garden floor, tile, and lighting

The progress over the past week on the garden floor has been amazing. The stair landing was built, the windows and doors were installed, the raised fireplace hearth was poured today, and the temporary lighting has been removed throughout the whole house.

Tile installation is just about complete in one of the bathrooms on the third floor. The other third floor bath has it's beige wall tile up as well.

Stone tile installation has also just started in the master bathrooms. Here is a shot of one of the shower floors- spring white stone from Complete Tile.

The travertine stone floor will be put down early next week in the kitchen and family room on the garden floor.

Thursday Site Meeting

We saw lots of small things coming together on site today. Our Audio-Video/ Security guys were on site wiring all of our installed windows into the security system.


Here's a shot of the window sill jamb. Can you believe that tiny little white dot is the security magnet? They're so discrete.

We also chose a final floor stain. It's the darkest sample all the way to the lower right of the above photo. It matches our goal stain perfectly. Wood flooring is already being installed at the new top floor.

Door saddles throughout the house were also discussed. Here you can see the fire-rated door frame at one of the elevator doors. That nasty steel piece will be covered with a slightly raised wooden door saddle in a few more days.

We also got our first on-site peak at the master bathroom tub. Sadly, it was another overcast day for our site meeting which made for bad lighting but I still think you can see the shape and size of the tub are stunning.

They were also constructing a small vertical radiator for the parlor floor entry way. This unit will be hidden in the wall behind a decorative grille.

Work in the garden also continues. Here you can see a trench which has been dug to accommodate the back yard drainage system.

almost closed up

The majority of new work continues at the top of the house while we wait for our plumbing inspection and new slab to be poured at the garden floor.

New foam insulation was sprayed just last week at the new top floor and attic. Can you believe it only took them a day to finish both levels?

Our new chimney is also complete at the north side of the house. It looks tall, but by code it has to clear the new, sloped attic roof by quite a bit.

Here's what our elevator shaft looks like at the moment- all framed out and ready to be sheet rocked.

Despite not having a floor at the garden level electrical and plumbing work continues...

Our electrician has moved our service end box (where Con Edison lines meet our house lines) and electrical meter from the inside the house to just beneath our new stoop.

Copper piping is also being installed at the garden floor. In a few more months all these pipes will be covered up behind a new kitchen.

We also continue to select more hardware and finishes for the townhouse. Here you can see two door knob prototypes from SA Baxter, a great hardware company in Manhattan.

The knob on the right was our first prototype and the knob on the left is our final prototype. While the polishes and finishes are not what we'll have in the townhouse (we've chosen an amazing light antique nickel) the style of the knob on the left is correct. Can you tell the difference between the two? We've made one of the rings on the knob smaller.

Soon our contractor will have the elevator and stair subcontractors to the house and any day he will be ordering the plumbing fixtures and fittings. Today is also the very first day that the audio/video subs are on site as well.