Framing the staircase to the headhouse

Our carpenters at the red brick building have been busy framing the staircase between the third floor and the expanded headhouse.  Other than the half-flight of steps just inside the front door of the building, this is the only staircase that is keeping its original footprint.  That means it's really steep and narrow and of course wouldn't be acceptable to modern building codes.  It took a while for us to work out exactly what the newel posts should look like and since the newel posts in this case double as the structural supports for all the stairs, nothing could be built until their look and dimensions were finalized.  In the end, we chose something simple, with a routered out arch design that echoes the arched shape of the panels that will be alternate with the spindles.

They even were at the red brick building on Saturday, working.  Here's what it looked like around noon:

All of the vertical components (risers, newel posts, spindles, panels) are going to be painted white.  The treads will be made of the same red birch as our floors.  It's so exciting to at last see progress on this part of the project and it will be great to be able to get up to the headhouse and roof again, especially since we've had a few days of warmer weather here.

Electrical layouts

This morning we spent two hours walking through the red brick building with the electrician to further solidify and specify the electrical layouts.  (We of course had to submit electrical plans to the city before they issued our building permit and we also had a long-ish meeting with the electrician at the architects' office to go over things around the time we hired him.)  Needless to say, two hours were not long enough to finish the entire building.  We did our whole unit but stopped before doing the tenants' units because it was freaking freezing in the RBB.  Hopefully another hour should do for the tenants' spaces, since they're smaller and less complex.

So no, we still don't have the two last doors in and no, the gas heat isn't on yet.  With regards the doors, I got a call yesterday telling me they were missing some frame expanders that they need in order to do the installation.  I ordered the expanders, which we'll hopefully have those by Friday.  In terms of the gas, the company did come to turn it on, but the plumbers hadn't done something they were supposed to do, so the gas company made a wasted trip.  Grrrrr to the plumbers.

Other than making the red brick building super-cold, this might not matter all that much since we got an email this morning from the wood flooring installer telling us that the hardwood floors - which, oh by the way, should have been delivered by now - aren't going to be here for at least three more weeks because the mill they were coming from went out of business.  Really.  And now the installer needs to source our wood from somewhere else.  All I can say is that we'd better get it for the same price, if we have to swallow this delay.

Framing for the entryway and chimney

The results of yesterday's framing efforts at the red brick building: 
 

The view straight into our unit from the common entryway:

The fireplace, all ready for its drywall and skim coat:

Our electrician was at the red brick building, working, and said he's going to go crazy in there next week, along with two guys from his crew.  He expects that all the rough electrical will be done within a week and a half.  Great!

Ordering wood trim for a mock up and interior doors

I went to the molding manufacturer to order 20 lineal feet each of the baseboard, crown and window and door trim that we've picked out.  We aren't sure which sizes will give us the proportions we want so we're going to do a mock up in the space and see how it looks.  The tricky part is that we have three different ceiling heights: 9 feet on our bedroom level and on the tenants' living room/kitchen level; 9 and a half feet on our living room level; and 8 and a half feet in the basement, where the tenants' bedrooms and bathrooms are.  Those ceiling heights are going to have a big effect on what sizes look good.

Here's the profile we're looking at for crown moldings:

Then for the baseboard, we're thinking of using this as a cap, on top of a plain length of board that's at least as wide:

For the window and door trim, we're going to use some trim we liked from the salvage yard as a model.

It's 5 1/2 wide, which everyone thinks is going to be an inch too wide.  Unfortunately, the molding manufacturer announced today that he'd charge over $650 to make me 20 lineal feet of it in a 4 1/2 inch width! (The price goes down exponentially once they've made the custom knife.)  So we're going to do the mock up with what we've already got and try to use our imaginations and plain 4 1/2 inch board to take it from there. 

Then I stopped in at the red brick building.  The crew was framing the chimney and the front entryway to the three apartments.  The foreman walked through the building with me and I wrote up an interior door schedule.  When I got home, I immediately requested a quote for all 23 of them (more, when you consider that several of them are double doors for closets).  This is the style we picked:

They're little things but necessary to keep us rolling forward.

The glass wall is in

I stopped by the red brick building this morning after our weekly team meeting at the architects' office.  The glass wall is indeed in, and it looks great.  Very dramatic.  They've got plywood nailed up against it to protect it from accidents as the rough work winds to a close.

A crane and a giant sheet of glass

This morning the glass wall between the master bedroom and bathroom was delivered and I was there to watch it be craned in to the building through the door at the top of the fire escape.  I only took a couple of snaps since I didn't want to get too underfoot.  It was a pretty impressive sight to see...or at least impressive to me.  All in a day's work for the GC and his crew.

They're going to try to install it today.  Fingers crossed it goes smoothly for them.

Master bathroom vanity musings

Our contractor cut the hole in the master bathroom's floor through which the chimney flue needs to pass. 

The flue determines the exact shape of the vanity, which needs to fit between the wall on the left of the drill and the 2x4 to the right of the hole.  (The flue can snake as it once it comes up through the floor.)  I have a really hard time visualizing what the area should look like.  It's not a huge space and it needs to be ultra-functional, but of course I also want it to be pretty.  Part of me just wants to perch the vessel sink on a simple wood shelf.  Another part of me wants to perch it on a vintage desk and accessorize with rampant plants like this: