Victorian House Renovation in Bloomingdale, DC
There is something about fireplaces and old, turn-of-the-century homes.
Today, the chimney people came out to give us an estimate – we are looking at the same price tag as the A/C for two separate chimnys- hmmmm.
If we go through with rather expensive chimney work- we can apparently have either wood or gas. So we are thinking wood in dining room (chimney #1) and gas in the bedroom (chimney #2) – cause its so nice to wake up and turn on the warmth of fire!… Read the rest
remember our to do chalk board?
well, to have even more incentive to be productive, I am starting a monthly chalk board series – to chronicle our to do lists (at the beginning of the month) and our achievement/ failures (at the end of the month). This one is a bit backwards, because I don’t have a picture from beginning of the month. But this is what we’ve done over September:
I know some items are cryptic and some may be hard to read.… Read the rest
who’s there?
its me, a FIREPLACE!
On Sunday morning, we were having breakfast with a friend, who suggested that we investigate what we have behind the plaster of what appeared to be a fireplace. So we did. After layers of plaster, we found some bricks:
After just a few minutes of scraping out mortar and hammering at the brick, sergey was able to push half out to reveal that behind was indeed a fireplace!… Read the rest
or a giant leap forward.
I generally stay in bounds of house blogging here, but neighborhood is important. (if you aren’t from DC, below probably will have no meaning for you, so come back monday for house updates!)
today, a whole two events of note occur. (whether these will be baby steps or giant leap forward is hard to predict, but some forward movement/progress is happening).
1) Bloomingdale, and actually the entire ward 5, became a proud host to a bar/tavern.… Read the rest
We got a rose! two!
granted the blooms were there when we bought the plants, but you know what, its an achievement!
In other good news: we had three contractors over at the VIB, and all of them told us that what we thought may be a serious structural issue — a crack separating trim and floor in the kitchen — is nothing more than poorly adjusted joist chip.… Read the rest
i am still having a hard time laughing about this. but those we told generally find it hilarious. so here you go.… Read the rest
and pink and yellow
Yay, so excited we planted roses!
To celebrate getting rid of the giant eyesore tree and (hopefully) the banishment of vines, we planted climbing roses by the back fence.
It took a bit of time, as ground was pretty hard and filled with glass (we must have taken out two trash buckets full of glass from there). We also got to use the compost that i was diligently harvesting all summer.… Read the rest
I am beginning to feel like the tree cutting is just a perpetual part of life. (and I can’t imagine how Sergey feels since he is the one who is doing the actual cutting).
Here are some pictures accumulated over the summer:
1) Front tree box — if you remember, I tried to plant some flowers here, but unfortunately not much came up besides grass (see first picture) and what did come up was taken down by the friendly city people in charge of the tree boxes.… Read the rest
paint has an amazing power — one in that it transforms the look of whatever it is you are painting, and two that it can take hours for your to chose the perfect shade. so after considerable time invested into researching whites for trim and doors in the house I settled to Benjamin Moore’s Minced Onion. I wanted a more creamy white that is similar to the ones you would see in old apartments and homes.… Read the rest
I finally have one of my own! So very exciting — cause Sergey’s got lots and lots of tools and until recently I had none. I have been eying sanders ever since we did the kitchen cabinets and finally ordered one from amazon a couple of weeks ago.
well, let me just say, sanding with an electric palm sander is a whole lot easier than doing it manually.… Read the rest