sugi Ban siding fabrication in his backyard. During some of the coldest days of December, his crew grabbed makeshift blowtorches and about 10 canisters of propane. They spent four days torching tongue-and-groove cedar planks.
Making Japanese siding in a backyard in New Jersey
When the burning phase was complete, they carefully wrapped the charred sides of the boards and transported them to my house. They laid everything out on all three floors of the house and applied two coats of polyurethane to each board to weather treat them.
Pre-treated Shou Sugi Ban siding after the charring phase is done
The siding was carefully wrapped before they sent it to the house
The entire house was used as a staging area for adding coats of polyurethane to the siding
The architect suggested that we use the Shou Sugi Ban siding on the front face of the house, and just far back enough on the sides where it would be visible from the street. He also wanted us to use it for the back face of the house, but I felt that would be too costly.
We bought Ply Gem Mastic Quest Double 4” vinyl siding in “Misty Shadow” for the rest of the house and prepared to get the process of fastening all of the siding to the house started. The first problem was how to hang the cedar planks vertically to match the plans. Since some of the planks would fall in-between where the interior studs were, there was no way to nail them to the house. So, we put up fireproof plywood across the front and sides of the house. That way, we could nail the finished planks to them.
The siding guy proceeded to hang the vinyl siding on the house and finished it all in the matter of one week. At long last, we had a finished-looking house that was water tight!
Adding the plywood layer so we have something to nail the wood planks to
Putting up the wood planks
Installing the vinyl siding in back
So far, there have been no leaks from the new roof and the new siding. We’ve had some pretty bad rain and snow so it has been tested well.
My contractor told me that the first day they had the Shou Sugi Ban siding on the house, someone driving by slammed on his breaks outside the house to ask what it was. He said that it looked fantastic. I’ve been back to the house many times since, and I’ve witnessed it myself. People stop and stare and point out how cool it looks.
The finished vinyl siding in the back
The vinyl siding on the east side of the house
The front of the house. Make sure to stop and stare!
I’m a bit concerned that the siding is already beginning to patina. That will either need to be touched up, or it will simply be part of the look. I’ll have to decide over time. Either way, I took the risk with backyard-made Shou Sugi Ban siding, let’s see how it holds up!
Now Let’s Get the Inside Going
Completing the siding was a huge milestone, because for the first time since we started, it put us in the position to work on multiple things at the same time. My general contractor brought in his team of specialists that he’s been working with for years to get started on the interior plumbing, electric, and HVAC. All three of these processes required that we have an idea of the final layout of the finished house. So, a lot of decisions had to be made.
Plumbing
The house plumbing design has to accommodate the following:
- Two full bathrooms on the second floor.
- A half-bathroom on the first floor
- A kitchen with a sink and a pot filler
- Water and a drain for the washing machine on the second floor
- A natural gas cooktop
- A natural gas dryer on the second floor
- All drain vents must exit through the roof
There was some discussion with my GC about the type of piping to use for fresh water. Ultimately, we decided on pex tubing over copper to save money. There were a few advantages to pex, one of which is that they have a tendency to be harder to burst in situations where they freeze.
In order to prepare for the rough plumbing for the bathrooms, we needed to know where all of the faucets were going to be located so we could install the rough-in valves. Each faucet I selected was wall mounted, so they all have a different set of valves than a typical vanity-mounted faucet. They had to be set precisely in place before the walls are built.
Tubing and valve for the first floor bathroom sink
Tubing and valve for second floor bathroom sink
Tubing and valve for the master bathroom sink
Tubing and valve for the master bathroom shower head and hand sprayer
There was some trouble understanding how one of the bathroom faucets was supposed to be installed. I selected a GROHE shower head, sprayer, and faucet for the main bathroom that had a “double-el” valve that my plumber had never seen before. We had to call the plumbing supply showroom a few times to understand what to do. Eventually, we got clear instructions for how it would have to be installed.
Tubing and valve for the main bathroom shower, faucet, and hand sprayer. The controversial “Double-El” valve is highlighted in the red square in this photo.
Each of the drains and the bathroom exhaust fans needed to be vented through the roof. The open floor plan on the first floor made it tricky to navigate pipes through between the floor joists. For the most part, all piping and vents were run through the half bathroom ceiling on the first floor and straight up to the roof. Others were routed straight up the east wall.
There’s a lot going on above the drop ceiling in the half bathroom on the first floor
The kitchen fume hood was a bit of a controversial topic. There was no obvious way in the plans to fit an 8” pipe and route it outside the house. The wall the kitchen is on is too close to the neighbor’s house to simply punch a hole in it and vent the fume hood right there. We kicked around a few ideas, my two favorites of which were to install it illegally after the inspections were done, or to forget it and install a fume hood that re-circulated air inside the house through a filter! Both were terrible ideas so after much debate, we decided to sacrifice a corner of the middle bedroom and use that to vent the fume hood properly through the roof. It will now be forever referred to as the “Cattywampus Corner”. It is a small sacrifice to make if I can fry three pounds of bacon at once without setting off the smoke detector.
The “Cattywampus Corner” in the middle bedroom will be built around this pipe for the fume hood
The gas line into the house had to be rebuilt entirely because the regulator was dangerously located in the garage near where the car would park. We had PSE&G come in and create a new pipe that went through an old window that we bricked over in order to make a pouch for the new meter and regulator.
The new gas line coming through the pouch we created where the basement window used to be
The new gas line inside the house had to be routed to the kitchen for the range, the upstairs washer/dryer closet, the basement machine room and the roof for the upstairs heater. We also installed a “T” on the gas line so in the future we can use it for the outdoor kitchen range.
Electric
The electric wiring design was a combination of what was on the original plans, and a re-think of the lighting and TV layouts once I was able to walk around inside the house. At all times, building code needed to be observed.
