Victorian House Renovation in Bloomingdale, DC
the dryer is here. delivered by home depot, actually ahead of schedule for once.
its the same brand as the washer, but that’s about where the similarities end on the two models. the washer is prior year’s model, so can’t actually get the same dryer. i can’t say i am overly enthused by the combo look, but at this point i just don’t care enough to spend any more time on this.… Read the rest
We have new neighbors — the house next door was sold on Monday, and the new owners already moved in. Congratulations!
image via here
Backyard parties in the summer!
Buying a house – new or old – is sort of like having a baby, you have the urge to document all the firsts. Like first thanksgiving turkey. on march 11, we will have been here a year – it will be our second spring. wow.
here’s our first christmas tree:
and our first special ornament – 2010 holly snowflake – a housewarming gift from a jane.… Read the rest
The good news is that the peel away did an excellent job:
so much so that layer of paint just came off with the wax paper. awesome, since it takes only 2 minutes. but, since i ran out of peel away i decided to give a try to another product that i got for free from craigslist (someone was done renovating)
Ready Strip! The goo that came out of the bucket looks straight out of goosebumps novels
I decided to do just one plank in case it didn’t work that well.… Read the rest
Last weekend, Drew and Eric had stopped by the house to pick up some wood for a wine rack (how is that going?) and sergey was quick to put them to work.
Notwithstanding the lack of experience, the three of them figured out how to hang the door, sand the hinges, etc.
While the door is finally up, there were a few other steps remaining (is it ever really over?).… Read the rest
These, and many other Russian and American delicacies were enjoyed by friends and family for Thanksgiving at the VIB. It was our first time hosting a big holiday meal at our house, which I bet has seen more than one festive occasion. Cheers to all and happy holidays.
tasty and delicious cabbage pies (Taken with instagram)
first a rant – i am loosing patience with tumblr, its slow, its down half the time, and the queue feature simply cannot handle more than one timed request. it simply publishes al your posts. we were on vacation for a week, but no one would have noticed if tumblr didn’t screw up. ugh. any expert out there on how to switch content to blogspot or wordpress?
now.
for all my huffing and puffing about wanting my estimate now, we decided to put the fireplace off.… Read the rest
Ok so the perfect patio door that would allow lots of light through was stripped, painted, and re-painted. and then it was time to weatherize.
an important step to block rain and wind from coming inside. so sergey got some clear silicone gel for me, loaded it up into one of those gun squirty things, and told me to go for it:
basically its fairly easy – press on then gun, squeeze out the silicone, smooth it out, wipe off excess with paper towels.… Read the rest
And yet, much remains to be done. like the molding (thankfully we got some very similar molding at the brass knob warehouse). but for now, here’s what happened after peel away layer 1, 2, and 3 failed to take out the gazillion or so layers of paint covering the transom. I gave up on perfection and decided to sand the transom, rosettes and the top portion of molding.
I did use my sander, although I did resort to sanding sponges to do crevices.… Read the rest
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