{"id":455570,"date":"2022-03-16T10:25:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T14:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/?p=455570"},"modified":"2022-03-16T10:25:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T14:25:51","slug":"bed-stuy-gut-renovation-party-wall-rim-joist-skylight-staircase-wood-frame-italianate-townhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/interiors-renovation\/bed-stuy-gut-renovation-party-wall-rim-joist-skylight-staircase-wood-frame-italianate-townhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"This Ugly House: Skylights Bring Sunshine, Stairs Make the House Feel Bigger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Welcome to the fourth installment of This Ugly House, a reader renovation diary. We\u2019re excited to publish this tale of a hands-on renovation of a wood-frame house in Bed Stuy. See the first one here<\/a>. The author also blogs at www.thisuglyhousenyc.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The thing I learned through gut renovating a house is that sometimes a gut renovation has its advantages over just working with what’s already there. We were not planning to start from scratch, but we took advantage of the situation by really opening up the space — literally. There was a small skylight at the top of the stairs, per NYC building code, that we were planning to keep. Because we uncovered the roof beams throughout the top floor space, we discovered the ones over the staircase were in bad shape. Five joists had pulled away from the party wall rim joist and were just hanging on by the roof boards that spanned over the top of them. At this point, our roof was stripped all the way down to the 130 year old wood planks that had been covered with layers of asbestos. I figured since we needed to rebuild the roof membrane as part of our construction scope anyway, why not take this opportunity to maximize the skylight? Add a few more while we’re at it?<\/p>\n

The existing skylight over the stairs was 2 feet by 2 feet. I expanded the size of the opening to 3 feet and 6 inches by 7 feet with a new galvanized steel skylight. We then positioned it to the wall and designed the frame to sit on top of a well wall that extended up beyond my neighbor’s roof ridge, to avoid any future leaks between our properties. This design forced us to remove enough of the damaged five beams over the staircase to solve the connection problem. I am really happy with the end result, and love the sunlight coming down throughout the house.<\/p>\n %<\/span><\/span> | %<\/span><\/a> | %<\/span><\/a> | %<\/span><\/a> | %<\/span><\/a> | %<\/span><\/a> | %<\/span><\/a> Single Page<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The thing I learned through gut renovating a house is that sometimes a gut renovation has its advantages over just working with what’s already there. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189102,"featured_media":455573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"schneps_byline":"","schneps_post_style":"","schneps_post_source":"","schneps_syndicated_read_more":"","schneps_post_source_sitename":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_html":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_src":"","schneps_post_source_shortname":"","schneps_post_source_url":"","schneps_post_source_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7644,7661],"tags":[2597,25395,25315,31377,31376,31041],"districts":[],"class_list":["post-455570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interiors-renovation","category-bed-stuy","tag-featured","tag-gut-renovation","tag-reader-renovation-diary","tag-skylight","tag-staircase","tag-this-ugly-house"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"This Ugly House: Skylights Bring Sunshine, Stairs Make the House Feel Bigger","url":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/interiors-renovation\/bed-stuy-gut-renovation-party-wall-rim-joist-skylight-staircase-wood-frame-italianate-townhouse\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/interiors-renovation\/bed-stuy-gut-renovation-party-wall-rim-joist-skylight-staircase-wood-frame-italianate-townhouse\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/this-ugy-house-bed-stuy-reader-renovation-stair.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/this-ugy-house-bed-stuy-reader-renovation-stair.jpg"},"articleSection":"Interiors & Renovation","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"This Ugly House"}],"creator":["This Ugly House"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Brownstoner","logo":""},"keywords":["featured","gut renovation","reader renovation diary","skylight","staircase","this ugly house"],"dateCreated":"2022-03-16T14:25:51Z","datePublished":"2022-03-16T14:25:51Z","dateModified":"2022-03-16T14:25:51Z"},"rendered":"