Wades Beach: Out of the Ashes

Progress and a Porch

2010-02-04T16:10:00.006-05:00

We made a visit to the house a little after the second anniversary of the fire. On Friday afternoon last week, with the weather at around zero and a fierce wind, we stood on the porch of the new house for the first time. It was a great feeling.

The progress is more noticeable now. On our previous visit we could see some of the plumbing, but now we can see the plumbing is pretty much all in and the electric is going in. There is a lot of the utilities installed now, and soon the heat will be turned on. There are inspections to be made of the framing, then the insulation and drywall/sheetrock can commence.

If you see the photos, you'll note that the exposed beam ceiling in the living room area will look amazing. The rooms are all pretty much ready to be covered in the drywall soon.

The exterior looks amazing too. A small part of one outside wall had a few shingles attached. These are going to weather over the years and ultimately turn grayish. Right now the wood is pretty bright, but they will be looking a lot different over the years. Currently there are stacks of shingles in the sun room.

We have picked out the fixtures for the bathrooms, and some of these will be installed soon. We're still on the hunt for a few more things. And we have not even started on the major appliances yet. The basement looks great: a highlight for Chrissie was getting the key to the basement door. The old house didn't have a door to the basement, so this is a first.

Stay tuned!

This is the sunroom, with the exterior shingles stacked up on the right.

Living room with the exposed beam ceiling. Note fireplace.

Front guestroom.

Guest bathroom; tub is in place.

Rear guestroom (twin beds were once here).

Future kitchen with the stainless steel counter we got from salvage place.

This is the upstairs and master bedroom.

New key to the basement door!

Chrissie and Tor our contractor, making an inspection of new plumbing.

The small porch off the upstairs master bedroom.

Shingles starting to be put on the exterior.

Porch on front of house.

View of porch of front door on left and sunroom doors on right.

View of the back of the house; windows in center are kitchen.

The backyard is taking a beating.

Video Tour of the Interior

2010-01-05T16:46:00.003-05:00

Chrissie is back with another installment of the video series. If you watch this one, she takes you through the house, which is now all framed out. Some of the plumbing is in too. I like that she goes from the first to the second floor. Have a look!

Up On the Second Floor

2010-01-02T19:00:00.001-05:00

One of the cool parts of the new house plans is that we now have a second floor. The old house was ranch style. On our last trip, we got to stand upstairs for just the second time, but this trip we were able to walk up a flight of stairs, not a ladder. We will have a small patio on the front, just off the bedroom. Chrissie and our stars, Rob and Tor, check it out in this new video:

Video Series Continues

2010-01-01T10:57:00.002-05:00

Chrissie has been hard at work editing her video clips (now that she is not working on Avatar any longer, I think), and her skills are great. We have not posted any video since the first one in April, when we were at Demolition Depot. These two were shot at the house in early October and mid November. The October one shows us at the house the day we inspected the foundation being poured, which was an amazing site to behold. Then the other clip was from six weeks ago, when we trekked out in the rain to see the frame up. The progress since then has been dramatic. We have more videos to post this weekend, so keep checking back…

Episode 2, the foundation and a tour of the pod:

Episode 3, the frame is up, but not the roof. We get a look at the upstairs for the first time:

End of the Year Visit is Incredible

2009-12-31T13:12:00.002-05:00

We made a visit to the house yesterday, our first in six weeks, and it was an amazing scene to behold. We were able to ascend a staircase to the second floor for the first time, and the new master bedroom and bath are all framed out. We stepped out onto what will be a small patio on the second floor. The view is terrific.

Probably the biggest surprise was walking downstairs to the new basement. The old house only had a dirt basement and was a scary sight. For the new house we dug it out and poured a new basement. The storage space down there is incredible.

We had a great meeting with Rob (architect) and Tor (builder) to get a progress report. We are still looking good for a March completion, believe it or not. We had to pick where the washer and dryer will be located in the basement, a big decision. We met Mike the Plumber too, he’s doing the work on the three bathrooms this week. All of the windows are installed except the two round ones we got from Demolition Depot; hopefully they will be ready next week. We also have to choose a front door. Tor recommends steel since the weather out on Shelter Island by the beach is so fierce.

The deck hasn’t been started, but that will come in about a month. The exterior will be underway too, installing the wood shingles to the sides of the house. It looks kind of naked without them. The roof is on and the chimney is in place. I can’t not mention the other highlight of the trip: we now have a Porta Potty sitting on the front lawn!

