Chronicling my adventures restoring and updating a quirky old Philadelphia rowhouse
For anyone who is new to this blog, welcome! I’m excited to participate in the One Room Challenge for my first and (in this house) last time. So far, I’ve been more of a tear the whole house apart and live in chaos and filth for years kind of a guy. The front bedroom is…
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I’ve had a little bit of clutter in the back yard pretty much nonstop since I bought the house. Occasionally while I was working there was a lot of clutter. Now I’m down to a small stack of Belgian blocks back behind where I keep the grill and trash cans. Also, the dirt on the…
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We don’t really have a porch, but that’s the best name we’ve got for the underside of the cantilever out back. This project has been on hold for years, so here’s a recap: When I bought the place the bay was crudely stuccoed and the underside of it was clad in that faux rustic textured…
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First of, how was Puerto Rico? It was really great. I don’t know what to say about it so I’ll leave you with some pictures. Back to cold Pennsylvania and the shutters. We’ve been leaning the lower tiers against the windows for privacy while I procrastinated on the uppers. So I laid them out in…
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6 years ago today I bought the Crooked House. 3 years ago (not quite to the day) I finished my 6-month renovation and moved in. In Year 6, I finally faced my fear of the facade and took it on. At the start, I was afraid to take the awnings down. The windows were horribly…
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So far, I haven’t done much. In the 1920’s or 30’s someone redid all the woodwork downstairs and put deep sills right over the original 19th Century sills. I stripped these, trimmed them to fit in the slightly modified openings, and added little blocks of wood to get them level. Look how crooked the original…
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The first time I drooled over pocket shutters was, I think, at the Winterthur Museum when I was about 5. So naturally, when I found evidence suggesting the Crooked House originally had them, I was hoping for a way to recreate them. But I figured I could never justify the price of having them made…
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I want to take a look at the front wall before I bought the house. But first, here’s what it looks like now. And here’s one of those few I remaining spots where the before was nicer, at least in some ways. The casing on the left window was super super crooked even though the…
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It’s been hectic people. The last time I updated the blog I was frantic to finish painting the exterior trim and my parents gave up an entire weekend to save me. Since then this stuff has happened: Got all the construction stuff put away and thoroughly cleaned the house. Had my mother and grandmother in…
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