Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
I really should have been starting the kitchen, but that got held up this weekend so instead I decided to go to Philadelphia Salvage. Just to look for a skeleton key for the vestibule door and set screws for some old porcelain door knobs. Really, that’s all I was looking for. But, no luck. The…
Read more
Remember that project to turn my room at my parents’ house into my dad’s office? Yep, they got him to help. Now you might be wondering what they were thinking after all I went through. Are they totally out of their minds? Maybe, but maybe it made sense. They sold the desk and wanted a counter that…
Read more
There’s not much room for surprises in a high-rise condo with concrete ceilings, is there? Not much, but there’s some. Remember how I said the carpeting was beat and grimy? It turns out that the padding under it had also hardened into some strange mealy substance that was stuck to the floors and had to…
Read more
My dad came today and we got the lower part of the stairway wall primed! Old house purists: before you bite my head off for painting my woodwork, the first floor interior is a Colonial Revival style remodel from the 1930’s and had always been painted. But getting it back to this point seemed insurmountable.…
Read more
I imagine that after this project is finished I’ll be out on a date, and I’ll say “I know we barely know each other, but can you order for me?” Maybe dinner isn’t such a big deal, but a lot of the decisions I’ve made this year have been really exhausting!