For our part, we are visiting plumbing and lighting supply stores to look for fixtures. We go out to the house again next week to meet the electrician.

On the last day of the year, and with the two-year anniversary of the fire looking in a few weeks, we could not be more happy about the progress out there. Stay tuned!

Chrissie at the side porch door.

The front of the house with the sunroom.

The future kitchen. Note bay windows.

Living room and new fireplace (bricks & mortar this time)

Second floor with master bedroom.

Chrissie on stair leading to second floor.

New basement: install a bar or bowling alley?

We Have A Roof & Chimney

2009-12-04T11:07:00.003-05:00

It's been a few weeks since we visited the construction site. Today we got a new batch of photos in from the scene of the action, and we are happy to report that there is now a roof, chimney, windows and more walls. Yay! The process has been going on for months, but the construction looks like it's speeding along well now.

These are the photos:

View from the street; there will be a round window in the second level.

Side of the house, the kitchen door is on the left.

View of the back of the house.

This is the view from the new second level balcony. Our pod is still on the front lawn!

This is the interior of the second level; note the chimney on left (bricks and mortar this time)

Upstairs on level 2 interior.

Site Visit in the Rain

2009-11-15T21:14:00.002-05:00

We got out to the house for the first time since early October, and the 6 weeks have really showed us a lot. We have a frame! The second story was the best thing to climb up to, and look out at the new view.

The frame is up, but not all of the roof. So rain was coming into part of the house. But now that there is something physical to see, it was so exciting. We are really happy with the progress that has been made so far.

Beam Me Up

2009-10-31T13:40:00.003-04:00

We got more pix today from Tor, our builder. Wow, you can almost smell the sawdust! I will put captions underneath each so you can tell what you are looking at...

Above: The view from the backyard. That space in the center will be the kitchen.

Above: This is in the front yard, looking at what will be the new sun room. The old house had a deck there.

Above: Also the front; the places on the right will be 2 bedrooms, same location as in the old house, with bath between them.

Above: The exposed-beam ceiling in one part of the downstairs area.

Above: from the front, where that red ladder is the front door will be nearby. A porch will wrap around the house to the back.

Above: Look at the new top floor going up! Can't wait to see it with Chrissie.

New BlackBerry Photos Show Progress

2009-10-31T11:10:00.004-04:00

Wow, who does not like technology. Just got some new pix in that were taken today on Shelter Island. You can see the second level is going up, as well as the interior. Note the interior beams. This is because we are going to have an exposed-beam ceiling in the majority of the first floor. The living room, sun room, and kitchen. That's why the beams are so wide and nice-looking. We learned that having an exposed-beam ceiling is actually more expensive than just having a drywall ceiling, because you need better wood. It'll be worth it. Enjoy the new pix that are showing progress on South Midway Road!

We Get Framed

2009-10-30T14:16:00.003-04:00

With the nice weather out on Shelter Island, Tor and his team are making a lot of progress with the framing of the house. When we last saw a batch of photos, it was just a few walls, now it looks like they are about to start on the new second level. For the new house, which has a second floor not like the old house, we will be adding one bedroom and a bath upstairs. The views inside the house show where the kitchen and new sunroom will be located.

Our next trip out is Nov. 13, when we actually get to see the house with construction underway. That’ll be a big day.

First Photos of the Frame

2009-10-22T14:20:00.003-04:00

Wow. A big email from our architect, Rob Brown, today. He sent photos of the framing going up on the new house! Check it out!

Foundation Poured and Progress Begins

2009-10-05T22:38:00.005-04:00

The house burned down in January 2008, and it took to September 2009 for the demolition to begin. On our visit last week, it was quite a shock to see the entire structure completely removed and the foundation in place. A few days ago the foundation was poured and we are now happy to report progress is visible.

The work site is a muddy mess. A massive pile of dirt from the excavation towers about 15 feet high in the front yard. Our pod was shoved to the side, the shed was emptied and moved, and a lot of shrubs and trees were cut down. It looks like a tornado just came in and swept away the old house.

At the site, in the rain, we met with Rob (architect) and Tor (contractor). We got the skinny: the septic system has to be relocated. It currently is too close to the house, and must be at least 10 feet away and buried again. Another additional expense. So that is happening this week. After that, then the frame can begin.

