making it home

After the patio, the focus shifted back home.

Jordi visited and we somehow convinced him to oil the rafters. Not sure he'll be back- but it was a great, rainy, productive day :) we love our volunteers.




















To give the rafters a more polished look we painted on linseed oil, a natural finish. the rafters soaked it up like a sponge- and look so much better for it: darker, richer, and clean.

CLOSETS! as if my passion for shop vac wasn't enough, I also love closets. with shelving. I have found that otherwise they are quite useless. strangely this was my most exciting project to date. It allowed me to open boxes, unpack boxes and get boxes out! slowly but surely we are rediscovering our life, most of it boxed up since january when the house went on the market.  thanks dad. i needed these.

 

with the unearthing of our stuff, adam's computer lair is looking like home.

Lair #2 has also taken shape. The basement TOOL ORGANIZATION. it has been explained to me that this is a crucial part of the process. thanks to former owner and 50 year resident herbert, this small basement is made with a thousand nooks and crannies. in spare moments adam's been building shelves, rearranging, unpacking, and nailing up without losing herbert's charm.

 

 

 

the distraction

since adam- a new graduate- was faced with a poor economy and seemingly infinite time, he decided to build my parents the new patio they'd been wanting. Use those school weakened muscles again- a thank you for all their help over the years.

6 months, new jobs, and a fixer upper of our own later, the patio is done!

this was one serious job. Lots of kneeling and bending: ground work. BRUTAL. Dad (at 59) and Adam working into the dark on many nights. But it is done! just in time for winter.

and it came out beautiful.

it's electric

Another big project over the past few weeks: the electrical.

After ripping into the ceilings that first weekend we quickly realized our house needed some serious rewiring. There... under 3 layers...lie a maze of knob and tube. Now, for those of you like me- who never heard this term before, knob and tube is essentially the original method of wiring a house. Each wire is individually wrapped and separated from the other.

In lieu of the photos I never took- here is an internet stock photo that gives a good image of what we found running across our whole living room.















Not only were their safety issues with this type of wiring, but adam and I had an early vision of the electrical running along our exposed beams in stainless steel conduit. We also realized there was a serious shortage of outlets and the placement of light switches made no logical sense. Luckily we have some family expertise on the issue (thanks uncle jay), along with dad who is quite the capable electrician. Let the rewiring begin.

I didn't take very good pics along the way, but here are a couple where you can scout out just some of the dangling wires that hung everywhere for weeks. This was a serious job that the photos don't do justice.




















Here you can see a newly installed circuit box...
























the man himself, hard at work...




















And here, (difficult to capture) the conduit running along the beams and around the chimney in the background. The smaller black piping is actually the old gas line from when the house had gas lighting!




















Lastly- looking SO good and sleek, the living room's finished switch boxes.

dirty work

Introducing, my most favorite tool: shop vac.

I love the shop vac. While I've used it before... i've never REALLY used it before. I mean... this vacuum can pick up a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. well. Hunks of drywall, nails, not to mention dirt. WAY better than a standard vacuum cleaner. Why don't they make all vacuums like a portable, upright shop vac?














needless to say, shop vac has been instrumental in this process. Particularly MY role in the process. I am the cleaner. the boys make the mess and the girls clean up.

















Amazingly we have TWO. one is borrowed and one is ours. Between the two (and the two cleaners- mom and I), no debris stays put too long.

Luckily we've had some helpers along the way. Huge thanks! Though I should note- Justin and Steve were not relegated to dirty tasks (see next post on the electrical).















Mom's help has extended well beyond the dirty work and into keeping me up on school work. Together we've graded hundreds of papers and remain on call for hardware, food, and other such important tasks.


















speaking of... Another big milestone hit today- ALL DEBRIS IS GONE! We broke down and hired (a first!!) a guy to haul away all remaining trash for $60. An absolute bargain that no one regrets.

Slowly but surely

I apologize for the delay in this post! To be honest, I kept wanting to wait until I had something dramatic to show. The last photos, aka our first weekend, were so... productive! Not to say week 2 wasn't... it just didn't have the visual kabam of tearing down ceilings and ripping away walls.

So I figured I'd post some plain old house shots- rooms NOT under demo (currently).

Here are rooms upstairs. The three windowed room is the master bedroom. Though night in the photo it looks out over the park and the view is all trees. lovely.




