The original plans for the first floor. We moved the island closer to the kitchen counter, and re-worked the recessed lighting plan a little bit to be more in line across the room. Our changes didn’t radically alter the design.
On the first floor, we had to finish the layout so we could plan the wiring. That included, the kitchen layout, the location of the dining room table, the couch, my computer desk, and the couch. This was the most involved decision-making process so far.
We started with the kitchen. The final layout varied from the plans somewhat due to some decisions about the placement about the kitchen island and the cabinet designs. We moved the kitchen island a bit closer to the cabinets, and we made it a bit longer. We also added a pantry which moved over the placement of the refrigerator.
Once everything was drawn out on the floor and walls, we were able to plan where all the outlets needed to be. That included the outlets for the refrigerator, warming tray, oven, and the convection steam oven. It also helped us place the lights on the ceiling. We started with three pendant lights over the island, and then planned two rows of recessed lights that travelled the entire downstairs. In the kitchen, the recessed lights illuminate the space on either side of the island.
The kitchen wall
After the kitchen was in place, we were able to lay out roughly where the dining room table would be. My kitchen designer asked me if I had any details about what kind of table I’d be using so that we could make a better idea about where to place the dining room chandelier. I really don’t have an idea yet so we aligned it roughly with the kitchen island. We also placed it somewhere in the middle of the south wall and the end of the island. That then gave us an idea of where to put the television so we could place the outlet on the wall behind it.
The living room was up next. This room was a bit simpler because there are no hanging lights, we simply had to finish travelling the recessed lights through the area. We also added a third row of lights in the area over the television because this room was a bit wider than the other two. We identified where the television was going to go and placed an outlet behind it.
We also planned out where the speakers were going to be, with a plan to install 7.2 surround sound. We placed the two required subwoofers in each corner of the room and put an outlet behind each. The front three speakers will be mounted on the walls, assuming a TV size of 65 inches.
Row of recessed lights for the living room
Both rows of recessed lights across the first floor zones
Lastly for the first floor, we planned out the computer desk and all of the various inputs and outputs we’ll need for audio/visual and data. It will be along the back wall of the living room behind the couch. The downstairs will include a mix of hardwired Internet connections for gaming and computing, and WiFi for everything else, including smart home devices.
We planned the switch layouts such that I can control all three rooms as zones and have “layered” control in each zone as well. For example, in the dining room
The second floor was a bit simpler to plan out. Each room was compartmentalized and treated separately, so there was less to align and match.
The first bedroom in the front of the house will be lit by one hanging light in the center of the room. The same with the middle bedroom.
The master bedroom will be lit by both recessed lighting and by a hanging light in the center of the room.
The outlets in the bedrooms were arranged by building code. I added them all up and there are 20 outlets in total, for a total of 40 sockets. I can’t imagine having enough things to plug in that require that many sockets, but building code is building code.
The hallway will be lit by sconces. There will be exposed ducts running along the ceiling so we won’t be able to light them from above.
One area that is still under discussion is how to light the stairs. I didn’t like the idea of overhead lighting above the stairs because I’d have no way to reach it to change the bulb. So, we are working out a plan to install recessed lighting in the wall along the staircase. The final design has yet to be decided.
Each bedroom and the hallway required a hard-wired smoke detector. They were all placed out of the way from the lights in each area.
HVAC
While this was all going on the tin knocker was busy installing all the rough items needed for the HVAC system which will be put in place at a later time. He can’t put the duct work in until the walls are in place, but everything that goes inside a wall or a ceiling or exits the house through the roof needs to be installed now.
All of this has to exit through the roof
HVAC ducts which will go inside the walls
In order to have two-zoned heating and cooling, and in order to fit everything in the house and not take up backyard space, we are going to use a combination of the roof and the basement to store all heating and cooling machinery. So, all intakes and vents had to be planned out accordingly. The house doesn’t have a chimney so we are using PVC flues where needed. All of the bathroom exhausts were installed and vented through the roof as well.
The various exhausts and intakes that exit through the roof
Finishes
Also on the to-do list are all of the finishing items, especially those that require cabling or plumbing before the walls are put into place. I’ve been keeping track of all of my ideas using OneNote and researching ideas and modifying the list as I go.
My scatter-brained notes
The most interesting part is planning out the audio/visual and data connections and making sure they are future proof. The plan is to store most of the equipment in the basement, and route HDMI and speaker cables throughout the house where needed. My brother does commercial A/V installations for a living so he has graciously offered to help design and install everything we need before the walls go in.
The working plan includes the following:
- DirecTV (for television)
- Verizon Fios (for Internet)
- Five indoor televisions (two living room, one kitchen, one dining room, one master bedroom)
- 7.2 surround sound in the living room
- Stereo speakers in the dining room, master bedroom, master bathroom (I like listening to music when getting ready in the morning)
- Amazon Echo integration throughout the house
- WiFi throughout the house and outside
- Xbox One for gaming in the living room
- Amazon Fire TV for media streaming
We have an unorthodox plan for running the necessary cabling throughout the house before the spray foam insulation goes in such that we can pull ore replace cables as necessary. We are going to use some hoses we found at a hardware store as cheap conduit.
There are a few other non-A/V items that I’m planning for, some of which I’ve already purchased so we can install them when they are ready:
- Hunter Douglas motorized shades (first floor and master bedroom only)
- XLERATOR Automatic Hand Dryer for the downstairs bathroom
- Nest Hello doorbell replacement
- Amazon Key for the front door and delivery half door door
The Hunter Douglas shades required a power supply which I purchased to be installed in the basement. All three shades will be connected to the same power supply and the electrician will install the wiring.
The hand dryer will not only be practical but will add to the ambience on the first floor. I want it to look and feel like a trendy restaurant or club.