We are looking at March to have a house. We are hoping for that month, but we'll have to wait and see. We are not going back for three weeks or so, so the next update should be even more dramatic.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2009-09-18T16:11:00.007-04:00

On the ferry from New London to Orient Point, hauling back items for the new house, June 2009.

This summer was kind of drag so there were not any real updates to the blog about the new house rebuilding. Chrissie and I went east about once a month for various reasons, and stayed in our neighbor’s house. A weekend in June was the biggest day of the whole process, which I was too wiped out to really recount at the time. But now that the demolition has taken place, the real work can begin.

June 13-14 we had the madness of a two-state trek. The story started on Friday night, when we drove from New York to Holbrook, Long Island. We stayed the night at my godparents’ house, which is 50 miles from the Upper West Side and 30 miles to Riverhead. In the morning, Saturday, we drove to Riverhead and picked up a 28-foot truck at U-Haul. Chrissie followed me in the car as I drove the truck on the North Fork to Orient Point. She parked the car and we drove the truck onto the ferry.

We took the ferry across the Long Island Sound to New London, Connecticut. It was kind of nice to ride in the sunshine, but I knew we were facing a bitch of a day ahead. So we had a lot on our minds as the 90-minute ride took off. We got to New London and then the craziness started. We picked up three workmen who work for Irreplaceable Artifacts, part of Evan Blum’s Demolition Depot empire. The foreman rode up front with us, as we had the two other guys bounce around in the back. I know. Stupid. About 40 minutes later, we got to our destination in Middletown, CT.

At the store, we had to get busy. We had purchased many items from Evan and now we had to collect them and get them back to Long Island. In the basement was the “door vault” which is 10 times bigger than the one in Harlem. We were buying interior doors for the house, about 20. All are oak and came from an apartment house on the Upper West Side (probably near us). We were choosing bedroom, bathroom and closet doors. Almost all have the original brass hardware and glass doorknobs. The bathroom doors have etched glass in them. We sorted out the doors we wanted, and the workers hauled them up to the truck.

On this trip we also picked up a fireplace mantle. It is really nice, and came out of the demolished Bowling Mansion in Greenwich, CT. This took almost the whole day, but we were not done yet. We got in the truck, loaded up our guys in the back, and headed back to New London. Evan has another warehouse there, and we had more to pick up! First we loaded up a really nice bookcase, which came out of a house in Queens. It will take up about 10 feet of wall space once it is assembled. That fit in the truck. However, we could not fit in our major purchase of the weekend: an entire kitchen.

From the same house where the fireplace came from, we got an entire 1940s kitchen, the cabinets and the stainless steel counters. It was a damn bargain. When I opened up the cabinet drawers, the tableware and serving utensils were still in there. When we got to the warehouse in New London, we figured out the truck was too small to fit the kitchen cabinets and the stainless steel countertops and sink, which is massive and is all one piece. We also bought two round windows, which will fit into the eaves, but we left them there.

We drove to the ferry with the spoils, and hopped on. The truck rode on the back as we retreated to the bar onboard. Almost two hours later, we drove onwards. Our plans changed because originally we were going to take all of this stuff to Shelter Island, and put it into our pod. But we knew: (a) this would not fit, and (b) two ferry round trips in one day would be insane. So we drove the truck to Southold, to a storage facility. They were closed.

We parked the truck in their lot for the night, and drove the car back to Holbrook, where we stayed a second night. It was exhausting. The following morning, Sunday, we drove back from Holbrook to Southold, which is over an hour away. We rented a 10x30 room and threw all the doors and bookcases inside. Locked up and drove home.

But it’s not over yet!

A month later, we went back to Southold and met a moving company. These guys brought over the kitchen counters, cabinets, and some other junk. We met them at the storage place as they offloaded.

So to review: we have a storage facility in Southold that has portions of the new house. We have junk in storage in our basement on West 99th Street. We have 15 boxes in our apartment. But don’t forget the pod on the front lawn of the old house.

Now you see why I didn’t blog about this last summer: it was too painful.

Aboard the ferry to New London from Orient Point.

The warehouse in New London, where the kitchen was stored.

The kitchen cabinets in the warehouse.

Chrissie inspects the new counters, Southold, July 2009.

Our storage space, full of doors and an entire kitchen.

