Standard
One major thing Jamie and I have learned during our apartment renovation process is that the word “standard” does not live in a Pre-War building.
Lighting fixture kits that come with standard screws to hook the plate to the junction box? Throw the screws out, don’t even try to use ’em; the ceiling has been renovated so many times that the junction box is now two inches higher than it was originally due to the ceiling now being two inches lower.
The wires in that ceiling? Look out. The wiring may have been standard in 1930, but as we all know, standards change. And once you get an electrician in, so will the wiring.
The walls at angles of perfection? Uh-uh. They are canted and bowed; warped as a patient at Bellvue. Be prepared to finesse the hanging of cabinets, the painting of a straight line at the meetings of walls and ceiling.
Level is a relative term. There’s level, meaning the little bubble is in the very center of the tube and then there is “level” meaning that the floor to ceiling measurement varies by 1/4″ – 1/2″ from one side of the wall to the other but ther’s no way around that so it’ll have to do. I’m dubbing this kind of level, “Level F”, for “Level Fudged”, ie: it’s a bit off, but it works. If you’ve, however, been unsuccessful at taming the oddness and your room looks like some kind of carnival funhouse, you may change that to “Level Fucked”.
Luckily, Jamie and I have, so far and with fingers crossed, managed to remain in the land of Fudge. I was pretty sure we’d move to the Kingdom of the Fucked when we hung the cabinets against the Fudged linearity of the pressed tin. Luckily, the bizarre variations of one, offset those of the other and it wound up looking pretty darned good.
I’ve decided that rather than having multiple Crappy PhoneCam Pix Galleries, I would consolidate them all in timeline order in one Renovation Gallery that I’ll update as things happen. You can find it here. Or follow the Renovations page link at the top of the home page of this site.
Before I close and hurry to bed -’cause after all, Sears is delivering the new frige tomorrow between 7:45 & 9:45…AM… did I mention that we decided to get a new frige because the one included in the purchase price of the apartment, after being plugged in for four days never got cooler than lukewarm? And that was the freezer compartment. Oh, so many questions we now know to ask 30 or so years from now if we decide to move again… I digress.
Before I close, I do have to mention that with all the unexpected, scary things we’ve found in our architectural archaeology, we have uncovered the rare gem or two. Today, we finally undertook the task of removing the hideous blue carpet and its under-padding from the living room floor. We had previously peeked at a corner of the floor, so we knew that there was promise, but once uncovered, unleashed from the bonds of its faded powder-blueish, 70’s shroud, oh it is a thing of beauty. Three concentric (rosewood?) inlays define the living room and within them, beautiful oak laid diagonally. The arera suddenly became defined and alive. The floor is stripped and refinished all next week, so it will be even more lovely. I’ll try to get a decent pic so I can do a “before/after” refinishing comparison.
Gotta get to bed, gotta get up early and meet some delivery men.
Nite,
k.
