Thursday, February 23, 2012
I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it feels to type the words "Vestibule Project Status: Complete." This statement has been quite a long time coming! As many of you know, the reconfiguration of the smallest room in our house was a labor intensive effort that stretched on from October 2010 to February 2012. A truly ridiculous timeline for a room that is roughly 3' x 3', but we got 'er done.
For those of you new to our site, and for the readers who have blocked this long and drawn out project from their memory, to quickly recap: when our first dog Oliver was diagnosed with cancer in April 2010, we knew the time left with him was limited and precious. And since he was a first-floor only pup (his short legs made navigating our stairs a difficult venture), we wanted to stop our upstairs projects to be closer to him. (More on that here.) After six months of a total renovation freeze, we got a little of our DIY mojo back and started working on our vestibule. Here's our little buddy, checking on the early progress of the project.
The overall goal of the project was rather simple...restoration. At one point in our home's history, an owner decided to reconfigure the vestibule so that the main front door was flush with the front of the house.
What this left us with was an awkward entry and front door configuration that was barely functional. When the front door swung in, anyone trying to enter our home was left with a tight squeeze as the door didn't fully open beyond the second door opening. It was a nightmare.
Alex and I knew from the beginning that at some point we wanted to restore original function and move the front door back to its original location, inside the vestibule, and add French doors to the front of our home. From our basic inspection work we were able to determine this was surely the configuration when our house was built around or just after 1885.
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Do you have a block or collection of homes in your neighborhood that catches your eye almost every time you walk or drive by? Perhaps even an enclave in another city that you go out of your way to pass simply because you like the houses so much? Admittedly, there are many blocks in and around Old Town that hold this distinction for Wendy and me, but one block in particular stands out as an unexpected collection of beautifully maintained and interesting historic homes. As luck would have it, one of the homes among this quaint row was recently put on the market and was held open this past weekend -- and there was no way we were going to miss our chance to see inside.
The particular block I'm talking about isn't among the grand homes of the southeast quadrant of Old Town, but rather in the 200 North block of Columbus St. Nestled between Washington St. and Alfred St. sits Columbus, where modest yet elegant homes were built due to their proximity to the access points of Alexandria. Along the 200 North block of Columbus, in the shadow of Christ Church (once known as "The church in the woods" because of it's distance from the town's center in the 18th century), a collection of six homes was built around 1870 in a late Federal to early Victorian style (correct me if I'm wrong on this assessment). Each is similar to its neighbor, yet distinct in its architectural characteristics to differentiate it from the others. Most likely built by a real estate speculator, homes such as these constructed during the post Civil War reconstruction era of the United States are indicative of and represent the nation's struggle to emerge from war to pursue a brighter and more promising future.
The specific home we were able to visit is stunning (in our book at least) from the outside.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
I'm going to change it up a little bit for today's Toolbox Tuesday. Thus far in our (somewhat) weekly series we've been talking about tools that we own that have worked out particularly well for us. While this has hopefully been a good approach for those of you trying to build a good tool collection, or perhaps it has helped you to find that perfect gift for the hard to shop for person, it only covers a small aspect of "owned" tools, leaving out the wide array of "coveted" tools I hope to some day own. I think today is an important day to show you that I don't have every tool I need, and that there is still plenty of room in my workbench. We'll start this little exercise in power tool desire with the replacement of an existing tool, my cordless drill.
One of the best gifts we received at Christmas just before we moved into our house was a Dewalt 14 volt cordless drill. Little did I know when opening that box what an incredibly useful and dependable tool had been gifted to me. This drill has almost been my right hand on some aspect of nearly every project we've undertaken since buying the house. Looking back through our photos you can see it as early as building our basement shelves (during my fatter days)...
...to the more recent projects, like our vestibule (uh-oh, I can see a gray hair in that photo).
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Monday, February 20, 2012
Ahhh. Is there anything better than having a Monday off? Alex and I are basking in the glow of our three day weekend and are finishing up a few odds and ends around our home. Hint. One major New Year's Resolution is being checked off as we speak. Any guesses?
On this holiday, we'd like to take a moment to honor our country's Commanders-in-Chief, and at 1:00 will be attending the annual Alexandria Presidents' Day Parade. We'll be sharing photos of the event as well as other local sites that catch our eye. We hope you'll come along for the ride!
Live Tweets:
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Friday, February 17, 2012
I don't know about you, but I've been absolutely swamped at my day job lately. We're talking once every El Niño or even once in the cycle of the cicadas type of swamped. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this, because I'm one of the lucky ones who sort of loves their job, but I am incredibly busy nonetheless. But as much as I love my job, I really can't wait to get back to working on projects that I can share with you and show you real, tangible, and actual progress on things.
Speaking of our blog, Wendy and I would love it and would be hugely appreciative if you would vote for us as part of Washington City Paper's "Best of DC" Best Local Blog/Blogger. You don't need to be a local to vote, you just need an email address (and I haven't even gotten spam from them). All you need to do is to click on the "Vote Old Town Home" link here or in the banner below. A huge thank you for your consideration on this.
Okay, back to our weekend plans. Lucky for me, we have a long weekend coming up due to the President's Day holiday. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that our country is the only one that celebrates this holiday. I may be spending much of the weekend on my day job project, but at least I can do it all from home and I still expect to get caught back up on some of our house projects. Can you say "storm windows?" I can...finally!
But one other reason we're lucky this weekend is because we live in George Washington's home town, and nowhere in the rest of the United States can you find a larger parade celebrating the birthday of George Washington (and Honest Abe) than in Old Town Alexandria. I cannot tell a lie, I look forward to this parade every year.
I mean, where else can you see Colonial soldiers, actual military, Kena Shriners driving their little cars, Stormtroopers from the fighting 501st...
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