Demolition Complete, Ready to Roll

2009-09-18T14:46:00.003-04:00

Wow, I can't believe there has not been an update since April. But there really has not been much to say. Since the house burned down in January 2008, and has been a shell since then, we have had many ups and downs. But once the fight with the insurance company was solved, we then had to work on the other financial details. Now everything is in place.

Today we got a message from Tor, our contractor: "The house is removed to the foundation and debris taken away." So I guess that means anyone driving by will not see the ugly site of the damage. That is the best news we could have gotten.

The next update will hopefully come from Shelter Island. We are going there in early October to see the hole in the ground where the house was. The bad memories of the fire are still with us.

It's On

2009-04-12T18:36:00.003-04:00

The team: Chrissie with architect Robert Brown (center) and Tor Torkelsen (builder) inside what remains of the old house.

Yesterday we made the most progress of getting the house built in months. We went to Shelter Island and met with Rob (architect) and Tor (contractor) at the house. We also looked at two other houses these two have designed/built together. We are in a happy state of mind now.

We started the day at the house, which is a burned out shell since the January 2008 fire. It was pretty gloomy, of course, being in the house. Combined with the pouring rain, the cold, and the mucky-muck of the interior, it was not too bad to have a meeting there. We only stuck around for less than 15 minutes. One thing I asked is if we need to move the pod away, to a greater distance from the house. Tor said it could be moved. I am worried I'll have to take all the crap out, move the pod, and then have to load it up again.

Our first stop was a beautiful five-bedroom house less than a half-mile from ours that these two finished recently. The owner showed us around. It looked fantastic. She also raved about how great they are. This was not an entirely new house, it was an addition plus a lot of renovation. It was a good chance to see the way these two worked. Tor explained to us novices about the wood, the materials, the techniques. It was fantastic.

Next, we went to the other side of the island and saw a house that is still underway. It too is a major operation. This house was more our style: a beach cottage. It was a great experience to see how both Rob and Tor interact and showed us what they did on the job, both the things that went right, and things that turned out differently than planned.

We also got to review our Demolition Depot list with Rob. It was so great to hear him say that he liked the things we picked out. I'll write another update about what we are getting from Demo Depot.

Chrissie and I drove back to the city after having a big lunch at Pat and Steve's. We feel really good about the process now, and can't wait for the next step: Demolishing the old house. Stay tuned!

More photos from yesterday:

Nothing is left inside the old house except beams.

This is where the fire originated, the fire box.

"And I want to be in here by Labor Day!"

Looking for Salvaged Items

2009-04-01T17:52:00.001-04:00

This is the first video clip I have made about the house construction. And I don't know how many will follow. For our apartment renovation I made six, and that job was about 1/20th the size of this project.

In this clip, we visit Demolition Depot, where Chrissie and I want to get as much salvaged items as we can. This will be both to save money and be "green" by using recycled materials. Most of the stuff you will see in the video came out of East Coast homes and apartment buildings. Maybe you will see some of it in our new beach cottage.

Contractor Tapped, We Are Ready To Rock

2009-03-26T14:47:00.003-04:00

On Monday this week Chrissie spent the whole day in Greenport at our architect's office. We had meetings with 4 potential contractors, spaced 1 hour apart, at 1, 2, 3 and 4 pm. By the end of the day, we were ready to jump into Long Island Sound.

We got the 4 bids in on March 16. We asked all 4 to come back and revise them, and try to bring the numbers down. Three of the four guys did. So then it was just up to the personal interviews. I looked at the bid process just the same way as I look at my regular job, which is a project manager. But I must say that the architect-builder approach is light years more orderly than publishing projects.

The interviews went well, and for the last few days we waited on the contractors to get back to us. We had it narrowed from four to three, with two favorites. However, the guy we liked the most coming out of the day was the one we went with. I will tell you more about him after the contract is signed. He is from the area and has been building houses for decades.

So now we have the plans and the man to build the house. Chrissie is working on the financing plan. I am still going back and forth with Demolition Depot, to see what exactly we can use from an old house for a new one.

If this proceeds according to plan, we might be able to start the new house in April. The first thing is to demolish everything that is left of the old house: we are starting from scratch. It is sad, but there is nothing we can use from the old house in the new house. Not even the wood, which is fire-damaged.

Since the fire in January 2008, it has been a very long road to even get to this point. But knowing we have a guy who will have a hammer in his hand to build the thing is a huge deal for us.

