00-C Preparation Phase

25.06.2012: Monday

Since the house was handed over to us on Saturday, 23rd June, inspection of the house started! Now that the house is empty, we can finally take a closer look at what needs to be done: A lot. 


The front façade of the house is buckled inwards around the area of the bay window. This is probably due to both internal rotting of the wooden timber frame from water damage, as well as problems that arose due to changes in the layout of the house throughout it's lifetime, such as removal of the wall dividing the now single front room at the entrance level. There is a rather pitiable looking column in place now.







The rainwater drain and gutters around the roof floor were inspected, and they all need to change.

While the transfer of water / gas / electricity over to my name is happening, we are installing a safe electricity line for use throughout the construction so that we can kill the old line and prevent the workmen from getting hurt while disassembling, disconnecting and opening up the building.



 26.06.2012: Tuesday

Work goes on in the house: Getting rid of or giving away some of the built-in furniture that is in bad condition, or that needs to be redone after having to take it down or out for the structural restoration and refurbishment. The kitchen and bathroom furniture etc. is taken out.
 

Throughout this process a lot of dust is created and suddenly I realize as I look close at the floor on the bedroom level, that the bites all over my legs are not mosquito bites (it's summer after all), but flea bites that itch real bad! Off to get some pesticides!!

27-29.06.2012: Wednesday-Friday

The clean-up work goes on, along with emptying the house further of its dead-weights.


30.06.2012: Saturday

The kitchen and bathrooms are emptied out further. Below are photos of the Roof floor level, showing the seating area and the little bathroom on this floor, before the work begins.

 

Work in the Basement floor: Removal of the cheesy and useless lowered-ceiling, only to reveal the sorry excuse for some steel beams that are supposed to help keep the living room floor up as well as the crazy column that helps support the wall on the floor above it. Crazy. We will need to re-do a lot of this starting at this basement level and working our way upwards.

Another discovery in the basement level is the water depot and water pump placed in a rectangular concrete box fitted into the floor of the basement level, underneath a series of wooden latches, hidden under carpetting. Great, there is a water depot!

02.07.2012: Monday

During the process of emptying the building, we also started taping the wooden floors and staircases and any surfaces that might be harmed throughout construction and that will most probably be kept intact.

Below are photos of the kitchen during the removal of the built-in furniture and wall tiles.




03.07.2012: Tuesday

Work continues in the kitchen. In these pictures one can see more and more clearly that this part of the house was tempered with. Some brick wall construction and perhaps some concrete are in play in this back corner of the house, which has been changed over the years.

Work continues in the wet spaces:  The bathroom on the 1st floor level.

We were not able to get the permission we were aiming to get to build the scaffolding around the whole building. Instead, we will have to go through with a longer set of bureaucratic procedures in order to start the real construction stuff and build the scaffolding. It could be a long wait!


04.07.2012: Wednesday

All the rubble that was created while emptying the house and taking out the bathroom tiles, the raised concrete kitchen platform, and the floor-to-floor carpeting in the basement and the bedroom floor. It is surprising how much volume rubble can have.















05-07.07.2012: Thursday-Saturday

Work continues: Photos of the little bathroom on the roof floor level.

 

09.07.2012: Monday

The little garden plot behind the building.

10.07.2012 - 12.09.2012: 2 months of waiting!! Waiting for the bureaucracy, with the interruption of the religious Bayram holiday freezing all official work...

..and..

12.09.2012: Wednesday

Finally got permission to do the renovation work on the façades and the wood construction as necessary!! We will start from the front façade, from bottom to top!!

15.09.2012: Saturday  (The scaffolding work is finally finished on 21.09.2012 Friday.)

So the Scaffolding starts going up!!  Erol Abi's men start this work.

 

00-B Documentation

Following are scans of old measured-drawings and restoration drawings that we received from the previous owner.

Old Photograph that I received from the previous owner

00-A Pre-Construction Phase

So I finally sit down to write about the life of this house. It's an old wooden house, in one of Istanbul's old neighbourhoods, very cute and still relatively authentic in physical and social structure. Below are some photos from July 2012 that show the street and the house before work started. I have been calling the house Arnie-house, because of it's location - Arnavutköy - that makes it special to me. The grapevine spans to the neighbour's house across the public staircase connecting the mainstreet, Beyazgül Caddesi, to the parallel street further up the hill. This pedestrian connection is a wonderful in-between space and the grapevine is a feature we will try to keep as healthy as possible throughout the construction activities.

Across the mainstreet, there is another old wooden house that has been under construction for 2 years I was told. Restoring-refurbishing such old houses is expensive and typically very difficult because of bureaucratic hindrances as well as the scarcity of workmen who have the know-how of this type of construction. The woodwork of the timber frame construction as well as that of the more delicate carpentry for the doors and windows, need specialists with lots of experience. This is especially important in this case since we will be repairing the building in situ, which means replacing weight-bearing members as we go, without tearing the building down to build it from scratch. This requires a lot of experience. Luckily, my father Cafer Bozkurt has done this before and knows the work well. He also brings with him a set of great workmen and carpenters into the picture that he has worked with over the years. 

We bought the house in March, 2012. Once the previous owner lady emptied and left the house on June 23rd, 2012, we started the required bureaucratic actions that involve preparing restoration drawings, getting the right permissions, etc. Along the way, we slowly started forming the construction teams, as well as setting in motion the preparations for the wood that will be used in the restoration process.

 

The main entrance to the house is on the side, from the pedestrian side-street. This allows for the entrance space and the subsequent hall-spaces above it to be in the center of the house. Thus upon entering, on the right there are rooms looking to the front mainstreet and on the left rooms looking to the back, to the little garden. This garden is not for sale, but we were able to rent it from the Greater Municipality for a ridiculously low price. Hopefully it will work out like this.

 

The photo on the left shows the main entrance space.                    In the photo on the right is the living room. It has ample light.

Above, on the left is the ground floor entrance space. In the center the tall staircase, due to extreme ceiling height. On the right, one can see the center space on the floor above, the 1st floor, where the bedroom and bathroom are.

This is the ceiling of the central space of the 1st floor, and the stairs are leading to the attic space.

The attic space is very bright and pleasant, perfect for a work space as well as a fun hang-out spot.

In the photos below, one can see the roof-balcony that has a surprising view towards the Bosphorus.

Once on the terrace edge, one can perceive how far below the street level is, and how high the ceilings of this house actually are!

The pictures below show the 'basement' level of the house, which technically is at ground-level since it has a separate front door opening to the mainstreet. It also has a funny staircase allowing an inner-connection to the main house. This can be a wonderful work space.