Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
I haven’t done anything to the front yet, but the plan is to restore it as close as possible to its original appearance. I’ll restore the original brick and marble, eliminate the plague of aluminum siding and awnings, restore or replicate the original wood trim, install wood windows (new or old). You can read more…
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That’s right, I started off with talking about pretty things, but I’m gonna go through the back story before we talk about paint colors. Skip to the bottom if you want. Making the back pretty (for real) is my next step! The bay on the back of the house is also the part of the…
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Not Christmas, thank God. I’ll take the summer for now. Instead of garlands, we’re hanging clapboards. And they look good! Hardieplank, just like any wood siding, goes in from the bottom up. And to start it you need a shim so that the first board slopes out properly. After that each board laps over the…
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Well, today is Father’s Day. I know we all should show our appreciation to our fathers, but I think I’m forced to point out that mine’s better. I may have attempted to move the holiday up 2 weeks to suit my schedule (and do something he liked), but he didn’t have to work outside all…
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Remember the list of things I planned to do in May? It’s looking like I should have one of the three done in June. I’ve ordered Hardiplank siding for the cantilevered bay on the back. This is basically a mixture of sawdust, sand, and cement, similar to asbestos shingles but without the asbestos, that looks…
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