Greenport Trip and Electric Plans

2009-01-26T14:38:00.003-05:00

We had a big Saturday out East this weekend, with lots to report on building the new house. We shot out early to Greenport for a meeting with Rob Brown, our architect. He had the latest set of plans to show us, and we were knocked out. We are getting very close to bidding this out to contractors, so this set was important. It was a relief just to see highly detailed plans of each room.

We reviewed the electrical plans for each part of the house. Some of the decisions we made are going to impact the overall design and look of the interior. For example, the basement isn’t going to have any fluorescent lights, which are kind of traditional (or typical) in every American basement. We are going to use some type of directional lighting, and compact fluorescent light bulbs. These use 75-percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer.

But the big decisions are going to be on the main floor.

The plan now is for exposed-beam ceilings throughout the first floor (except for the two bathrooms). This will mean we will be looking up at the floorboards above the rooms, but we’ll get special nice-looking planks so it will look good. We’ll have directional lighting with exposed conduits, and ceiling fans throughout.

One thing I learned was that glow-in-the-dark light switches are actually required for all enclosed spaces. When we did our apartment renovation last summer, the contractor installed light-up light switches in several locations. I always assumed he was being nice to us; now I learn it is a law! They look great and now we’ll have them in the new house. Other electrical decisions were made about wall sconces, ceiling fans, and where the cable TV will be located.

We also talked about salvaged items we’d like to buy from Demo Depot: windows, doors, cabinets, and lighting fixtures. Some of these I’ve already written about. We want to see about the stainless steel sink that is 106 inches wide; it would sit on a custom-built wood cabinet and be the place where I plan to wash 100,000 dishes for the next 50 years. The round windows are in the plans. So are some doors and the cabinets (for the kitchen island). We are allowing for a couple of special surprises; stay tuned to see if those come in.

On the way home we thought of a couple more things to ask Rob about, so we called him this afternoon (a conference call, double-team style). The most important is the fireplace. Since this is where the fire started and caused us so much grief, we were initially only going to have a gas fireplace. Just turn on the switch, and instant fire. However, we loved having a wood-burning fireplace so much, and making a fire, cutting firewood (really, I did that). Just the whole process of stoking a roaring fire is something I’d really miss. In the old house, Chrissie’s parents installed a manufactured steel assembly, which was bolted together and placed over a “fireproof” firebox. We learned this was not really the best method, as this is where the embers escaped from and caught the walls on fire last year. So… Rob says the only truly safe choice is what everyone going back to the Pilgrims used: bricks and masonry. His ballpark estimate is this could be around $15,000 to build a brick fireplace. Is that too much to pay for the enjoyment of a roaring fire on a cold winter’s night out on Shelter Island? And what if the fireplace mantel was once in a suite in the Plaza Hotel? Even better!

One Year Later, We Move Along

2009-01-20T07:07:00.005-05:00

Last weekend was the one-year anniversary of the fire. We didn't really talk about it or dwell on Jan. 18, 2008. It is just such a drag that there isn't anything left to say about it except one thing: let's get going and build the new house.

Next weekend we are going to meet our architect, so we took some time to shoot up to Harlem and visit one of our favorite places, Demolition Depot. When we recently visited the sister store in Connecticut, Irreplaceable Artifacts, the owner, Evan, told us about a giant stainless steel sink that might work for the kitchen. And it came out of one of Donald Trump's houses. Let's go! So the mission of the day was sinks, doors, and windows.

(Above) This the 106-inch long sink, but not stamped TRUMP. We like it. It would go in the kitchen.

(Above) There is a whole room of old tubs, many from hotels. We will probably get one from this collection; we are doing three bathrooms. The 7-foot ones are much more expensive than the others, but it would be cool to get one.

(Above) An antique crapper? There is a lot to choose from. Chrissie remarked that a new American Standard might make more sense. But to sit on something 90 years old would be cool too.

(Above) We need three bathroom sinks, and a pedestal sink would be really nice. The black one would have been great in our apartment, but we needed a vanity underneath it.

(Above) This is a real good candidate for a sink that would go onto a vanity.

(Above) These round windows are also candidates to go into the eaves. We have to check with the plans to see if this will work out. It would give us more light in the bedroom.

(Above) Welcome to the door vault. There must be more than 1,000 in here. All kinds to look at. We need multiple kinds of doors.

(Above) We fell in love with this set of doors. We need a matched set for the downstairs bedrooms and closets; these would be so nice. But what's up with the heavy bolt on that door?

