REBUILDING THE HOUSE HOMEOWNER'S HARD WORK, HUD AND SALVAGE SHOPPING RESTORE ONCE-DERELICT PROPERTY.(AT HOME)

Byline: FRANCES INGRAHAM Staff writer

With sheer determination and a major sacrifice, Joan Burkard, created a home for herself in a worn working-class neighborhood on the south edge of north Troy.

It's been 12 years since Burkard sold her dark gray Mazda RX7 sportscar to generate the down payment on a derelict house.

``It was a shambles, but it was all that I could afford,'' remembered Burkard, who got the price of her $12,000 brick house reduced to $10,000 with a bit of negotiating. ``I knew the neighborhood, as I lived here for two years, because the rents are cheaper here.''

Built originally as a cozy two-family, Burkard's house had been subdivided into four mini apartments some time in the 1950s. With the increase in the number of apartments also came a spate of cheap fixer-upper jobs, from dropping the ceilings to hide crumbling plaster to sealing off some of the windows and doors for energy reasons.

Burkard, a native of Michigan, lived 35 of her 65 years in Queens before moving upstate 19 years ago for a job as a program specialist with the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. She chose to reconvert the four-unit dwelling into two units, with her apartment on the second floor, plus a rental on the first to help defray the cost of maintenance and taxes.

She also applied for an Urban Development Action Grant, which covered half of the $12,000 that she put in to install new plumbing, a central heating system with new furnaces and a new electrical service.

The city, unbeknownst to Burkard at the time of her purchase, was in receipt of HUD funds for a Focus Block Program to rehab the exteriors of several of the buildings on her block, which included hers. Burkard said her exterior work was valued at $37,000.

``That was a real lifesaver, because I surely didn't have the funds to do it myself,'' noted Burkard, who is around 5 feet, 4 inches tall. ``However, I have painted the trim by myself every few years every since it was done over, but I have someone erect the scaffolding for me.''

As for the inside, she kept what she could and tore out the rest. The unfinished basement contained all sorts of unglamorous (sic) things, such as parts of automobiles, sinks and other junk items, which she has cleaned out to make room for a washer and dryer that she shares with her tenant.

She hired professionals to do technical work, such as tearing out the two kitchens and baths on each floor and replacing them with one on each floor and to open and reline the bricked-up fireplaces in her dining room and in the living room.

She also added a modest skylight for $400 to the dining room because the house is so close to its neighbor that very little direct light comes through the pair of side windows.

To stay within her means and achieve her goal of transforming this pig's ear into a silk purse, Burkard called on the free help of family and friends.

Eager to save a month's rent where she was living, Burkard worked day and night with family and friends for three weeks to get her new apartment to the point where she could at least move in, and then continue from there.

``I would come home from work at night and hand strip a few square feet of the wood floors room-by-room until I completed them,'' said Burkard. ``I even tiled the floor of the bathroom with those tiny tiles that were popular in early 19th century and stripped all of the wainscoating in the kitchen.

``I never did anything like this before, except for maybe repainting the color of a room. I had to learn how to do everything. I'm a firm believer that you can learn anything out of a book. I even re-upholstered some of my furniture that way. Anybody can do it if they have half a brain and the determination.''

If she couldn't create something herself, hen she would comb Capital Region salvage warehouses with the determination of Sherlock Holmes, until she solved the project.

``I never had much money, but I have a great enthusiasm for shopping,'' she mused.

Among her booty were a refrigerator ($50) and gas stove ($100) dating from the 1920s that are still in excellent working condition despite the fact that the fridge is not self-defrosting, two wooden fireplace mantles (less than $20 each), wainscoating to replace the missing sections on the rear wall in the kitchen and several windows with wooden sashes (for between $6 and $8 each). Burkard said that she felt that the house needed old things.

``The first year that I was in my new home, my mother gave me two new windows as a Christmas gift,'' said Burkard. ``They were so special because she had them custom-made at an area lumber company. Sometimes there was nothing but a hole over the decayed windows that were here. The front windows were boarded over on the tops, and when we removed the wood, we discovered that they featured decorative lead-paned top sections.''

