Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
First there was Tim. He was in the picture for a solid 2 years, and even though I had to put up with a lot of stupid shit I stuck with him. But he left me high and dry when a better option came along. I never gave him his stuff back. Then there was…
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I was all ready to write something boring about getting rid of stuff after a few triumphant rounds to Philly AIDS Thrift and assembling shelves in my basement. I mean, remember my parents’ basement? Not like this you don’t. And I did a decent job clearing out mine. More organizing will be needed. I put…
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2 big life changes since the beer tour. First, I’ve been eating those vegetables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. And second, the joy of NOT working on the house isn’t strong enough to get me to shrug off certain glaringly unfinished pieces anymore. An aside, the Philly shrug is an important part of…
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I bet you want to know how the tour/party went, but first one of the last things I did to clean for it. In contrast to what I talked about hearing from my steps last week, the steps themselves wasn’t white enough. It used to be a thing that everyone would scrub their marble steps…
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I write about problems like my terror of having the back exterior stuccoed in a texture that doesn’t look old. Sure, there are real problems that I care about, but there’s always someone who knows more about them than I do. And aside from what I know well enough to write about it, avoiding controversy…
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I’m gonna be on a house tour! Or actually better than that, a beer tour. This one will be especially interesting because the whole group moves from house to house on a schedule. That means I can expect about 70 people. And remember, this room is basically the whole house. So this should be interesting.…
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I went home Monday after 4 nights with my parents. It was kind of late when I got home and I was tired so I put off unloading non-perishable groceries until right before my bedtime. And then I noticed green dust coating most of the bottom of the cabinet. It was always a little dirty…
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Yes, it happened! My parents along with 5 other neighbors. Here are a few little stories. The next town over had a borough wide garage sale event this weekend, starting at 9 both days. I wanted to start at 7. The other neighbors refused. I got in a huff and said it’s not their decision if…
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You’ve seen a lot that needs to stay in this house. What needs to change? The kitchen. Now, in the 20 or so years since I’ve first seen this I’ve come around to steel cabinets and chrome dinette sets. Retro Renovation often features people who send them out to auto body shops or powder coaters. But…
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Now that I’ve scrutinized every detail of the exterior let’s have a closer look inside. You’ve seen the magnificent hallway. Critically, I can’t see any water damage in here since I imagine that helical curved plaster would be especially hard to replace. The only big job to do with this plaster is make sure the…
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