The Nest Hello was just released this March and I got in on the first shipment. It will provide video security for the front door and will also alert me anytime someone rings the bell, whether I am home or not.
Amazon Key is a new product as well, and it will allow for keyless entry using a keypad to the front door, and the delivery hatch we are building to the basement. This will allow Amazon to deliver packages and leave them inside the house. Each Amazon Key is coupled with a security camera that stores footage in the Amazon Cloud. Every time someone uses the keypad to open the door, I get an alert and I can watch what is going on using an app.
Inspections
With equal parts optimism and dread, I was looking forward to the separate plumbing and electric inspections which were scheduled for March 19. My GC put his crew on a deadline to have everything ready to go before then, and they worked through the weekend to complete everything. I wanted to get these two inspections, but also calculated about a 100% chance of failing them both for some reason.
Much to my surprise, we passed both without issue. My GC was so surprised, he told me he couldn’t sleep that night because he was so excited! He also forgot to attend a meeting with a perspective customer because his emotions got the best of him. I’ve never been so happy to be 100% wrong about something.
What’s Next
Our next inspection is the building inspection on Wednesday. This one is going to check on everything we built including the frame, the roof, and the siding. One of the inspectors who was at the house a few months ago noted that he believed that wood siding was not allowed on the sides of a house. But our siding plan was on the original approved plans, and I checked the building code myself and nowhere does it say we can’t have wood siding. I don’t know what to make of his comment, but I’m hoping for the best on Wednesday.
Once we get past inspection, we can install the bespoke conduit for the AV equipment. Once we are sure everything is in place on the exterior walls, we will spray-foam insulate everything. That will be the last step before we can put floors and walls in.
Over Budget
Not only is almost every single item on original plan over budget, but I’m still bleeding cash each month as I pay off two mortgages. Everything I wrote about in this blog has been a lot of fun and I’m very much enjoying the decision making and implementation process. Waking up every morning knowing that I’m going broke from paying two mortgages since I bought the place in December 2015 and knowing that I’m nowhere near completion is becoming very stressful and upsetting. Any cash I had on hand for cost overruns has pretty much evaporated and I’m looking for new ways to borrow and fund the rest of the project. In the end, this will probably cost me time getting started on phase 2 (mainly the backyard), but I can’t worry about any of it now. We’ve picked up the pace in 2018 and I’m doing my best to keep everything moving as quickly as possible.
A Virtual First Look
November 28, 2017 by 3 Comments
This is a video that accompanies my previous blog post about the framing being completed on the new house. It even includes some dramatic police activity in the first few seconds.
This House Has Good Bones
November 26, 2017 by 6 Comments
I remember someone telling me that “this house has good bones” before I bought it. As it turns out, when we stripped the walls out, we found out that the bones weren’t all that great. The point is moot because we ripped out most of the “bones” and threw them in the trash.
This all seems like so long ago. Quick recap of the timeline:
- September 2014: I decide to start looking for a house.
- October 2015: I found what I wanted and put an offer down.
- December 2015: We close on the house and I now own it. Piece of cake, should be done with everything and moved in at worst by November 2016, right?
- March 2016: We submit final drawings and plans to Union City.
- September 2016: After several iterations, Union City grants us building permits.
- October 2016: Demolition begins. Following that is excavation and masonry in the front and back of the house.
- September 2017: Masonry and demolition is complete. Yes, that phase of the project took a year.
- October 2017: Framing begins.
- November 2017: Framing is complete, roof is installed.
Several other people have told me that they can’t believe how patient I am. Maybe I wear it well, but I don’t feel patient at all. If they were mind readers, they’d know that I’m ready to rip my hair out and jump in the Hudson River. It’s been over three years since I decided that I wanted to buy a house and leave my Hoboken apartment. Here I sit in front of the keyboard in my condo with a baby crying on the other side of my living room wall.
However, there is a huge bright side to this story, and as frustrated as I’ve been, I’ve never been more excited about this project. As per item #9 above, the framing is done! I can now walk around in the house and see what it really looks like after staring at plans for over a year. I can officially exclaim that this house really does have good bones!
Not only that, but once the framing is done, we can move forward on everything else that needs to be done, and we can start working on several things in parallel. I’m no longer at the mercy of my friend, the mason, who was holding the entire project up.
Building the Frame
Framing is a much more straight-forward and streamlined process than masonry work, as I learned. The framers tend to show up and stay on the job site until most everything is done. The bulk of the work took about three weeks, with a few things that needed to be done at the end that were based on decisions we made as things were built.
I opened an account with Kuiken Brothers, who would supply the framing materials and supplies. The framer would call in orders to Kuiken as needed, and they would deliver everything immediately.
The house was partially demolished, and we preserved the east and west walls of the existing frame. The north wall, facing the back yard, was demolished completely before the framer started. The south wall on the front of the house stayed in place and was dismantled as the frame went up. The floor between the first and second floors had to be demolished in parts while bracing the existing east and west walls so they would not collapse while the new frame was being built.
The first floor of the frame taking shape
The first floor of the frame taking shape in the front of the house. The old front wall was demolished as the new front wall was built.
The second floor as it is being built. This is the view from the master bedroom.
The first floor as it is being built. The existing frame had to be braced while the new one was being built around it.
The house is sheathed in Georgia-Pacific DensGlass Sheathing. This is to get the house in-line with current fire code. It will prevent fires that start inside the house from spreading outside for a short while. The new frame is sheathed entirely in DensGlass. It was also applied to the outside of the existing frame.
DensGlass Sheathing surrounding and fireproofing the house.
A temporary staircase was built between the first and second floor. The existing floor joists between the basement and the first floor were re-used and “sistered” to the new floor joists that were installed. The reconfiguration allowed us to make room to build a wider staircase than the one that was there. The existing staircase was maybe a foot and a half wide, you had to walk up and down it sideways. It was very unsafe and certainly not up to any kind of modern building code.
