Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
I found out last week that yes, the taping job was officially done, so this weekend both my parents and I were there and cleaned the living daylights out of the place. Wiping down the walls and ceilings, vacuuming the floors multiple times, scraping gunk and spilled compound off of them, and wiping them down…
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Not quite. I tallied up what’s in the archives and found that this is the 14th post about the kitchen and the 7th that’s more about planning it than building it. I figured that since the IKEA cabinet scare forced the issue this week, I may as well finish the job (of planning it). But first,…
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I haven’t talked about how terrifying it is to pick things out in a while. That’s mostly because the last 6 months have been about putting together things that I had already picked out. The kitchen ceiling was one exception. I knew what I wanted, but had to figure out exactly how to put it…
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The tapers appear to be pretty much done! They missed a couple spots that they may have to touch up once more, but overall the work looks really good. Let’s see if my photography can capture the beauty of flat walls. What really impressed me is that where the drywall boards didn’t line up perfectly…
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Here they are! I’ve basically handed my house over to them for the week. The house, 10 buckets of joint compound, and 6 rolls of paper tape. And how did we get here? Another week of little odds and ends. Patching holes in old plaster and defects in new drywall with 20 minute setting compound.…
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The fever was rather literal. I had tonsillitis last week. Fine time to get it. The plan was that the Irishman would put up corner bead and Zip bead (where drywall meets exposed beams, exposed brick, etc.) while I put up small patches of drywall in the many spots where little bits were missing. Then…
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I just did my Home Depot run. Some of it was stuff I bought shortly after I bought the house… almost 2 years ago. Some of it was stuff I didn’t even recognize… maybe things my plumber left behind. Some of it was visibly dirty, and it must have come from dozens of different receipts.…
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It’s nothing lame like dinner and a movie.* It’s gonna work like this. At the end of the month, Mario comes in. He’ll have another guy or two with him. I hand him a bank envelope. They’ll be in and out in about 2 hours. Wham. Bam. All the walls in my entire house will be…
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A coworker taught me to use that adverb. It allows me to say something is done, but if it’s not done I’m not wrong. There are a few odd pieces left to finish, but nothing that involves much real work. Nothing in my house is standard though, so here’s a few things that happened that…
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I thought my first post of 2015 should be something about planning ahead, but the truth is that with 10 (mostly small) pieces of Sheetrock left to hang, I’m not at a clean stopping point and don’t really feel like writing that. And the other truth is that I just sketched what the paneling is gonna…
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