(Above) Hopefully this is not the last you will be seeing of these double doors, which would work in the sun room. We have to price these babies out.

So it was a productive couple of hours in Harlem. We saw a lot of great things that would make nice finishes. It kind of takes your mind off the fact that nothing is built yet. Going out to see the architect and reviewing the "last" set of plans before they go to the contractors for bids will be a huge step.

We are also continuing our education about how "green" we can go. I've been reading up on solar panels and alternative energy, and we're looking at any ways to build the house, cut energy costs, and save money.

Seeing a tub that may go into your bathroom is nice, but actually sitting in it in the house would be 100 times better.

New Year and a New Update

2009-01-05T17:57:00.007-05:00

This is one of the windows we liked at Irreplaceable Artifacts.

It is time to pick up the blog again because we have been making progress on the house. Let me catch you up on the past few months and weeks of what has been happening since May. It is hard to believe that January 18 will be the first anniversary of the fire.

We had to fight with the insurance agency for most of the summer about our settlement. We definitely did not get as much out of the claim as we wanted. I feel like we got a pretty fair settlement for the personal property (the contents) but not for the house itself. At some point we just had to move on, or else we’ll be stalled forever. Could we have maybe gotten more if we’d used an independent adjuster to fight for us? Maybe. And maybe not. We’ll never know. But we moved on.

About four weeks ago we went out to Greenport to meet with our architect, Rob Brown. He is so awesome and we left there really happy with the latest set of plans. We are now refining the set we got earlier in the year from him.

We also learned on this trip the sad news that we are going to have to more than likely demolish the remaining parts of the house. Since the fire, it has stood empty, just a frame, the shell of the old house. If you drove by the house at 15 mph you would think there is a real house there, except for the giant tarp on the roof. The windows are not boarded up; the glass is still in them. But if you look closer, you’ll see it is just a ghost of what Chrissie’s parents built in 1977. Rob said that since a lot of the wood is fire-damaged, it wouldn’t be feasible to build onto a damaged house. We also must jack the house up to pour a foundation (incredibly, it only has a dirt foundation, and we are going to pour concrete to have a full basement) and a contractor may balk at raising up a damaged house. So it makes sense to just wipe the lot clean and start from scratch with a whole new house.

However, the basic footprint of the house is remaining the same, it will not get any wider or longer. We are going to go up a level, from a ranch to a two-story. The second story will have one new master bedroom, bath, and a study/den. And a walk-in closet for my T-shirt museum. I would like this lined with cedar to protect my valuable 1980s rock ‘n roll concert tees! A benefit of having a second story is that we will get water views of the bay, something that was lost when the homes across the street were constructed twenty years ago.

We did spend quite a bit of time talking about being “green” and the possible use of solar energy. Even back in February we considered it. Rob told us about the cost, possibly $50,000, to install solar panels on the roof to collect energy and generate electricity. However, there are state and federal tax credits that can knock a lot of that down. How much remains to be seen, but we are still investigating that. We probably will not collect rainwater from the roof, for two reasons: this is a weekend house, and we get our water from a well. But in the coming months you will hear more about us trying to save money and help the environment at the same time.

Probably the best time we’ve had lately was going to Connecticut for an entire Saturday and paying a visit to Irreplaceable Artifacts, the sister shop to Demolition Depot in Harlem. We had purchased several things for our apartment at Demolition Depot, such as bathroom fixtures, a glass-paneled door, and a beautiful mirror. But the location in Middletown was supposed to be much larger and have more stuff. We also got lucky and got a whole afternoon with the owner, Evan Blum. He is a legend in the business, and has been doing architectural salvage in the area for more than 30 years.

We brought our plans into the shop and met with Evan. He looked them over with a trained eye; he knows his stuff. We then went room by room in the plans and looked at possibilities in the collection. It was so amazing—and a lot of fun—to imagine these pieces that at one time were in homes in places like Greenwich that could be used on Shelter Island. Chrissie fell in love with a light fixture that has an owl motif. I was thrilled to hear about an entire oak-paneled room—saved from a house in Queens—for our planned reading room/sun room. We looked over doors, windows, cabinets and more. It was a good exploration trip to see what they had. I posted the finds here.

Our next step will be to go to Greenport and see what the new plans look like. We need to price out the cost of the items that Evan has located, and then start the process of bidding the job out to contractors to build the house.