The old joists (the dark one) were sistered to the new floor joists in the basement.
The finished basement staircase, much safer and wider than the old one.
As the frame went up, I was finally able to walk around inside the house to get a feel for the size and layout. I had a very good idea after having stared at the drawings for so long, but that is not the same as being inside of it in real life.
The open layout of the first floor is strikingly large in contrast to my current apartment. All in, the first floor is about 200 square feet bigger than my entire apartment, including my bedroom. There are just two rooms: the bathroom, and everything else! There is no separation between the living room, dining room, and kitchen. This is a distinctive feature that I insisted on from the beginning and I’m very excited to actually see it in person.
A clean view of the first floor with it’s open floor plan.
The second floor is going to have an interesting look and feel to it as well. It is divided into three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a linen closet, a hallway, and a washer/dryer closet.
The bedroom in the front of the house facing south has two large window cut outs, two closets, and a ceiling that slopes downward from south to north. The decision was made to slope the ceiling as the house was being framed, the architect noted that there was space to do it once he saw how the frame was taking shape. It is going to be a rather large space and has a lot of potential for various uses.
The middle bedroom and main bathroom will be ordinarily shaped with level ceilings. The middle bedroom had just enough space between my house and the neighbors (something like three feet and an inch) to be allowed to have a window by fire code. Had it not had enough space for a window, technically it wouldn’t count as a bedroom.
The master bedroom is also very uniquely shaped. It begins at the extension of the house so the roof was raised and then sloped downward towards the back of the house. Therefore, the ceiling will be sloped in the same direction. It comes with a walk in closest and a bathroom. The bathroom will have a walk-in shower and a window facing the back yard.
The frame taking shape on the second floor. This is the view from the master bedroom facing the front of the house.
Time to Make Some Decisions
Once the house is framed, you can proceed with pretty much everything else that needs to be done in the house. You can take a look at the frame and decide if the plans are going to work out, or if you have to make adjustments to the design.
One of the first things we had to decide was how to heat and cool the house. My GC brought in a trusted HVAC guy he’s been working with for years. I was a little late getting to our initial meeting at the job site and they had started without me.
The drawings stated that the house would be heated with forced air and centrally cooled in a two-zone system through ducts. The first thing the HVAC guy said was that there was no room for ducts in the plans and that we’d have to make adjustments.
The first suggestion the HVAC guy made was to consider a ductless mini-split system. This system would include several outdoor heating and cooling units mounted on the sides and back of the house, and they would be attached by hose to wall mounted indoor units placed throughout the house. The indoor units would protrude from the walls and would be programmable by remote control.
The mini-split system comes with a major drawback, in that in extremely cold weather, they won’t be able to heat the house well enough. So, we would have to also install baseboard heating as a backup for the mini-split system.
The mini-splits also don’t have any kind of smart interface to them. So, I would never be able to use my Amazon Echo to control the temperature, I would have to use the remote controls.
Given the design aesthetic, the lack of a programmable interface, and the need for a secondary heating system, I wasn’t very enthused with this plan.
An idea that I had coming into the discussion was to use heated floors, sometimes called radiant heating. This is a way to hook up a system of tubes that carry hot water throughout the sub-flooring just below the finished floorboards. This is an extremely energy-efficient method of heating. It is virtually invisible throughout the finished section of the house as it is below the floors and doesn’t require any vents. From an aesthetic standpoint, this is the best way to go.
Unfortunately, heated floors come with a very high upfront cost. They would also require a separate cooling system be installed. My contractor eventually priced out this option and it was a budget-buster so I had to say no.
The HVAC guy said something interesting to me while we were discussing options. He asked if I liked an industrial look to the house. I asked him why he asked that. He then floated the idea of using exposed spiral ductwork throughout the house. The ducts wouldn’t be hidden, but would instead become decorative and part of the design aesthetic.
I immediately loved the idea. For some reason, I had daydreamed about the possibility of having exposed ducts in the house, but had never seriously considered them as an option until he brought it up. We walked through what it would look like and how it would be built and I was sold on the idea.
The aim now is to have one heating and cooling unit on the roof for the upstairs zone. There will be one air-compressor on the roof, and we’ll also have a heating unit and an air-handler in the basement for the downstairs zone.
In order to make this work, we needed to make a compromise to the original design. We had to find two square feet of floor space in order for the ducts to come in and out of the basement. We decided to move the downstairs bathroom two feet into the living room area to accommodate this need. It’s not a very big loss, there wasn’t anything planned for that space anyway.
We had the HVAC guy pull the cut sheets for the roof units so the framer could build the mounts for them on the roof. With the architect’s blessing, we made the appropriate changes to the design and prepared the house for this system to be installed at a later time.
Making it Water-Tight
Once the frame is done, the next step is to make the house water-tight. This will enable everything else to move forward. This includes the roof, windows and doors, and the siding on the outside of the house.
The Roof
Once the frame was in place we put the roof on. This was a no-frills roof that didn’t require much of a decision to be made. The roofer built the roof in about one day, and used Johns Manville APeX 4S Embossed roofing materials.
Looking up at the roof hatch from the second floor.
The new roof, facing the front of the house.
The roof facing the front of the house. The platform is for the heating/cooling unit.
The Windows
We had decided on Marvin Integrity All-Ultrex windows after a lengthy comparison shopping process. They had been specified and ordered a long time ago, and were waiting around in a Kuiken Brothers warehouse somewhere for us to call them and say it was time to install. Once the roof was in place, it was OK to have the windows delivered and installed.
This was exciting for me as it was the first finishing touch we’ve applied to the house. I got to see what the finished product looked like once they were put in.
