Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
Yep, I finally got someone to come work for me again! Remember how I abandoned cutting down the bookcases? This cut was me and my dad working together with a cutting fence. He freehanded all his cuts! Remember the too deep before? Now, they’re much more gracefully proportioned! And even more importantly, that hump in…
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So we’ve been through the brick and the cornice. Finishing off the Phase 2 façade work means replacing the windows. Remember what I have? Total junk. I was glad to learn how bad they were because I didn’t want vinyl windows under any circumstances and I can replace these without feeling guilty. To review: I…
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Then comes restoring the brick, and this job is scary. I’m going to take the paint off my brick. Many sources recommend avoiding this as it can damage the substrate, but you saw what the paint looks like on my house. For further reading, I suggest this piece from the National Park Service, the preservation guidelines…
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The first day of façade work is gonna be fun. I’ll triumphantly rip down the awnings, the capping around the windows, and the siding over the cornice. This will wait until after there is no danger of frost, probably next spring. All façade work including the brick and windows will then need to be done…
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I wouldn’t call my endeavors to get rid of junk and catch up with routine cleaning blog worthy, at least not yet. So now seems like a good time to get back to what I really like writing about – obsessively scrutinizing old details and making fairly technical restoration plans. So to start, here’s the…
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We’re going back to a time before blogging and progress photos were a thing. Mother’s Day 2011 that is. The photos are from last year’s redo but they get the point across. My mom had always wanted a small fountain or pond and after considering a few different spots, we decided that a kind of…
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Amid all the odds and ends and this goal to not work too hard on the house, I’ve been chipping away at the dreaded clutter. And there were some pleasant surprises. First, I had some old kitchen cabinets in the basement but decided they won’t be reusable after all. I was ready to drive them…
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