Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
This reminded my mom of that terrible old show where women would tell their tale of woe and the one with the saddest story would win stuff. Can you guess why? It’s not because my life is impressively sad. No, it has something to do with my washer and dryer. And the big priority was…
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First of all, that last post was totally fake. Maybe my April Fools jokes are too subtle, but if you may notice that I did many, many things that were not cost effective to try to preserve or recreate my house’s character, and the facade is the very last thing I would want to modernize.…
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I learned from being in the Crooked House that favors are a form of currency that can be held, exchanged, and transferred at will. I don’t know if this is because he’s Irish, he’s crazy, or he works in the building trades. Maybe it takes all of those things. But I learned from it and brought a…
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Yep, I’m finally back onto doing stuff. All my upstairs doors are now stripped of paint! A few that were never painted still need their varnish stripped! How did I manage this so fast? I found a corner to cut. I’m not doing anything to the back sides of the sliding closet doors. They’ll remain…
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Now that I’m getting toward the end of my burnout, it’s time to remember that the to do list before having the floors sanded is getting tantalizingly short. And none of it is going to cost me much! That’s important right now. I basically have to spray paint the radiators and furniture that I’m doing…
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My dad came down and helped me bang out some painting yesterday and today. We did the bathroom, all 4 closets, and the ceilings in the upstairs hall and back bedroom. Both colors I got in the back bedroom were MUCH darker than I was expecting. I don’t know if that photo shows the colors.…
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I was a little bit of a load the weekend before last, so I’m not as far along as I’d want to be. But that’s ok because now Sherwin Williams is having a March Makeover Madness sale. Someone needs to talk to them about these names. I think I’ve chosen my paint, but have to…
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People told me it would take 3 or 4 hours to roll primer onto every wall in the house with the electric roller. People lied. I was at it about that long last Saturday but got fed up and decided to pack things up and finish the next day. And then… I RAN OUT OF…
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I’ve decided that this round of heavy-handed repairs that took over the whole house should be called Phase 1. Phase 2 will be a bunch of smaller projects that can be done independently of each other… after I take a good long break. Anyways, if I want to make this sound fast and easy, I…
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Yes, it’s already over. If you remember, I ended year 1 with the house torn apart. Most of the functional things were in, but most of the visible things that make the house look good were not. I wrote 3 posts last year to commemorate the paper anniversary. This year the anniversary should be cotton, but…
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