The whole upstairs will be carpeted and repainted. The floor is currently painted pine (yuck) and all walls this easter egg blue (double yuck). This is the second bedroom, also nice and big (hello guest room!). Also of course Lola, who likes to stay far away from the ruckus going on downstairs.




















This is the sunroom, in the back off the kitchen, which we plan to totally transform. It will be insulated and finished, with a half bath and laundry area off to the side.



















This is the kitchen!~ which will also be TOTALLY redone. At this point we're thinking concrete counter tops, all new appliances, big island, bar stools and my personal favorite- cork flooring. This kitchen will look superb.



















Here are the living room/dining room oak floors. One of the few things that (i think) will be left in tact. The darker inlay runs all along the room! We'll certainly be cleaning them up, but the problem is that the floors are a veneer. Which means it's THIN- and we can't do the classic refinish because we run the risk of sanding a hole right through it. So apart from re-sanding parts, TSP... scrub scrub....anyone have other ideas?















This is one of my favorite house features, also will be left in tact. An old bathroom skylight- with venting flap- right above the toilet.

So this is it! The new pad! Classic circa 1900 Baltimore rowhome. The specs: cozy yet a roomy 14 feet wide (wide=good), 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, a sunroom, living room/dining long room, and kitchen.

After looking at 50+ rowhomes in the Federal Hill area, this place happened by chance- a typical saturday perusing the newest additions to market. Inside had a lot to be desired by most standards; it was outdated, a bit smelly, and needed work- but not too much. Just what we were looking for. A bargain we could put our creative flair and sweat into.

The location is ideal. In Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood- directly across from Riverside Park! A park front home... now that's nice. The street is quiet with lots of parking. Close to everything but not in the heart of anything.














This is the view from our front door. Lovely.

We closed on the house Friday at 4:30. not a few hours later- renovation work was already in full swing! men and their crowbars. First up? the dirty work. taking down ceilings, exposing brick walls and more.

mom and dad were right there with us from sun up to sun set. how does one do these projects without family help?

THE WALLS.

Where are you brick? The fireplace plaster was the first to be chipped away, but not before removing an old, hideous, HEAVY fake fireplace, sitting in front of the real one. This picture was taken after the fact- but the exposed fireplace in the back was covered in plaster when we first entered.

More photos...check out the old decorative brick work and wall paper.

After the fireplace we exposed one entire wall of brick- and as a result of some subpar drywalling, exposed another. more photos to follow.

THE CEILING


Here you can see a glimpse of the not one (the big classroom tile), not two (the white square tile) but THREE (the wallpaper on wood) layers of ceilings we ultimately tore through.

We got right down to the beams and are going to leave them that way. Adds another 2+ feet to the ceiling and looks fantastic. We'll eventually have conduit stainless steel pipes running along the beams to hold our wires.

See the top of that column? two of them will be GONE *yeah!* as the pics proceed. This was actually debatable. Adam and dad liked them. really?

THERE WAS SO MUCH DUST!

SO MUCH DEBRIS!

in the pouring rain of our whole weekend, mom and I deposited 5 carloads at the dump (free dumping in Baltimore. pretty sweet). the men labored away- tearing down, chipping away, strategizing, two alpha spirits attacking projects with gusto. several trips to the hardware store later...

it all came together!
stuff cleared out, getting glimpse of the floor once again.

Here adam is, ceilings gone, plaster gone and bricks exposed, in front of a window that we didn't even know we had. it was covered in plaster.

check out the old uncovered wallpaper

this is the finished stairway. adam's most recent work of art. gorgeous!

Did I mention- every lock was rekeyed as well? (thanks dad).

today I actually mopped the floors. a temporary fix since we're re-finishing the floors this weekend. I just couldn't stand the dirt.

the first weekend of many... many.. many many many more.

now, i'm still gearing myself up for this. adam gives me dire warnings of the fact my "vision" won't come true for years. years?!?. sigh... we are both working ridiculous hours which means slower going than our usual manic transitions. at least work will get the materials paid for. :)

at this point i'm loving it. adam is loving it. the house is totally livable but we haven't moved in yet- waiting for the dirty work to finish. very excited for this hell of a project! Next up is, I think- refinishing the ceiling beams, the floors, adding more outlets and other electrical stuff I don't understand, touching up the brick, sealing the brick, ... and that's about a weekend +. Will post more soon!