met with architect Jake Alspector...

..on Friday.   He was quite helpful--no sugar coating the cost or effort needed for this reno.  It gave us some things to think about.

So here is where what we are thinking at the moment.  We will keep the place as a one-family for the foreseeable future.  We have discovered that this room edition we want to add to the first floor rear of the house will take much longer in the planning and design permission stage than it will to build it.  Community board, zoning abatements, Queens planning commission approval...all equals back-burnering this phase until well down the road.  We'll call this phase three.

Phase one has started: We had the two giant 60' Fir and Spruce trees cut down and the stumps cleared by Ted Clump of Bear Tree Service.  Totally professional and a nice guy to boot.  Ted has 42+ years in the tree business.  Came with a crew of two, and they did a ultra-clean ultra-pro job...even deftly felling a rotten clothes pole through a couple of sloppily hung Verizon wires.  (Those criss-cross wires are another post all together)

Ted Clump

stump grinding above; finished yard below