Category: Uncategorized

Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse

Introducing the Third Floor Bath

So, here it is. A clawfoot tub! Pretty exciting. Tub aside, it’s definitely the worst room in the house. What’s not to like? Well, to start, this shower faucet. Not sure exactly what’s going on here. Is this a sink faucet? Also, it leaks. And then the shower head? EEK! Where the tub crunched through…
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Big News Outside the Crooked House

First off, did you miss me? Some of you may wonder what happened. Basically, I had some techinical difficulties, and with the pandemic, work, and spending half of 2020 with Tito’s family in north central Florida, I just… abandoned it. I’m still having more trouble uploading images than I used to, but hopefully I’m back.…
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Scope Bloat: Appliacnes

This wasn’t part of the plan, but the dishwasher decided to turn itself into a dish rack in the middle of this project. And giving it a bit of thought, we decided that while we’re at it all the appliances should be stainless steel. As proud as I was of buying the opposite of what…
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3 Room Non-Challenge: Getting to the Counters

So, apparently part of not challenging myself is not sticking to a regular posting schedule, but I will be writing because stuff is happening! Remember these secondhand Formica countertops I picked up at the ReStore and cut up with a saw to fit the space? Early this year, we were finally able to thank them…
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Can Mirrors Solve All Our Problems?

So you saw the headboard I bought in the back bedroom before, but since it’s been so long I’ll show you again. I bought it from a small-time dealer. She messaged me later that she had a mirror that matched it, and she had stuff piling up enough that she was giving it away to…
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Making Every Square Foot Count: Revisiting the Back Bedroom

At 960 square feet, the Crooked House is too small to have spaces that we don’t use regularly. Meanwhile, Tito and I both have demanding jobs and I have a soul-crushing commute and both of us would do well to have good space to work from home when we need it. That means a comfortable…
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A Not-So-Dramatic Makeover

So it’s been a bit, and what I’m about to write about is old. After we finished the bedroom, it might have been a good time to stop working for the holidays. But I was thinking about the unfinished state of the linen closet. I wanted to do it twice before, but life (as in…
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One Room Challenge Week 6: Better than Not Bland

Well, we could call the room done, but we’re still having heating issues. So the same project that started early gets to finish late. Not my favorite job. And now for the good stuff. Getting the rug and all the paintings together made decorating the room a lot less intimidating. With the bookcases and the…
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One Room Challenge Week 5: Almost There

Well, it’s been a grueling week and a half, but we’ve gotten some work done. You can probably see some unfinished details there. We still don’t have trim up on the left bookcase because I took the wrong piece of wood to my parents’ house and we ripped down a piece that’s too short. I…
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One Room Challenge Week 4: We Survived Peak Dust

Remember how I said I’d put dowels in the wall for the picture rail? Well that’s the first thing I did since last week’s post. It really wasn’t hard! But it made a HUGE mess. I closed the door and walked away from this. So is that peak dirt? Not quite yet. I had 3…
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