We hope to have good news soon about when this can happen.

Stay tuned…

Spring Is Here. We Can't Use The House

2008-05-06T11:55:00.002-04:00

A quick update... we have not been to Shelter Island in more than a month. The last time we were there we spent 10 minutes at the house, putting some thing in the pod. The pod is fine. It is filling up.

At the moment we are still dealing with the insurance agents. Still trying to get a good settlement. It is a huge headache. They need to pony up more cash.

As for the plans, we got the first round from the architect. They are amazing! Wow, if we get to build this house, it will be something else. The downside is that we can't go to the next phase, the real blueprints and hiring contractors, until we find out how much we're getting from the insurance. So we can't do anything yet.

With the nice weather here, we are really missing the house.

More news soon.

"You're the fire people"

2008-03-07T14:41:00.003-05:00

A brief update today. Last weekend we drove to Greenport and met with our architect, Rob Brown of Fairweather-Brown. He told us his ideas for the revamped house are "brewing" and that we'll see some sketches in a couple weeks. We looked at his portfolio and really like the work he has done. We are going for a similar style to what the house used to be like: a beach cottage, not modern or fancy.

We also went to Sag Harbor to pick up clothes and linens that we had professionally cleaned, to get the smoke stink out. "You're the fire people!" was the phrase of the day in the dry cleaners.

We are still waiting on the insurance check to arrive. The other day I submitted my spreadsheet of all the personal items that were lost, right down to the 1969 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang metal lunch box. We had about 850 CDs that melted, I don't think we will get $15 each for this, like I put down. If we get $1 that would be more like it.

Thanks for all the calls and emails about the house!

Feeling A Little Blue

2008-02-14T16:20:00.002-05:00

What every home should have: a scow and a pod.

Today I’ll post an update of what has been happening the last ten days with the house and the effects of the fire. I’ll begin with today. We have an architect on the job. His name is Rob Brown and he is with the Greenport firm Fairweather Brown. Chrissie really likes his work, and met him at the house a couple weeks ago. I spoke to him today, and he’s working on sketches to show us in about 2 weeks. We talked about things I never knew existed, such as mudrooms. One thing I forgot to ask about was putting solar panels on the roof; Chrissie and I are trying to be “green” in some small way. The next step with the architects is that they will send a team to the house tomorrow to measure it.

I was out last Saturday for half a day when the demolition started. Chrissie stayed behind in the city. It is a good thing, because these guys were smashing down walls and cutting out the fire-damaged parts. The house is now 100 percent empty of all contents. A couple of scows were put on the lawn and then carted away, filled with debris, damaged furniture, and junk. We lost a lot of things, such as clothes, books, and fixtures. All that went out the door. What they are doing is preparing the house for construction, or I guess re-construction. We can save the exterior walls and some of the framing, but to do so they must remove all the drywall, insulation, and moldings. The reason is so that mold does not grow in the wet parts when the temperature heats up. Right now it is too cold for mold to grow, but that will happen if the house does not get aired out.

The demo crew took out every interior door, kitchen cabinets, fixture, window treatments (not even a year old). The house is now just a shell. They are to finish on Monday, and I am glad I will not be there. It will be pretty bare by then.

We also had a furniture expert come out and look at our furniture, stored in a pod on the front lawn. He is going to come and cart it all to Mattituck to his shop to clean and refinish it. Insurance will cover it. It is a good thing, because the wooden furniture has smoke damage, and can be cleaned. The majority of the furniture can be saved.

I was really busy in my day out there. I admit I was really pissed off that the crew threw out some things I wanted to salvage that were not damaged, like my Dress Blues that was hanging in a closet, Chrissie’s work clothes that were still in dry cleaning bags, and some books that were not in the place I said I’d put all things I wanted to save. Basically I had one spare bedroom to stage my rescue operation. This was important to me, because it was things like college yearbooks, photo albums, and special books (our two baby books were located; Chrissie’s partially char-broiled) and old clothes. While the demo went on, I shuttled out the good stuff to the shed or the car.

