The past two weeks there has been a lot of activity at the mansion.
The main roof is getting close to completion. The roofers tore off almost 20 tons of material of the roof ... three layers of shingles. The original cedar shingles were there, on wood slats. The good news is the original structure was in great shape, and the roofers were able to lay new playwood decking without any additional carpentry.
We chose a hunter green Timberline 50-year architectural shingle for the roof. The original roof from descriptions was green, and it looks great. The yankee gutters were cleaned out (years of tar, etc) and relined. Ron's carpenters are removing and repairing the rotted sofits where the gutters had leaked for years. Fortunately, it doesn't look like too many spots.
I decided to do the flashing in copper. It's expensive!! To flash the roof added another $2000 ... just the cost of material. The roofers have put some of the copper up ... it looks great. I'd like to find a way to weather-proof it, so it doesn't turn green. I like the new copper look -- like house jewlery.
We've also started sanding the house to prep for paint. I was able to pry up some of the paint and uncover the original paint. It looks like the body of the house was a beigish green, which I find a bit dull. Looking at the layers, the house was painted green, yellow, then white. On much of the trim, the original color was a cream.
I'm leaning towards a warm muted gold color for the body of the house, using a lighter and darker shade to bring out all the great architectural details. I plan to get opinions from neighbors at our next district meeting and drive around and look at other houses to get ideas.
Inside it's been primarily demolition and framing. The plumber has been pulling out all the old steam pipes, cast iron lines (the house had 4 huge sewer lines), old water lines (mix of copper and galvanized). Everything is cruded up on the inside ... 100+ years of stuff!! To service the future 10 baths, laundry room, commercial kitchen ... we're going to need a larger water line brought to the house. That takes about a month to request and get, so that has been started.
The house had 5 furnaces when I bought it; four forced air units and the old oil-fired steam boiler. I had decommissioned the steam boiler 2 years ago, removed the 1,000 oil tank (thank goodness no leaks ... that's always a worry).
The plan is to keep the forced air unit on the 3rd floor, which is located in the 4th floor attic. We're going to install hot water baseboard heat for the basement, 1st and 2nd floors. For airconditioning, the 3rd and 1st floors will get a central ducted units and the 2nd floor will get individual wall units. The wall units are new technology. They sit high in the ceiling where they grab the hot air and convert to cool, and the ducting will go down the exterior wall to the condensor in the basement. You turn on the A/C by remote control. It's low profile and will work great so each guest can set their A/C how they like.
We also had a meeting with the elevator company, framers and architect. The elevator is going to go from the basement to the 3rd floor, is the largest residential unit Lev makes, holds 800 lbs. It has a backup battery, so it wil run for several hours even when the power goes out. I've selected a beautiful cherry interior ... so it will look great. The architect should have the structural drawings complete in a week or so, and then the elevator company can file an application with the state (all elevators are state-inspected and undergo a yearly inspection) and a framing permit with the city.
The electrician came and spent several days going over the house wiring design. We're going to rewire the house. This will be great, because anyone who has an old house knows rooms often don't have enough outlets. Because of the new A/C units, the elevator and other upgreat, the electrician is going to redesign my electrical panels. Right now we have 5 panels in the basement (once for each previous apartment, one for the landlord) and an old panel on the 2nd floor. All that will get redesigned and engineered and the 5 meters on the outside of the house will be reduced to one. We may have to upgrade the power feeding the house ... the electrician will know more after the power calculations are completed.
The main roof is getting close to completion. The roofers tore off almost 20 tons of material of the roof ... three layers of shingles. The original cedar shingles were there, on wood slats. The good news is the original structure was in great shape, and the roofers were able to lay new playwood decking without any additional carpentry.
We chose a hunter green Timberline 50-year architectural shingle for the roof. The original roof from descriptions was green, and it looks great. The yankee gutters were cleaned out (years of tar, etc) and relined. Ron's carpenters are removing and repairing the rotted sofits where the gutters had leaked for years. Fortunately, it doesn't look like too many spots.
I decided to do the flashing in copper. It's expensive!! To flash the roof added another $2000 ... just the cost of material. The roofers have put some of the copper up ... it looks great. I'd like to find a way to weather-proof it, so it doesn't turn green. I like the new copper look -- like house jewlery.
We've also started sanding the house to prep for paint. I was able to pry up some of the paint and uncover the original paint. It looks like the body of the house was a beigish green, which I find a bit dull. Looking at the layers, the house was painted green, yellow, then white. On much of the trim, the original color was a cream.
I'm leaning towards a warm muted gold color for the body of the house, using a lighter and darker shade to bring out all the great architectural details. I plan to get opinions from neighbors at our next district meeting and drive around and look at other houses to get ideas.
Inside it's been primarily demolition and framing. The plumber has been pulling out all the old steam pipes, cast iron lines (the house had 4 huge sewer lines), old water lines (mix of copper and galvanized). Everything is cruded up on the inside ... 100+ years of stuff!! To service the future 10 baths, laundry room, commercial kitchen ... we're going to need a larger water line brought to the house. That takes about a month to request and get, so that has been started.
The house had 5 furnaces when I bought it; four forced air units and the old oil-fired steam boiler. I had decommissioned the steam boiler 2 years ago, removed the 1,000 oil tank (thank goodness no leaks ... that's always a worry).
The plan is to keep the forced air unit on the 3rd floor, which is located in the 4th floor attic. We're going to install hot water baseboard heat for the basement, 1st and 2nd floors. For airconditioning, the 3rd and 1st floors will get a central ducted units and the 2nd floor will get individual wall units. The wall units are new technology. They sit high in the ceiling where they grab the hot air and convert to cool, and the ducting will go down the exterior wall to the condensor in the basement. You turn on the A/C by remote control. It's low profile and will work great so each guest can set their A/C how they like.
We also had a meeting with the elevator company, framers and architect. The elevator is going to go from the basement to the 3rd floor, is the largest residential unit Lev makes, holds 800 lbs. It has a backup battery, so it wil run for several hours even when the power goes out. I've selected a beautiful cherry interior ... so it will look great. The architect should have the structural drawings complete in a week or so, and then the elevator company can file an application with the state (all elevators are state-inspected and undergo a yearly inspection) and a framing permit with the city.
The electrician came and spent several days going over the house wiring design. We're going to rewire the house. This will be great, because anyone who has an old house knows rooms often don't have enough outlets. Because of the new A/C units, the elevator and other upgreat, the electrician is going to redesign my electrical panels. Right now we have 5 panels in the basement (once for each previous apartment, one for the landlord) and an old panel on the 2nd floor. All that will get redesigned and engineered and the 5 meters on the outside of the house will be reduced to one. We may have to upgrade the power feeding the house ... the electrician will know more after the power calculations are completed.
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