My friends from Kuiken Brothers delivering the windows.
The windows and the front door are installed on the front of the house.
The Doors
The doors became an interesting decision to make. The architect stated the that height of the doors needed to match the height of the window cut outs for aesthetic purposes. This meant the doors had to be 90” tall. This is tricky as most doors are 80” tall. You can’t even really google 90” doors, virtually nothing pops up.
I found a few samples for the front door that I liked on Houzz to give my GC a few ideas, but we couldn’t find one in my size. He took a look at one of the pictures I sent him and he came up with an idea. He thought he could get a very cheap door with no markings on it fabricated as a special order for very cheap. Later on, we can hang decorative markings on it and paint it to somewhat match the picture I showed him. So, we ran with that idea and ordered a plain 90” door.
The back door was a little different. We decided to go with a standard door with a glass panel in the middle to get some more natural light in the house. We picked one from the Thermatru line of doors. In order to match the 90” height, we had it shipped with a custom-built transom window above it.
The windows and the back door are installed on the back of the house.
The basement door was a standard-build, as simple as it gets. It just needs to function, it doesn’t have to be pretty.
The Ancient Art of Japanese Siding?
The drawings were rather vague when it came to the siding on the front of the house. It just said something about cedar planks shaped with tongue-and-groove connectors in the front and the back, and vinyl siding for the sides of the house. My contractor called the architect to ask him what he had in mind for the decorative siding in the front. The architect asked the contractor if he was sitting down.
The architect then proceeded to explain that he wanted to use Shou Sugi Ban siding. Shou Sugi Ban is an ancient Japanese method of charring cedar planks with fire to prepare them for use. The planks have an interesting look to them, and the treatment also makes them more fire resistant.
Well, the GC and I had never heard of this, and my architect had never used them on any of his projects before either. But this was the way he dreamed up my project and I’ve trusted his judgment thus far so we got to work in researching this possibility.
First thing we did was to Google it, of course. Shou Sugi Ban pretty much consists of three steps:
- Burn the wood with a torch
- Brush it off by hand
- Treat it with some kind of oil finish
We also found a few places that sell pre-made Shou Sugi Ban siding planks. One is in Texas, the other in Pennsylvania.
The architect was so excited about seeing this come to life, that he volunteered to help us practice making these boards. So, we all met at my contractor’s house and got started. The contractor bought a blow torch that hooks into a regular propane tank and a few samples of tongue and groove cedar planks.
Working on the rough side of the planks, we charred them with the torch. It didn’t take very long at all for the planks to turn black. If we held the torch in place for just a bit longer, the surface would start to crack in a pattern that resembled alligator skin.
That gas tank isn’t just for BBQ! It is also for making Shou Sugi Ban siding!
The contractor had also stained some planks black as a control group to hold next to our Shou Sugi Ban samples. We held them next to each other and could see the difference. There was more color depth in the charred boards, and the alligator texture gave it a very interesting look.
Next, we brushed the charred board off. The alligator skin cracks immediately came off, and the board reverted to a more brown-like color. This wasn’t the look we wanted at all, so we rejected the idea of brushing the boards off.
The problem became to figure out how to preserve the alligator skin cracks on the boards. We figured that if they brushed off so easily, they’d weather off right away when we hung them on the house. So, we applied two coats of polyurethane to one of the boards, drying it quickly with a heat gun after each coat.
We took that sample and rubbed it with our fingers. No residue came off and it looked like the two coats of poly did the trick. The board held on to the color and texture we wanted, and it had a nice shine to it as well. All we had to do was to remove step #2 from the traditional process and we had the look we wanted.
We put the sample board down next to some vinyl siding samples and settled on one of them that matched best. The vinyl siding will wrap most of the sides of the house, and maybe the back. We’re considering Shou Sugi Ban planks for the back of the house if they aren’t cost prohibitive.
The very bottom of this sample board is the Shou Sugi Ban we are looking for. The rest of the house will be wrapped in vinyl siding in the “Misty Shadow” color shown here.
We’re going to price everything out this week, including getting a quote from the millshop in Pennsylvania that sells these types of planks off-the-shelf. With any luck, we have a decision made early in the week and we can get the siding started shortly thereafter.
Next Up
Following the completion of the siding, we will start on the rough plumbing work. This will require some final decisions on the layout of the kitchen and bathrooms. This will include all of the various water fixtures (faucets, pot fillers, shower heads, etc.) so we can buy the rough-in valves that go behind the walls.
I reached out to my kitchen designer and we picked up the work we had started a year ago. I went back to the showroom and refreshed my picks for the water fixtures throughout the house. I also refreshed my wish list for kitchen appliances as well. This was all my designer needed to get started on planning the final layouts for the kitchen and bathrooms. When this is done, we can mark off where the valves need to go so the plumber can install them.
Bottom line is that we are moving at a faster pace than we ever have since the project started. I’m communicating with the designer, contractor, and architect almost every day and we are making design decisions as we go. The fun part is finally here! Now, I just need to start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I still don’t have an ETA for completion and I have to continue to plan for the worst-case-scenario.
Longest Year Ever
October 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
So, here’s something I didn’t know when I decided to gut-renovate a house. It takes almost an entire calendar year to finish partial demolition and masonry work. We started in October 2016, and as of the time of this writing, we are getting ready to start the framing of the house in October 2017!
What took so long? Well, if you’ve been following my blog, the town was very difficult to deal with at first, and then I’ve been mired in construction delays. At times, I’ve wondered if I make a mistake by not completely demolishing the house. I probably could have gained efficiency if the old structure wasn’t in place and then we would have had enough room to bring machinery in to assist in the excavation process. It’s hard to tell exactly what the cost and time difference would have been had I done that, but we did get to save most of the original structure, so that should be worth something.
We Have a Drainage System
In June, we dug a trench where the old clay pipe drainage system used to be. Apparently, the sewer connection is somewhere behind the house, not in front of it. We were able to locate the connection, and hook the new PVC pipe system into it.
The drainage system in the front driveway
Once the new drainage system was built, we had to call in the town to inspect before we could cover it back up and fill it in. It took about 4 days lead time to call the inspector in. He failed us due to the way the pipes were configured, I never got the exact detail why. The plumber had to fix the problem and we had to get the inspector back in seven days.
All of the sewage connections in the house come together in the garage
Just like that, an entire week was lost. This may not seem like a big deal, but this is typical of a project. A three-day setback here, a week setback there, a three-week setback for some reason. It all adds up to major, major time lapses in between actual work. I’ve come to learn that watching your construction project sit idle for any amount of time is a special kind of torture that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Let’s Button It Up
After we finally passed the inspection of the drainage system, we were able to build the basement floor. We backfilled the dirt over the pipes and filled in the trenches. We put a plastic sheet down over the dirt and then built a rebar mesh on top of that. That required yet another inspection, one which we passed on the first try.
The drainage trough at the foot of the driveway
The plastic membrane and rebar
The plastic membrane and rebar
It took a few weeks for the mason to come back, of course, but when he did, he poured concrete over the rebar and plastic, and I finally had a finished basement floor!
View of the fresh coat of cement from the driveway
The fresh cement in the rear addition of the house
More Demolition
Once the floor was poured, my general contractor called in the framer so he could get ready to get started. They also called in my architect to walk through the plans together and get on the same page. One of the things they reviewed was the remaining demolition work that needed to be done. The house needs to be demolished in stages so the remaining shell can stay in place without collapsing during construction.
Making a big mess out front
For reasons that weren’t too clear to me, we still hadn’t done a lot of the work that the framer required in order to start. It could have been done while we had some downtime in between inspections, but it didn’t happen.
Somebody noticed that there was concrete between the garage and first floor that had to be demolished. I don’t know why we didn’t learn this sooner. So, they had to put plywood down on my brand-new garage floor and demolished the concrete, making a mess of the basement again.
This is now on top of my new basement floor! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
They had to demolish the original brick chimney while they were at it. That was another bit of work that could have been done much earlier. Finally, they had to strip the outside and inside of the house to the studs and plywood. When it was all done and cleared out, there wasn’t much left but the outer shell of the house, and the ceiling and floor between the first and second floors. The house was finally in a condition to be framed.
What’s left of the chimney
The spaces in between the joists were where the cement was between the first floor and the basement. Nobody noticed it was here until we had finished the basement floor. It had to be removed because it was potentially damaging to the joists.
The hole to the sky where the chimney used to be
What is now left of the front of the house. The garage door is gone, replaced temporarily with that blue tarp.
All that is left of the second floor. Only the outer shell and the roof will remain. The floor will be completely ripped out.
OK, So Let’s Get Started
In late August, my GC e-mailed me to tell me the framer was going to start on September 20. We had a week or so of demolition left and the house would be ready to go long before the start date. Naturally, I called him right away to tell him we needed to move that date in. He told me it wouldn’t be possible because the framing guy was working another job. I told him that I really needed the house to be framed before the winter set in. He emphatically stated that it would take at most two weeks to frame the house and I didn’t have anything to worry about.
September 20 approached and the GC told me the start date was now going to be September 21. Then the framer declared that because it was a Thursday so we might as well start the next Monday. I didn’t follow that logic at all, but I wasn’t going to flip out about four more days wait.
On Monday, I texted the GC and asked him if we were starting. Heard nothing back that day. On Tuesday he texted me and said he was aware I was waiting for an answer and I’d hear back from him by the end of the day. No word for the rest of the day or all of Wednesday. Thursday, I called and got him on the phone. He told me he was very embarrassed, but the framer wasn’t going to take the job.
Things took an interesting turn after that. I repeated my original deadline that the house had to be framed before the winter or the project would be in serious jeopardy. I would at some point just run out of money, having to pay two mortgages. I’m already well over 10 months past my projected worst-case scenario of being done from when I bought the house in December, 2015.
My GC proceeded to get very worked up in explaining to me that he’d figure something out. He said he was embarrassed and upset about the situation and he felt that his entire reputation was on the line. I ended up having to calm him down and tell him not to get bent out of shape. It was almost as if our positions were juxtaposed. I should be the one that is bent out of shape!
I started to consider my options in order of preference:
- Wait for my GC to find a new framer
- Find my own framer
- Fire the GC and quickly find someone else
- Stop making mortgage payments and let the bank foreclose on the house
Each option had pros and cons. At that point, as much as I like the guy, my confidence in my GC was pretty much shot. I didn’t have a framer or a new GC in mind and it would be difficult to make a big change like that given my time constraints at work. The fourth option was a nuclear one, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. I’d lose about 15 years of savings with everything I’ve put into the project so far and my credit would be ruined. But I’d stop the bleeding. I wouldn’t need my credit rating anymore because it would be years before I could save up enough to try again.
Anyway, on Friday, I got a series of text messages from the GC that he had found a new guy and that he might be able to start next week. They met at the house that day, and by Saturday, we had a quote from him. After a day of pondering my options, the first one looks like it was going to work out.
I have it in writing that it should take the new framer about three weeks to finish, and that includes installing the windows that I ordered in August. The framer has a job he needs to start right after that, so he is incentivized to hurry up!
In a way, this is almost too good to believe that we found a reputable guy just in time that has nothing else better to do for the next three weeks. But, this is pretty much my best choice right now. So, on Monday, we are going to order $16,000 worth of lumber from Kuiken Brothers, and we are going to get started.
How Did It Come to This?
