Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
I feel like I’ve turned another corner with the house. I’ve constantly had to do bits and pieces of things all over the house to be ready for one contractor after another. I’ve started low priority things during downtime and not finished them. And I ended up spending half the summer siding the cantilever. Which…
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Well first of all, some good news: my roofer came and finished my fascia! Yay! And now some bad news: I’m unimpressed with how it looks.
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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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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So, this week was (hopefully) the last scary high pressure deadline I’m to see for a while. The combustion test was scheduled for Monday morning, and the plumber was to have the radiators hooked up the week before. Yes? No. He showed up last Sunday to do the work, and somehow the key I’ve left…
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A week or so ago I got really frustrated with this project. Since then, I’ve done a lot. Easter dinner, several rock climbing sessions, quizzo, a quick trip to Newark (Delaware). Lots of time with friends, lots of beer. What do these things have in common? None of them has anything to do with the…
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The title references a city ordinance cracking down on blight by requiring owners of vacant properties on occupied blocks to install doors and windows and make them look occupied. More info here if you’re interested. I’m a big fan. I love it that the city is doing something effective to prevent vacant properties from being…
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With a new floor plan sketched out and handed to my plumber, I turned a few minor repairs into gutting half the second floor. In other words, I had my work cut out for me. But what was the next thing I worried about? Doors. The interior doors upstairs in my house were a bit…
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