I also made some good saves, which was a relief. When the crew pulled the ceiling down, what was left of the attic came down to the living room floor. It was a mangled mess of what had been cardboard boxes. The funniest was when a couple hundred pennies rained down on a demo crew guy; that was my retirement fund! He looked like he was in shock as a rain of copper came down on him. The pennies were swept up and thrown in the bin. But I did manage to locate a set of teacups and plates my grandparents had picked up in Ireland in the early 1970s as tourists. I am sure they are worth very little, but these are pretty much the only items I inherited from them. It was a little bit of a relief, because one box that burned up in the attic was my grandfather’s World War II medals and ribbons from his U.S. Navy service. I always had wanted to mount and frame them, now that won’t ever happen.

But the biggest find was still yet to come. A big chunk of burned out boxes fell out of the old attic to the floor below. I saw mixed in with the pile of blackened charred debris was a box in a familiar blue color. It was hard to miss, as it was “Tiffany Blue.” I took my gloves off and dipped into the mess, and pulled out the long blue box. I knew right away what it was even before I opened it up: the silver cake cutter from our wedding. It was burned on the tip, right on the handle where “C + K” is engraved. I picked it up and was so happy. Then right after that, I heard a tinkling sound, like the sound you hear when you drop silverware onto a table. I found a burned and blackened knife, fork, and spoon. They were very very small, because these belonged to Chrissie’s mom as a baby. She died 10 years ago, so anything of hers we have is a real treasure. I was pretty thrilled to put them in my pocket and take them back to Harlem that night. They are soaking in the kitchen sink, and the blackness is coming off.

Elvis Has Left the Building

2008-02-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

This was an Elvis doll I had in its original box.

We are continuing the aftermath of the fire, which was two weeks ago. On Thursday and Friday we had two long, grueling days at the house. It is a real mess, of course, and standing in the cold and muck out there is no fun. Chrissie was there all day Thursday, and I came out Friday to join her.

On Thursday she met with the architect who we think we will use. He showed Chrissie some houses and jobs he's done locally, which is a big plus. We want to use all local people to rebuild the house. She also had one contractor come out to meet her, and they went and looked at a house on the other side of the island that he worked on. She loved it.

But the big thing to happen on Thursday was the cleanup began in earnest. We have a big pod in front of the house. Workers started carting out salvageable items to it, such as dressers, bed frames, and big furniture. They got most of the stuff in there that we can save. There are two kind of items left: the total loss stuff (pretty much anything that was in the attic or the living room, which is totally destroyed) and the things we can take to have cleaned. The former is the bulk of it. For the latter, this is mostly clothing, pictures, and some books. My comics could be saved, even though there is smoke and water damage to some. But what we spent a lot of time doing was picking out clothes and putting them in big plastic bags, to haul away to be cleaned. Something else we saved and carted off was 12 framed pictures; the insurance will pay to have them professionally matted and framed.

Two Star Wars ships melted together...

Our sister-in-law created this for our wedding.
Dirty, but not destroyed.
Speaking of insurance, that is what we did from 10 am to 2 pm on Friday. To add to this drag of a day was the weather. It was 40, windy, and rained like a S.O.B. all day. A real lashing cold rain, which came through the tarp on the roof at times. But what we did with the adjuster was talk about the personal property. The house is going to be covered for the rebuild; now we go over the work of replacing what was lost. We spent several hours cataloging what was in each room, closet, and hallway. We are being 100 percent honest here, and not claiming a valuable jewelry collection or fine art was lost. Still, we want to get a check to cover what was lost.

This is a real tedious process. But we ended on a high note on Friday. We met with another contractor, also a local guy. He was so upbeat and positive, a real good guy. He thinks the house can be fixed up in six months. I came away feeling like this was not an insurmountable task to build the house all over.

The next thing to happen is the cleaning guys are going back out this week to get the kitchen packed up. I will go out Saturday for the next phase: demolition. Chrissie does not want to be there for that.

Chrissie on the Scene

2008-01-31T11:51:00.000-05:00

Chrissie is at the house today with the cleaning crew. Apparently they are saying all the books in the house are not going to be saved. This is a real bummer. About 200 of them were Chrissie's dad's books. And while I don't think I would ever get around to reading a bio of Nixon,Reagan, or Margaret Thatcher, I did like that we had his collection of biographies. And a lot on the Civil War, the Classics, and quite a bit of humor (her dad was a fan of Robert Benchley, I learned). They are also telling her the pictures on the walls must be tossed out, because of the stink of smoke. I am fighting that one. I want to get them cleaned and saved.

And the pod is still on the front of the house. Not sure if it will stay there or be moved. I am looking forward to going there tomorrow and meeting with the architect and contractors.