New Year, New Walls!

Sometimes you just need a little more room, and what better time to blow out some walls than right after you’ve been cooped up with family for the holidays!

With our first big project of the new year we’re pushing the knee walls back about three feet on each side of this master bedroom to make room for a desk and bookshelves. There’s even some talk about getting crazy and putting a couch up here.

While the work moves along on the new knee walls we’re also opening a wall out in the hallway to change the direction of a small stairwell. This house has about 75 tiny sets of stairs and much of a pain as hauling drywall up and down and up again, these stairs were awkward and made access to the attic incredibly inconvenient.

We remembered to snap a picture of how the stairs were laid out so you can see that the stairs go up directly into the wall with the landing of the attic space to the right. With that kind of awkward maneuvering the attic space was unusable for storing anything substantial. Did I mention that this house doesn’t have a basement? There’s just a crawlspace so this attic is the only serious storage it offers.

The new stairs will run parallel to the staircase leading up to the hallway, and we’ll be reusing that door on the right. Once we rebuild the stairs they’ll extend past the existing wall, so that means more drywall fun.

🧰Visit us at preferredserviceswny to see more of this home improvement story and find out how it all turns out!

August 2, 2019August 3, 2019

Demolition Looms Once Again for Historic Fruit Belt Property

204 High Street again sits in the shadow of the wrecking ball as the City of Buffalo plans demolition of the long neglected Civil War era property

“We will try one last time to see if we can find somebody to save the property,” said Lou Petrucci, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Permit and Inspection Services, speaking of 204 High Street.

Known as the Meidenbauer House, the 1865 Italianate home in Buffalo’s Fruit Belt will fall to the wrecking ball in September if a new owner cannot be found to save the historic property that the city repossessed in 2005 and has neglected since with the intention to demolish.

Standing on the edge of the ever-expanding Medical Campus, the value of deteriorating properties has risen as developers seek to profit on the long neglected Fruit Belt neighborhood where 140 demolition permits have been issued over the last twelve years.

“If anybody’s out there,” Petrucci said, “we need them to come forward.”

Buffalo Rising featured 204 High Street in 2014 and again in 2016 when the city called for proposals to redevelop the property. You can see more photos of the property from around that time here.

Further reading on the history of 204 High Street’s brush with demolition:

Buffalo New, “Civil War-era home in Fruit Belt gets one last chance to avoid demolition”, 2019

Preservation Buffalo Niagara Instagram regarding 204 High Street

Buffalo Rising, “City Issues RFP for Redevelopment of 204 High Street”, 2016

Mike Puma’s photos of 204 High Street from 2012

Buffalo Rising, “Save 204 High Street”, 2014

Buffalo News article on Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus overtaking the Fruit Belt

June 11, 2019June 11, 2019

Uncovering History One Porch Project At a Time

You can’t go far in Buffalo without tripping over something historically significant, or randomly meeting the guy who’s grandfather built your house. Or something like that.

It’s always interesting to open up these old porches and see for ourselves why there are now so many building codes and regulations. One reason we have to get our foundations inspected and plans drawn up and approved before getting a permit is because back in the day people would just throw a 2×4 on top of an I-beam that was anchored in nothing but heavy clay and maybe some rocks and call it a day. If you need any more convincing that this is nowhere near enough to support that porch roof, take a look at how that 2×4 is bowing under the weight.

During our Greenfield porch project last year our on-site inspector made us swap out the 4×4 posts the permit inspector had approved with 6x6s because of concerns that the porch roof would be too much for them to carry.The framing around those posts that the shingles were nailed to was all tied in and carried some of the load, but that’s probably the only reason this porch wasn’t in worse shape. And by worse, I mean it hadn’t started to collapse and take the porch roof and part of the second story with it.

That’s even more surprising when we learned a little about the house and its neighborhood. It turns out that Matt, who rented us the dump trailer to haul away the old porch, had some history with the house. His grandfather had actually helped build the house we were working on back in the 1920s, as well as many more on the street. It was a company neighborhood, with the houses being built first for the executives of the Pierce Arrow Company and later, as the neighborhood expanded, for the rest of the workers.

The Pierce Arrow complex at Elmwood and Great Arrow, which is undergoing massive renovations, was designed in 1906 and operated until 1938 and during that time produced some of the most powerful and efficient automobiles in the country. President Taft ordered two Pierce-Arrows and two White Model M Tourers to serve as the first official cars of the White House, in addition to many Hollywood stars and tycoons of the day owning one of luxury cars.