When I started this blog, I had figured that it would be an interesting story about design decisions, construction, and decorating the house over the course of many years. I thought I would be living in the house by the end of 2016, and would have sold my Hoboken condo, rolling the proceeds from the sale into a much smaller mortgage on the new house. Instead, this blog has turned into an infrequent, long-winded complaint about not much getting done!
I don’t live life with regrets. I believe in taking measured risks in order to get better outcomes for yourself. This was definitely a risk, and so far, it has not worked out at all. I am certainly not going to say I regret this decision, I know that I wouldn’t have been happy had I simply stayed in my small Hoboken apartment with no eye towards the future. But, this certainly now falls into the category of a BAD IDEA! I’m never going to make up all the money I lost paying the double mortgage for so long, and as of this writing, I can’t see how it’s even going to get done before 2019, a full three years and more after I bought the place.
This is a pivotal week. If they start framing the house and come even close to their self-imposed three-week deadline for completion, my whole outlook will change. I’ll be in a position to tell my contractor that he’d better have someone working on this job every single day until it is done! All work can proceed on the house once the framing is complete, and weather will no longer be an issue.
Wish me luck…
Is Your House Done Yet?
June 17, 2017 by Leave a Comment
“Hey man, how’s your house? You moved in yet? I haven’t seen one of your blog posts in a while”.
This line of questioning is all my fault. I’m the one that told everybody I knew that I bought a house in December, 2015 and planned to renovate it. I made matters worse by blogging about and sharing it on Facebook. I drew all kinds of attention to the subject so I deserve the litany of questions that go along with it.
The only problem is that I have had virtually no answer to that question for the better part of 2017. This past winter was brutal for my project. We started in October of 2016 and hit a number of roadblocks right away. Not much can progress on the house until the masonry in front and back is complete. Only when that is done can the house be framed and the rest of the work can start.
There is a whole litany of reasons the project moved so slowly, fitting mainly into three categories: Difficulty with inspections from the town, bad weather, and delays with the mason. Weeks would go by with no progress at all, leaving me with an empty feeling of helplessness as my bank account was draining with nothing to show for it.
In January, there was some progress on the rear addition. The footings were approved and the mason started to lay cinder blocks with a duro-bond wire in between every other layer. Once that was done, my contractor called the building inspector and asked him to approve the rear addition. On February 3, the inspector gave us our first inspection failure.
My first inspection failure. I think I’ll frame the original.
The basis of the failure was somewhat unclear at the time. It seemed to hinge on a somewhat confusing conversation that the inspector and my contractor had. First, the inspector said that we needed to check to make sure the foundation was built with the proper setbacks from the neighboring properties in accordance with the approved plans. The contractor asked if that meant we had to have the property surveyed right away. The inspector said that would do, or we could get a letter from my architect saying that we were building according to his design.
The second reason we failed was because the inspector wanted proof that we put the duro-bond where it belonged and that we doweled into the existing wall properly. My contractor said that we had pictures and that the architect was supervising the project and could attest that we were in accordance with the building code. The contractor pointed out that the only to prove everything would have been to have the inspector visit after every layer of cinder block was installed!
I’m telling you, bro, we really did layer the blocks properly!
It was kind of hard to prove once the walls were built.
The view from the back looking towards the front of the house
We proceeded to get a letter from the architect explaining that everything was built according to plan and we sent that to the building inspectors office. We really didn’t know at the time if that was going to be good enough, so we prepared to move on with building the drainage system.
The project had stalled a bit being early February. The weather was poor and the mason didn’t have much of a window to work outside. My contractor told me that he was going to meet with the mason on February 20 to discuss moving forward with the project. I asked if he could let me know what time he was going to be there so I could meet them both. I had that day off of work for President’s Day.
On the morning of the scheduled meeting, my contractor texted me and asked me to give him a call. He said that the contractor was on an unannounced two-week vacation to Peru. Of course, the weather broke and those two weeks were very temperate for that time of year, it would have been good enough for the masonry crew to continue on.
About three weeks after the supposed two-week vacation started, the mason announced he was going to return to the job. That day it snowed and he couldn’t come. The snow was heavy and froze over and set us back again. All told, from the time of the failed inspection on February 3, we lost about 8 weeks to weather and the mason’s vacation before he was able to start back on the project in earnest.
The Drainage System
As I explained in a previous blog post, we had to build a pretty elaborate drainage system around the extension in back of the house. We were required to drain all rain water into the sewer connection. This is the opposite of what most municipalities want you to do, typically you are not supposed to overload the sewer system with rain water. Union City works in mysterious ways.
We also had to fill in the trenches around the extension with rocks to aid in drainage around the outside of the house. Since we couldn’t get machinery through the alley between my house and the neighbor, the masonry crew had to use shovels and a wheelbarrow to fill the rocks in around the house.
That trench is where the rainwater drainpipe will be.
One of the rainwater drainpipes in it’s fancy rocky bedding.
An idea of the scale of the excavation we had to do to make room for the pipe. The masons made this pile of dirt with buckets, one by one.
The pipes in the aforementioned trench.
Front Masonry
The front of the house wasn’t nearly as elaborate as the job in the backyard. We aren’t extending the house in the front, but we are building a second story where the original mud room front porch was. This required first that we demolish the mud room and check the existing foundation to see if the footings were deep enough. On the left side of the house, the footing was deep enough to pass inspection. On the right of the house, there was no footing at all, requiring us to demolish the existing wall and excavate enough ground to pour one.
Nope, no footing in here. WTH?
So, we just poured our own footing. Better make sure it is 42″ deep, not just 36″. Don’t want the house to fall over!!!
And we have a new wall in front.
