Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
After I’ve restored my brick front, it will be time to replace the windows. I’ve been looking forward to their demise for a long time Let’s have fun exploring exactly how bad they are. The top few inches of the openings are built down with haphazardly stacked-up boards. Then the window jambs are racked so…
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The 6 posts I’ve now written just about planning work for the front of my house probably tipped you off to the fact that this project has me scared shitless. I’m definitely going for it, but as long as we’re getting freezing weather at night, repeatedly soaking the brick with water would be very…
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My time this week went to some much needed filing, not to stuff you’d want to read about. But I did do something with the front of my house. I stuck my head out the window. That’s not much, but I haven’t looked too closely at the upper half of the brick what with a 13-foot-wide…
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If you’ve been with me for a while, you might recall that I wrote a mini-dissertation on my plans to restore the facade in Summer 2016. Here it is, if you want to read these old posts again: Existing Conditions A Cornice Vocabulary Primer How not to restore historic masonry In With Old Windows? But…
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Did you miss me? I took a solid 2 months off working on the house and that’s been really great. In fact, I haven’t been this social in 6 years, before I bought the place. Relatedly, I decided to reorganize the kitchen cabinets. Partially because some of them are a disorganized mess and partly to…
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The old plan was to do the best I could to spruce up my circa 1990 Victorianesque front door this winter. I gleefully abandoned that plan when I found a door that’s close to period correct that’s almost narrow enough. Almost. I’m a small bit nervous about trimming allowances. Obviously the door needs to be…
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Well, the beer tour was fun! Ticket sales were down a bit this year, which meant that the crowd fit into my house better than last year. I forgot to take photos but picture about 3/4 of this. Also look at the unfinished banister and the pig tail! Now, some people said that no one…
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With help from my dad, I’ve gotten a LOT done. Between how slowly I work and how many flaws I find in these cabinet doors, I never thought I’d see the day. Now, I did have to stop painting a bunch of times because I kept spotting more flaws to grind out with the sander.…
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I’ve been complaining about this job since April, but sooner or later I need to put it to bed. And this year I’m a Beer Tour host again. This year it’s November 4. Time to start tidying up? Nah, let’s start a project. (Look how cute the door prize baskets are though! If you want…
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