One interesting feature of these executive homes that Matt learned from his mother was that apparently the porches sported a steel I-beam as the header. This explains why there is absolutely no sag to the front of the porch but makes it even more baffling that with a steel beam running along the top there would be only a 2×4 at either end supporting all that weight. But who knows, those columns could have been rebuilt later by someone who didn’t realize what was hidden above. Either way, I’m glad that I’m some cases they don’t make them they used to.

Visit us at PreferredServicesWNY on Instagram to see more photos of our projects!

June 8, 2019June 7, 2019

Starting Off Summer!

After a seemingly endless cold and rainy spring, we’re ready for summer and the start of our big outdoor projects.

It isn’t summer unless we’re tearing out another porch. Not that it feels much like summer yet, but the cooler days have been nice and the rain hasn’t set us back too much.

This shingle-clad North Buffalo Craftsman is getting a full tear-down. The new design is going to feature some smaller profile columns but retain the wide flare out at the bottom of the stairs.

Demo is always fun since were never quite sure what we’re going to find, and this project has surprised us a number of times already. The rotting joists and decking wasn’t too unexpected, and there had been some attempts to reinforce it. But once we pulled off the shingles and opened up those columns we were really shocked at what was (or wasn’t) holding up this porch.

January 18, 2019

Trial & Error at the Derby Living Room Remodel

From country bumpkin to rustic modern, we’re finding our way through this living room update!

When we remodeled Lynn and Bill’s kitchen and dining room a couple years ago we ran some board & batten to dress things up. Now that we’re back updating the living room (and a few other rooms) we wanted to continue that into the living room to add something to the space.

Originally we wanted to go higher than in the other rooms to offer a better look at it with all the furniture, but once it was up, Lynn and few others who got a sneak peek weren’t sure higher was better. Looking into the kitchen and dining room from the living room you would see the batten board in both rooms, and since this was going to be the only wall in the living room to have it, that’s really what it needed to tie together.

And we had to agree—it would work better staying consistent even if that meant loosing some visibility behind the couch.

Visit us at preferredserviceswny to see more of this home improvement story!

January 17 Project Update:

Here’s the final version of the batten for the living room. We brought it down to the same height as the kitchen and dining room, and painted everything.

Lynne has promised us pictures once all her new furniture is in and we can’t wait to see the finishing touches to transform this project!

January 14, 2019January 18, 2019

Trial & Error at the Derby Living Room Remodel

From country bumpkin to rustic modern, we’re finding our way through this living room update!

When we remodeled Lynne and Bill’s kitchen and dining room a couple years ago we ran some board & batten to dress things up. Now that we’re back updating the living room (and a few other rooms) we wanted to continue that into the living room to add something to the space.

And we had to agree—it would work better staying consistent even if that meant loosing some visibility behind the couch.

Visit us at preferredserviceswny to see more of this home improvement story and find out how it all turns out!

April 9, 2018April 8, 2018

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bookshop In the Sky

Gas Station Burrito

In October 1907, a new bookstore opened on the seventh floor of the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago designed entirely by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Designed when Wright was thirty-nine years old and little known outside the circles of Chicago’s elite, Browne’s Bookshop was as unique for it intent to feel very much like a home library or study as for its location on the seventh floor, and despite its short life was known as “the most beautiful bookshop in the world.”

Wright modeled the glass lamp shades from the windows he’d designed for his childrens’ rooms, and organized the store’s bookshelves around reading tables to create cozy alcoves in which to explore.

Browne's Bookshop Francis Fisher Browne, the store’s owner and editor of the literary magazine The Dial, relocated the store to the building’s ground floor in 1910 but closed it for good two years later.

While the Fine Arts Building…

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March 22, 2018March 17, 2018

Throwback Thursday to Our Highland Porch Rehab

Highland Porch, Preferred Services of WNY; Buffalo NY 2017

Earlier this week we mentioned that we had done work for Molly, the owner of Buckminster’s Cat Café. Unless you follow us on Instagram you may not have seen the pictures of that job from back in August 2017.

Molly was having a problem with her front porch; the railings were bowing out, you bounced across the deck boards as you walked. Once we started pulling up deck boards we realized the porch was in much worse shape than we’d thought.

What we assumed would be securing a few joists and replacing the deck boards turned into replacing them entirely. Nearly all of the joists had completely rotted out and broken away from the nails that should have been holding them in place. The deck was bouncy because it was missing most of its joists; there weren’t more than three left in place supporting the weight of the deck boards.

