Victorian House Renovation in Bloomingdale, DC
Think we will get to 100 days of construction? That’s very plausible. Anyway, we are moving right along, and its almost as exciting as the very beginning of this whole thing (we are just more tired, so emotions are dulled). But seriously, this thing is coming together and we likey!
I know, this looks like a mess – and no the counter is not staying on top the island. But to me, its a beautiful mess.… Read the rest
We are making progress on the west side of the kitchen, which will house our fridge ensconced in a frame with a cabinet on top – for uniform height purposes, custom built open shelves above a base cabinet, a custom built bench sitting area for the island, and finally a pantry unit – produced by IKEA, assembled by yours truly (with some help). Somewhat like so, although the fridge and shelf cabinet have since switched places, since we were able to move a duct that was taking up space in that back corner.… Read the rest
So apparently my choice of colors for the house is a) monochromatic and b) goes in phases. I am in what Sergey calls a “black phase” which follows a “white phase.”
When the kitchen renovation started, Sergey was shocked and appalled at the idea of everything being white: cabinets? white, tin ceiling? – white!, what even the floor?? – yep, white (though featuring black rosettes and black grout.) Oh and yea about the exposed brick…also white.… Read the rest
This past weekend was all about house time for us, in large part because we have plans for every single weekend in October save for one. Life – it gets in a way of house stuff (or is it the other way around?) The big accomplishment was leveling out and putting the finishing touches on our reclaimed wood island counter.
Over the two prior weekends we had selected, prepped and put together the reclaimed wood for our island counter top.… Read the rest
And we are back to our normal pace. There’s lots of small (time consuming) things which are getting done around here. As you might have noticed we aren’t really putting time estimates on this thing anymore – it gets done when it gets done. the more important part – it looks good. Anywho – we officially have a kitchen counter:
There are two light boxes by the walls which are masking a little problem that we have — the brick surface is uneven, which means that there is a larg-ish crack between the wall and the counter.… Read the rest
In between our awesome trips, hanging out and hosting- through the entire renovation process, really – friends and family, we continue working on our end of the renovation process. This entails mainly thankless tasks that are hard to get wrong – demolishing, stripping old paint, priming and painting, and of course endless of hours of research of how tos (plaster) and best products ( kitchen hardware has been the bane of my existence).… Read the rest
Oh we have come so far! Look – we have a toilet paper holder!
But more importantly, we have finally added storage.
We had to get custom cut glass because the wall niche isn’t standard. but who cares?! we have storage. we can finally “move in” to our bathroom.I have had these knitted baskets with all of our bathroom crap sitting and waiting, waiting and sitting for probably a month now.… Read the rest
I was very happy with Thursday/ Friday progress.
Exhibit A: Plaster walls. Its actually hard to see the difference in pictures, but the base coat went on Thursday and top coat was all done on Friday. There is a big difference to the touch though – base coat is kind of grayish and is pretty rough and almost sticky —
The top coat is white and smooth.
Overall I am very happy with the job they did skimming the plaster and so happy that we decided to stick with the original decision to go with plaster on all walls which are redone (the rest of the house mostly has plaster walls save for a few places that will be redone eventually).… Read the rest
Sergey and I took a week long vacation – wednesday to wednesday – but the work continued while we were gone. I thought it worked out pretty well actually – anytime there was a question the contractors would text with a quick picture and we would follow up when we had time. We were still a bit nervous coming home, but this made us happy:
A couple of notes here: the dishwasher still needs a front panel – it will match the rest of the cabinets.… Read the rest
Awhile back – actually way before any concrete plans for this renovation materialized – I came across these pictures of penny-tile floors and thought – that might be cool thing to do at some point somewhere in the house. Sergey was totally on board. In fact, I think he actually sent me a picture of the penny time floor for inspiration. It’s not that often that we agree on a particular project or look from the very beginning so this idea was definitely filed in the “for sure, maybe” file.… Read the rest