Victorian House Renovation in Bloomingdale, DC
Long time – no see! We are back from our round the world trip – actually have been for a few months now. I have missed this space, but…you know how it goes. We’ve been busy setting up house, writing about our adventures over on House to Laos – our travel blog, and I have been looking for a new job (found).
Last month we took some photos of the State of the VIB, which I am super excited to share with you.… Read the rest
I got back on Saturday evening from my trip, and we are fully back in the swing of things. We had our refinance consultation yesterday, and our contractors are coming back on Wednesday to tackle our to do list. My most pressing concern is what to do about front door (new? but expensive! old? but drafty! *yes it can be retrofitted, glazed and in general made as good as new, but neither one of us has the time, the skills, or more importantly the desire).… Read the rest
The floors are done! We got back into town Wednesday night after spending New Years with Sergey’s parents in Connecticut. Pleasant surprise – the smell was not bad, actually non-existent pretty much. And of course the floors look shiny and new.
We had sourced three bids to re-do the floors. We went with the least expensive option, which still amounted to just over $2K for the living room, dining room, hallways, stairs and a small bedroom upstairs.… Read the rest
Phew. We didn’t get it all done. but i am happy nonetheless with the progress that we have made in our 12 days of painting, which included hosting an end of the world party, and for which our halfway done staircase / hallway wall was the perfect backdrop )
Painting those walls really, really kind of sucked. Three coats! That’s because I did the second coat only in parts, which meant that it dried splatchey.… Read the rest
I love original decorative trim work and molding pieces – intricate moldings for windows and doors, tall baseboards with added bonus of toe kicks – the grand old stuff that just isn’t put into houses anymore, at least your typical contractor-grade flips. The VIB came with a good deal of its original decorative woodwork intact. One of my favorite elements in our home are the staircase panels. And then there are the door and window casing moldings from 1897.… Read the rest
We are inching along here. I had made a list of everything that needs to be caulked in the kitchen – its actually quite lengthy. I guess I would rather do that than have contractors do less or more. The other big items are baseboards and the last molding pieces to frame the door to the basement. Those should look much better with a coat or two of paint.
But the biggest item over the last week has been plaster.… Read the rest
It’s really starting to feel like we are pretty much done with the Big Project, aka phase II renovation. Because there are no more construction materials all over first floor. And no more fridge and electric plates in the dining room. AND! The built-in-shelf is done!
* Done is a relative term of course – the walls around it obviously need some work, and we still need to make a toe-kick, which must allow air flow as the A/C return valve is under the cabinets.… Read the rest
We have made quite a bit of progress on our built in shelving unit this weekend. The first word that comes to mind to describe is HUGE! I mean we knew the dimensions (obviously) before starting but to see it in person, is really awe inspiring. Anyway, back to the actual progress report.
We are following directions from This Old House on how to make built in shelves, and so far with very good results.… Read the rest