Before we purchased the house, I was pretty excited about renovation as a process. Disclaimer – Sergey was much more cautious about the whole thing. For one, he grew up with parents who are renovators. And two, he understands much better than i do, the value of relaxing.
This is my long winded introduction to Capitol Hill House and Garden Tour we took last weekend.
We were planning on some serious inspiration, after all renovations on the hill have been ongoing for at least six decades (the tour started in the 1950s), so there is a lot of examples there!
Well, I can’t say that we learned very much – but we did get reinforcement on a couple of things that have become pretty clear over the last year:
1) roof decks are awesome
2) nice backyards take a close second
3) old houses, moldings, doors, and wood work will never look new – so no point in going all crazy about it. Paint to conceal scratches and dents works best:
4) “of the moment” renovation may down the road look dated, so think carefully about when to go with trends
5) we like built-ins & crown moldings, even though those aren’t “of the period”
6) the VIB is pretty awesome – the lay out, the original details are some of the features that drew us in, and i must say there are a lot of houses out there that just don’t have what it takes. renovated or not.
But we did get one or two ideas – like this wet sink in a closet — potentially this could be on the other side of a half bath that we have downstairs.
or how about framing your permit to build and putting it in the foyer?
(i am reflected being busy taking a picture)
or how about painting ceiling tin tiles black?