The furnishings and accessories bespeak of offbeat tastes and a passion for collecting items that wake up the small spaces with a burst of color or sparkle, such as a grouping of mercury glass globes that rest on top of an antique cupboard that belonged to her grandfather.

Having a keen sense of color, she painted the fading wood cupboard, which houses her stereo equipment, a bright and cheerful butter yellow, much to the dismay of her relatives, who bemoaned, ``How could you?''

``It seemed natural to paint the inside in a night shade of sky blue and paint stars on the inside of the doors, which reflect in the back of the cabinet, which I mirrored,'' said Burkard as she admired her handiwork. ``I tried breaking the glass in patterns so that the breaks look like the petals of flowers. I got the idea from the mirror that hangs over the breakfront in the dining room. See how it's broken? I bought it that way because it looked so interesting the way it was shattered and not a piece is missing. I like sparkly stuff stuff that makes you feel good.''

When she discovered a dozen of antique glass baby bottles, she filled them with colored water in a rainbow spectrum and illuminated them from behind at the base with tiny white Christmas lights so they would sparkle.

A gaggle of lighted white geese table lamps are situated on the floor in an otherwise empty corner of the dining room as if they were coming your way any moment.

``When I was growing up almost every kid had a Gladys Goose lamp,'' chortled Burkard. ``They facinate everybody who comes here. I was broken into awhile ago, and when the police came to check things out and what was missing, they had their pictures taken while they took turns posing with the lamps.''

Burkard likes a challenge. She found a copy of a Mies Van Der Rohe Barcelona chair a few years ago that needed reupholstering for $50. No problem, she purchased a book on reupholstering and did the leather work herself.

Burkard did the samething when she had to build a closet. She also found a dining room table at a furniture outlet for $10 because it was missing its two wooden leaves. She solved this by painting the table in a Chinese green and making the two leaves herself, which she painted to match and no one can tell the difference.

Her passion for finding a bargain is only surpassed by her love of entertaining and cooking dinner for friends.

``The kitchen is the best room in the house,'' declared Burkard, who shares her house with two ultra friendly tabbys, a canary and talking parrot (which she thinks has a diabolical sense of humor). ``I installed the silver tin ceiling myself and glazed the walls in this bright red color. Someone remarked that the ceiling looked too dark, so I added the string of white Christmas lights around the cornice to illuminate it, beacuse I didn't want to use contemporary spots.''

Not one for watching television, Burkard spends most of her free time reading from one of her most prized possessions in the house, a black and white barber chair that she got for $50 from a house in Brooklyn.

The kitchen, like the two bedrooms and bath, is filled with objects that have caught her eye, from a flock of wooden black birds to butterflies.

``I collected butterflies originally, but I think that I went to far with that, because I had butterflies everywhere and on everything,'' she said. ``I think you can carry anything too far. Now I love to buy children's toys anything that runs on batteries and stuffed animals that move.''

Burkard has frequented her salvage and antique shops on such a regular basis for so many years that she has become friends with the owners and they give her gifts, such as a working wall clock that looks like one of her two antique refrigerators.

``My friends know that I like old things that look like they belong with this house,'' she said pointing to a vintage two-slice toaster, whose doors open to turn the bread around. ``The toaster looks like it belongs on that old Hoosier cabinet that I found for $50 from a newspaper ad.''

After experiencing a rehab firsthand, Burkard has since purchased two more income properties next door to hers, even though she still didn't have any money.

``When the house next door came on the market, I borrowed $1,000 from my mother and got another FHA mortage,'' explained Burkard. ``Then three years later, the house next door to it came on the market and I refinanced the other two to buy it. But if I had been smarter, I would have stopped at two. Keeping things up takes a lot of time.''

Burkard's advice to anyone who might be considering to do things the way she did, is to ``keep fit.''