Pepco is here! Hooray electricity!

UPDATE---MOVING IN....

hey all...its been a hectic week as we prepare to MOVE IN this Monday [8/30/10]

the house is mostly done...touch ups still to come....the kitchen still needs some lovin....but Mr. Pepco is scheduled to come on 8/30 to give us juice, so we're coming in right behind him

stay tuned....

New/Old doorknobs...

this one was all Jenny....
after spending 10 weekends in a row stripping old doors of toxic lead paint, they were finally primed, painted and hung by the crew.  all we were missing was the hardware: knobs, locks, and strikeplates.  since the doors were old school [and were already cut for the old-style locks], we decided to go old school on the hardware too.  the original doors, had original handles, but most of it was too far gone to salvage.  and there wasnt enough of it that matched.

so then came Jenny to the rescue.

through the power of Ebay and her usual persistence, we obtained 5 sets of 100yr old door hardware [and some other odds and ends that people threw into the packages too.  anyone need a crystal door handle?]

the result: REALLY COOL doorknobs that give the new place some more of that old-time flava.

check em out

We didnt forget about the basement....

the basement is key...its going to be an income-generating rental unit.

so the idea is to make it [almost] as nice as the upstairs....
as spacious and open as possible  [check]
a nice kitchen [almost check]
a large bedroom [check] and
wood flooring [check]

we've devoted more resources recently to getting the upper levels ready, so the basement is moving along at a slightly slower pace, but not too far behind.  yesterday, they finished up the wood flooring...it looks great [even if its only a synthetic-factory-blend of wood like products]

looks pretty good to me!

New Front Door....

we finally have a new front door.  and its GLORIOUS  [pics here]

for the first time, i walked out of the house and used a regular old key to lock the door.   no padlock. no heavy chain.  pretty cool, I think.

and: you may notice the transom above the door that was written aboiut waaaay back when.  looks real nice in the sunlight.

the only kink in the plan is that we dont have any front steps yet, so I had to do a superfly snooka jump off the door threshold onto a not-so-stable plywood platform.

safe: no.  liberating: sorta.  exciting: definitely.


pics here

The Finishing Continues....

here are some photos of the trims, doors, moldings etc.  all the finishing work is coming along very well.  I'm a huge fan of the crown moldings against the brick.  looks sharp.

The [not so] Big Dig

so we've mentioned having a second entrance to the basement through the front of the house.  Waaaaay back in the day, the house actually had a front entrance, but it was closed in for some dumb reason.  so now we're going to bring it back to its past glory [and it gives us the most important piece for the income-generating rental that we have down there]

we've been waiting MONTHS to get started on this...mostly because we wanted to do it after the utility companies did their thing...but we could not wait any longer! [and yes, that means we still dont have gas or electric]

so we started digging.

a few jackhammers and truckloads of hauled-away dirt later...we have a nice sized hole that will eventually have steps and a door to the new apartment.  pretty cool.  see it here.