The dangerous front steps were also slated for replacement. They were demolished and the skeleton of the new steps were put in place. They seem to be a lot more even and less deadly than the old set of steps. They still need to be finished with concrete. We’re not going to use any brick finishes, the design we are looking for is a simple one with a skim coat of stucco.
The hole where the old steps used to be.
The foundation of the new steps, all with uniform height!
The Inspector Is Our Friend Now?
Before we could backfill the backyard, we needed to have the inspector come and check out the drainage system. We also wanted him to review the front footings, the existing one we planned to retain, and the new one that we dug out. He no-showed our first window, telling my contractor while he was at the house waiting that he couldn’t make it. He made it the next day, and things went decidedly better than any of our previous inspections.
The inspector reviewed the drainage system in back and determined that it was adequate. He gave us the go ahead to back-fill the dirt back in the trenches without issue. There was, however a problem in the front. The new footing was only 36 inches deep, according to the plans and building code, it had to be 42 inches deep. The contractor realized there was a mistake but was taken aback by the response the inspector had. He told the contractor simply to dig the hole six inches deeper, send him a picture, and that we’d be good! From the explanation of the story that I got, I think my contractor nearly fainted from the shock of this act of kindness and common sense. This was the go-ahead we needed to build the new foundation wall on the right side of the house which was the last bit of foundation that needed to be built.
The backyard now that the trenches have been back-filled.
So, Where Exactly Does the Sewer Drain?
Now it was time to hook into the existing sewer connection as per our design. The mason ripped up the basement garage floor where the house trap is. We found a clay pipe that we originally thought drained out the front of the house to the sewer in the street. The plumber visited and pointed out that the pipe was pitched towards the back of the house.
The clay pipe, pitched down and away from the front of the house.
It turned out that the clay pipe was just a rainwater drain from the front of the basement and that the sewer pipe heads out the back of the house. We couldn’t figure out exactly which direction it heads. When we excavated the back extension, we never hit the pipe. It either took a sharp turn to the side under one of the neighbor’s houses, or went straight down. Whatever the case is, they tested it out with a hose and water seems to drain well through it, so who cares?
Hopefully this is the last “mystery” in this house. There’s going to be so little left of the original house that there shouldn’t be much guesswork with the rest of what we have to build since most of it will be from scratch.
The mason took out the existing machinery from the basement (none of which was working anyway) and excavated all the spots where we will run the drainpipes from upstairs. He also ripped out the clay pipe, we’re going to replace that with PVC piping. When it’s all done, there is going to be very little left of the original basement floor and I’ll have a nice new coat of concrete.
The remnants of the machine room, along with a trench for drainage.
What’s Next?
We started masonry work in October, 2016. As of mid-June 2017, we are almost done. I thought the entire house would take about that long to build, so feel free to call me a dumbass the next time you see me. Anyway, we can’t move forward with anything else until that is done.
All that is left is for the plumber to hook up all the drains from the inside and outside into the sewer connection. We will then ask for another inspection. If we should be lucky enough to pass, they can backfill the dirt in the basement. We will finally be able to start the framing process.
I met with the framer two weeks ago with my GC to over the project. When my contractor originally explained the process to me, he said that framing would take “one week, two max”. I asked the framer what his opinion was and he said it would take “three to four weeks”. So, I’m guessing it will take three months. If I’m lucky, he’ll be done by mid-October, but that’s only if I’m lucky, which I’m obviously not.
Is Your House Done Yet?
So, back to that original question. No, it’s not done, but now I think I have a better idea of where we are at. Once framing is done, everything else can get started, some of which can be done in parallel. There also won’t be weather delays for anything on the inside. We can put siding up, install windows, rough the electric and plumbing, put drywall and flooring in, and install the kitchen and bathroom fixtures and finishes. Piece of cake, right!
As you may recall, I closed on the house in December, 2015. I thought we’d have permits in a month or two, start building in March 2016, and be done in time for me to move in before New Year’s 2017. Given the pace we are at, and how long just the masonry phase has taken, I have a better idea of my estimated completion date. I think my best-case scenario at this point is December, 2018. That would be a full three years from when I bought the house.
This situation puts me in serious financial jeopardy. I budgeted for a year of paying two mortgages out of my savings, not three. Additionally, the bank I work for had to pay a $7.2 billion fine to the US Department of Justice in January as a result of some improprieties from 2005-2007. They had to cancel our bonus pool entirely, which was a nice kick in the gut on top of everything else. The assholes that broke the law are all gone from the bank, playing golf and spending the summer in their Hamptons mansions. Now I have to figure out how to make up that cash that I was desperately counting on coming in this year.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen other than I have to move forward. I can’t sell the place as-is, it is a shell right now. I can borrow against my current apartment in Hoboken which is the likely course of action. However, the plan all along was to sell my condo at the end and use the proceeds to refinance the jumbo mortgage I took out on the new house. Anything I borrow against my condo eats into the profit I will make when I sell, giving me less money to pay down the principal on the new mortgage, increasing what I’d have to borrow.
I can hope for the best, but there is a slim possibility that I will have to turn around and sell the new place immediately when it is finished. If that happens, some lucky person is going to get his or her hands on the best house in all of Union City.
I walked through the house yesterday, the entire property is a complete disaster. The backyard is a muddy mess, there are trenches in the basement, and the frame of the existing house is partially demolished and littered with debris. It was a “what was I thinking?” moment. But I regret nothing, I knew I was taking a risk and had bitten off more than I could chew. If I pull this off, I will be living in my dream house someday.
Just a crazy mess right now.
What’s left of the insides, the flooring was removed.
The clay pipe is gone, leaving this disaster of a trench inside the basement.
There’s a sliver lining to this dark cloud. Count on partying at my place in Hoboken on the first Saturday of March, 2018! It’ll be cramped as usual, but we always manage to fit somehow.
The North Jersey Nonconformist 