As it turned out, those posts the railings are secured to aren’t just supporting the railings. Those are eight foot posts that rest on the concrete pad the entire porch was built on. The problem with this is that the garden that surrounds the porch had started pushing against the side of the porch, and as that weight pushed on the walls, it pushed on the railings as well, kicking them out. We had to dig out around the wall in order to push them out. Once we pulled up the deckboards we could get in there and push the walls back out and then add additional supports to tie everything together to keep it from shifting again.

The stairs had been in in pretty bad shape, too. While we had everything ripped apart we rebuilt the stairs entirely, adding a third stringer down the middle that should have been there to begin with.

We wrapped up by repainting the new deckboards the same color as the old ones. At first glance it may look the same as when we arrived, but with the new joists and additional supports throughout to keep the structure squared up and tied together, this rehab should definitely hold up for years to come.

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March 19, 2018March 19, 2018

Buckminster’s Cat Café, a Buffalo First

Buckminsters Cat Cafe, Buffalo NY by Kristin Richards Lauricella

We were fortunate enough to do some work for Molly, the owner of Buckminster’s Cat Cafe, this past summer. We don’t know about you, but our Facebook feed has been blowing up with people resharing the Buffalo Rising article profiling the forthcoming Buffalo cat cafe. But, if for something reason you haven’t heard about it, we’ll know what’s going on.

Buckminster’s Cat Cafe is going to be located in the ground floor of the beautifully renovated 577 Niagara Street, and will be a combination neighborhood coffee shop and cat adoption facilitator.

According to Molly, the cafe is intended to be an “appealing space for humans to relax, socialize, or study, as well as offer a unique habitat for the free movement of cats.”

All while they plot world domination, of course.

With all the development happening on Niagara Street, from Resurgence to the Mentholatum and the Crescendo apartment buildings, this cafe sounds like the perfect addition to a rejuvenated West Side corridor. Check out Buckminster himself on Instagram or follow the Cafe on Facebook for news about their official opening.

March 15, 2018March 13, 2018

Hertel Halfbath Remodel

Hertel Halfbath / Preferred Services of WNY

Recently we completed work on a half bathroom in North Buffalo. The challenge on the this project was that this bathroom was going to be nowhere near any of the existing plumbing work, and required quite a bit of time in a crawlspace under the house. The half bath was going on one side of a front room off the living room.

For some reason, although the house’s front door was adjacent to this room, there was a separate entrance, so the first thing we had to do was take out that door and wall it up.

Once that was done we could start framing in the room. The windows at the front of the house and the sidelight in the French doors leading into the living room kept us from expanding too far into the front room, but it worked out to just enough space for what we needed.

We’ve installed a few macerator toilets, and we’ve done them each a little different. Depending on the project and the space we have, we might hide the macerator tank or leave it exposed. It also depends on the type of macerator.

We’re more likely to hide a Saniflo since the ones we’ve worked with have been a little louder and looked less finished. They’re not intended to be seen, which is fine, since hiding them will dampen the loud, clunky noise they make kicking on. That’s not to say they aren’t a great product, and we’d use them again. Liberty Pumps, however, have a better appearance and run quieter. The unit itself doesn’t stand out so much or look like a piece machinery that would take away from the appearance of the bathroom itself.

This time around, although we were working with Liberty, since we had the room, we built a box to hide the tank. Building out to hide the macerator also worked well with the existing elements in the room. We tossed around a few ideas for access to the macerator, and finally settled on keeping it simple; the top of the box slides straight out in case we ever need to service the unit.

We played around with the placement of the vanity and mirror before settling on their somewhat offset position. They may seem too far to the right at first, but there’s a soffit running along the left side so we’re actually centered from that. The plumbing and studs also had something to do with this decision but this position also leaves room for a small trash can if needed.

There was trim running low along the exterior wall that we liked. Rather than tear it out when we pieced in the new exterior wall, we continued it along. We thought it was a cool detail, tied things together and broke up the wall a little.

We had a great prairie style glass door we’ve been dying to use. When we saw those French doors on the living room, we had to use it. Once we frosted the glass on that door, it complimented the windows and French doors on either side of the room and tied together the old and the new.

Outside, we matched up the shingle pattern and added some additional trim boards to carry along all of the existing design elements to make this new work as indiscernible from the old as possible.

Check out the photos below to see our progress throughout this project and follow us on Instagram to see what we’re working on now.

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