Tom-Q Berna's Blog

Monday, December 5, 2011

New House - Mexican War Streets - Garfield Ave

Hi Friends and Family!

Well, it has been a while since I've done an update here. I'll try and touch on the important things.

I am in a certificate program, World Christian Discipleship, something like a college class / bible study / accountability group / discipleship group. It is going well, and has helped me to be both more consistent in my prayer life, as well as more aware of my thoughts, and the spiritual world around me.

I am currently single and have been for a few months now.

I took a bit of a vacation and headed to Houston. I had a great time and really enjoyed seeing my friends. Thanks for all the hospitality you showed me down there!

I bought a house on Pittsburgh's Northside, in the Mexican War Streets, on Garfield Ave. It is a row home, fairly large, with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, media room, and rooftop deck with a spectacular view of downtown Pittsburgh. Currently, it is a complete disaster, and only one of the eventual 3.5 toilets is functional.

Big bullet points on the house:
New Roof, replace rotten decking & rafters (ended up being a huuuuge project)
Attach Deck Securely
Install forced air Heat & AC (including ducts)
Install master bathroom
Install 1st floor powder room
Install 3rd floor wet-bar for media room & use while on rooftop deck
Fix plaster
Complete new kitchen
Overall make-over with new paint & such

Here are a few "before" pictures. When the roof is done (and maybe deck completed too) I will post some "progress" pictures.

Front Doors (french doors into tiny vestibule, then second door into foyer)

Interesting Vestibule Wall Paper

Living room, Dining room, Kitchen

Living room fire place, all in all there are 6 fire places in the house.

Dining room

Kitchen

Servant stairs, descend to kitchen.

Back room, sunroom. There is quite a bit of rotten wood / water damage. We removed the entire right wall & door combination and have framed in a new wall. There will be 2 windows instead of doors.

You can see the porch roof sagging a bit from the rotten wood.

Under the main stairs. I moved the basement stairs here, so that there is room for a powder room where they used to be.

Walnut handrail, pickets, and Newel Post.

I plan to keep the tub.

Here you can see a little bit of the plaster damage from the bad roof.

Third floor has 2 main areas. This will be the media / TV room.

This room is at the back of the house. It will be a bedroom or office. We removed the dropped ceiling and paneling from the walls. The windows will be replaced with something of a more-normal size.

Third floor bathroom and door to roof deck.

The terrible roof that caused all the damage... without which I would not be here.

The downtown view. This picture does not do it justice. I will work to get a good night shot and a few more good pictures of what can be seen.

Work in progress. We tore off the outside wall. There is some dust in the air (not snow) :-)
We built a wall to transfer the loads from the outside wall. Then framed in everything we needed to, jacked it up an inch and a half, then reattached everything and it is as good as new!

Summary:
If you have a leaky roof, get it fixed.

Thanks for reading!

Contractor Tom...

My crew and I performed much of the finish work on a house in Pittsburgh's Northside neighborhood. Here are a few pictures.
We:
Worked on this house from July-September.

Patched & Sanded the floors
Installed the kitchen cabinets
Re-hung a few doors (originally hung without a level it seems).
Installed all trim
Caulked & Painted

Built Fence
Lots of Misc.

Overall, I found it is much more stressful (on average) running a crew for someone else's jobsite than it is for my own rehab. We will see what I think about this in a year or two when I have a few more under my belt.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Finished & SOLD!

Hi Friends!

So, my house is now finished, and sold. Well, we plan to close on Aug. 29th. I ended up making a decent profit, so I plan to continue fixing up old houses. It was a loooong haul, but my hope is that as I continue, I will manage time and money better, thus lowering stress.

I have begun taking better care of myself. I'm trying to balance work & play. I rode my bike at least once a week for the past 3 weeks. And, next week I'll be at the beach. Woot!

Currently, I'm rehabbing some houses for my Realtor's friend, and now my friend too, Ray. One on Pittsburgh's Northside and one in an area of town called Lawrenceville. We hope to finish the one on the Northside this coming week. Then, we'll manage the Lawrenceville house, Aunt Karen's kitchen, and looking for a new place to fix up / rent / flip / undecided (based on the economy).

Here are some finished Pictures. If I have time, while on vacation next week with the family (in Ocean City, NJ), I'll do a "before and after" shoot which should be pretty interesting.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Light at the end of the tunnel!!! :-)

So, I have one month left (or so) and just now I realized that December 1st to May 1st is 5 months and not 6. SO... my original goal of 6 months is to June 1st. It is just a semi-arbitrary personal goal (6 months) but I feel good that I might be able to make it, or even come out early.

Updates:
I have a new Neice. Catherine Block. (suuuper cute & healthy)
I am dating Jenny (picture below). I met her at church (Open Door). She is currently finishing up pre-reqs and applying for Physician Assistant med school. She has a heart for missions and Jesus.
I got a haircut after 9 months of no haircut. It was well-needed. :-)

House Updates:
I have made some solid progress on the house. It feels like I can see a glimpse of what it will look like. We finished painting most of the first floor Friday and the hard part (prep work) of painting the rest of the house is done. We also built a deck with a roof and framed in much of the basement.

Bullet Points: