trim and moulding

You can expose brick, mud drywall, refinish floors, scrape wallpaper and paint walls - none of this matters until you add moulding and trim. We love crisp, clean, bright white trim in just about every room. Slowly, we've been adding the base trim as we get certain phases of the work complete. Now that we're moving on to doors and windows, y'all can have a peak.

I don't consider my moulding capabilities a talent - but we're really good at the finishing part of the job where you can hide errors. After you've installed whatever you're working on, you should fill in all the gaps and nail marks with a paintable caulk (or something comparable) before painting the final product. We still have to do this step, but it's coming along.

The square rosettes with fluted casings are seen in a few other places of the house where the trim appears to be original. We like the traditional, yet geometric look.

Before:


After:






Dealing with a 1.5" floor height change is a pain. We built this trim piece out of two threshold step-up pieces stacked and secured.

coffee table

This is an Ikea Lack Shelving Unit we modified into a coffee table.  Pieces of 1x6 MDF were added to each end using Liquid Nails and wood screws.  Adding the boards gave the casters a more solid base than the actual furniture.  Thanks, Lynsey for the idea.  

 

basement; wet bar

The basement is coming together. We have the cabinets painted - Craig did an amazing job on this - and the wet bar is in place with functioning plumbing. We're pretty excited and proud to say that the basement budget has stayed quite small due to some recylcing, some freebies and of course our own labor.

porcelain tile floor

Back to the kitchen - the floor is tiled, finally! It was a mess of plywood for way too long. We went with a neutral porcelain 12"x12" in a running bond pattern. I'll admit, I was a bit disappointed when I first realized that the floor I wanted was going to cost way more than necessary; I suppose the tile we ended up with is "safer" as far as general appeal. Now that it's in, I'm really happy with the decision. The lighter color helped the room feel even bigger and the fact that the pattern pulls your eye from side to side of the house, rather than front to back makes the kitchen feel fat and happy. An added bonus is that the end result seems to lend itself well to a house in Little Italy with a Tuscan'y feel.

A few items of note:
-When you're working with grout [and not wearing gloves] strange things will happen to the skin on your hands. It dried me out in a fantastic way. I was nothing short of reptilian for at least a week.
-People will tell you to invest in knee pads, but you won't because they're pricey and you think you can handle it. You can't.
-We rented a wet saw from the HD. I'm not sure of the other options out there, but this thing worked great.
-Cutting tile becomes annoying. Because we installed the cabinets first, we had to make more cuts than necessary. Most of the information I've read suggests installing the flooring material in a kitchen first. It's probably a good idea, but there are pluses to installing it last as well (e.g. less tile material). Our schedule dictated this decision.

A few in progress pictures before the final - to prove to Dan that Project Rowhouse is not some covert operation involving loads of contractors and designers.









No, I don't ask Jaxxon to be in every picture. This boy loves the camera - can you blame him?

tool storage

It’s great that we have the finished basement and third floor, but this leaves little room for storage of things like tools.  As you might imagine, the collection is big, unruly and always growing.  Can I get a “That’s what she said”?  Fortunately, there is a large built-in closet/tv unit in the basement with some extra room – this is after the first coat of primer.

We stole one of the closets and added pegboard.  If you don’t LOVE pegboard, you’re not invited.  It makes for great organization and I’m digging the fact that right now, I know exactly where my plumb-bob is (don’t you love that name?)

No, that is not everything.  We also had to convert this Harry Potter under-the-stairs-room into additional storage with some utility shelves, more pegboard and an overhead flourescent light.

 Notice the brass knuckles to the left.  I have no explanation.

couch

Dear Old Couch,

I'm sorry to say you're being replaced.  While you've been loyal and always by our [back]sides, the time has come for someone else to enjoy you - and hopefully give you a thorough, professional cleaning. 

Regards,

Jon and Craig

From Couch

This couch has seen everything.  If it could speak, it would surely say something like, "humans are utterly disgusting". 

We really do like the couch.  If the stairwell to the basement was bigger, it would be fixed up and kept.  I feel like it's an important piece of furniture as it was one of our first bigger purchases as a couple.  Anyhow, it has a few broken bones from all the moving - Cincinnati, Houston, Cleveland, Huntsville AL, and now Baltimore.  Also, as of late, if the pillows are situated just right, you might be lucky enough to get a waft of an unknown odor prompting thoughts like, "Is that..? nah, they don't even have a cat".

It'd be great with some TLC and hopefully someone will find it at the Salvation Army to give it just that.  Unless of course one of you want it for free?

Meet Petrie:

This is the couch we just ordered from Crate and Barrel.  The Petrie is typical 60's design; big; super comfortable; clean lines; totally marvelous; and I quote, "lets you slouch in comfort".  A slouch couch - PERFECT.  We selected the Charcoal color and are regularly wetting our pants with excitement.  It won't be delivered until April (grrr) but it’s nice knowing the couch is being specifically built for Project Rowhouse.  Here are a few other pictures I rounded up from the interweb.

basement

Sorry y’all, we concocted the most daunting to-do list ever and we failed to put ‘blog’ as an entry. We’ve been wonderfully busy with the house though and blogging is back on the list, so hopefully you’ll be hearing from us more frequently.

Now that the basement is freed up (i.e. we moved upstairs), we can start turning it into the recreation room. It has some great potential and it’s nice to be starting with a somewhat finished space.

About the basement: as far as rowhouse basements go, I think we hit the jackpot here. It’s ugly, but a good sized space and most of it has reasonable height (none of it is the standard 7’). As you can see in the pictures, there is an elevated wood floor on one half that pushes the headroom to a danger zone – about 6’2”. Not ideal. This side will be a lounge / TV / fish tank area, so it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. Dancing and grooving will be allowed despite the risk of head injury.

I’ll do a post about the fish tank when we put it up… I talk so much about those dogs that I failed to tell you all that keeping a big fish tank is by far my favorite hobby.

The wood floor is in terrible shape – TERRIBLE – we’re not refinishing it, but because of what’s under it, we can’t remove it [easily]. Some exploring exposed unevenness and surely other yet-to-be-discovered problems. The other half of the area is linoleum on concrete and this is about 6’6”. We’ve decided to just carpet the entire space to unify and warmify.

The side with the taller ceiling is where the kitchen was. You can see some kitchen leftovers in the pictures. Our plan is to reuse a few of the cabinets and put a wet bar in the same corner with a beverage center. We’re leaving the range gas hookup in case we (or a future owner) ever choose to turn the basement in to a full apartment. The pool table will also go in this space (Thanks, Rosa!).

There is some storage and utility stuff in a separated area. Our latest thought is that the washer and dryer should be moved up to the second floor and this will open up room to put a full bath to really have an actual suite. You hear that, Mothers-In-Law?

Excuse the mess:

Does this green remind anyone of Nickelodeon? It’s ridiculously bright. It looks much brighter in the pictures than in real life – that is a COMPLETE lie. This is just the beginning and I’m not at all worried that it will be terrible when we finish, but it is a bit crazy looking right now.

The built-in closet unit on the left side was “finished” wood, but it was way too dark and in poor shape.

Priming begins: