An almost-brand-new Arts and Crafts house!

What an experience this has been.  Lots of tired bones and sleepless nights, that's for sure...  but the results are wonderful.  I am happy to report that someone who appreciates my little townhouse as much as I do has purchased it and is taking good care of it.

Nevertheless, it's been hard to say good-bye, especially to the neighbors next door who had much patience with the noise and dust that we created during construction and who made my work days there quite pleasant.  I'm already missing chatting on the porch and petting their dog.  I'll be checking in with them from time to time to see the progress on their house.

The "after" tour - the basement

What a difference experience it is to go down to the basement:

A light, a handrail & multiple hooks mean safety and function

Freshly painted walls and floor

New steps, new furnace & ducts, new water heater...

Nice and bright combination powder room and

and laundry room.

Yet to be tackled:

That old coal cellar :-(

The "After" Tour - 2nd floor

What a difference experience it is now when you reach the second floor:

A glass transom lets light into the stairway

from the operable skylight in the hall bathroom.

Hall Bathroom

Corner toilet & compact sink provide lots of room     

Nice, large subway tiles and a brand new tub

Front Bedroom

Great window bay now totally visible

Real closets provide lots of storage space

Rear Bedroom

A south facing window lets plenty of light in

A dressing area connects to the second bathroom

Second Bathroom

  

Marble tiles and a great tub seat

A little wall for a little privacy

The "After" tour - the first floor

Over the last 6 months, family, friends and neighbors have had to put up with all my talking and rehashing about renovations ideas, decisions, results, issues...  The least I could do was to invite them over to see the results.  Having a little "after" tour seemed like the answer.  Plus, setting a date for it  gave me a good deadline to get things done.  And here's what they saw on Sunday:

The Living Room

Refinished and refreshed

Better connected to the dining room and, as a result, brighter

With some original features still in place

The Dining Room

Love that beamed ceiling!

The Kitchen

Now filled with light.

Hard to believe that it's the same place.

Decking and fencing

Making the most of the small backyard was definitely a priority.  For starters, we needed a place to have that morning coffee.  Nothing big.  Just a place for two chairs and a small table.  A 6'x6' deck with Trex decking was the perfect solution to replace the tiny rotted stoop  while a treated wood fence and privacy screen took the place of a falling-apart stockade fence (Darn, I should have taken "before" backyard photos!).

Landscaping still to come

There's nothing that I hate more than old gray treated wood.  So, I just had to stain the deck and  fence.  It turned out lighter than I had hoped but it does give it a classier look than plain old treated wood and it will make it last longer.  So it's OK...

Back at the alley, we put two 4' tall and 5' wide gates.  Enclosing the backyard in this way provides a sense of privacy yet maintains visibility (which means more security).  Plus,  whoever buys the house can use the stone parking area as a patio when not parking their car back there.

Recently planted grass seed is now sprouting - in spite of the birds' best effort at eating it before it does.  So, hopefully, soon, all that dirt will be nice and green.

A more welcoming porch

Pittsburgh porches are great.  They welcome you to one's home, protect you from the rain and snow, and allow you to sit and talk with your neighbors and friends.  The old peeling paint certainly wasn't very inviting and the missing porch elements had taken away some of the house's character.  So, it was time to bring it back to life!

First, Joe removed the aluminum coil cover from the tapered porch posts(with the neighbor's OK, of course) and restored the missing pieces. 

Then Steve's guys painted them in authentic Arts and Crafts colors.  And, before we knew it, someone had moved in!

Joe also cut down (again with the OK from the neighbors on the left) the jerry-rigged, too-tall, OSB partition (see the dark shadow from it on the brick), installed beaded paneling over it, and capped it with a proper trim.  All was covered with two coats of semi-transparent stain in a light color:

The neighbors on the left were happy:  they got more light

The neighbor on the right, let us use the same beaded paneling material on her own privacy screen, so we now have a much better view on both sides.

The floor was next.  First a good scrubbing.  Then a coat of Hammered Silver porch paint.

Voila!  A new porch!  Now we need some porch furniture and some guests...

And, to make sure that those guests find the house, those original ceramic house numbers are now set into a brand new Azek plaque:

and what was once a gas light is now rewired, repainted and lighting the way to that great Copper Red front door:

Varnishing headaches (really)

I thought I was helping things along by turning on the air conditioner while finishing the woodwork.  Maybe for the woodwork but not for my head....

To get the various coats of stain and varnish to dry faster and pick up less fuzzies in the process,  I turned the newly installed Air Conditioner on.  It worked well and made it quite comfortable to work during the mid-July heat wave.  However, that also meant no fresh air and hours surrounded by fumes....  and, what fumes hangovers I had, waking up with quite the headaches after each day of staining or vanishing.  Fortunately, the results were great - for the wood that is.  See for yourself:

The first thing you see: definitely Arts & Crafts; not Victorian

 (coming soon:  entry door photo)

Starting up the steps:  Oak box newel w/recessed flat panels

To accommodate the winder treads:  the tallest intermediate newel ever!

At the 2nd floor landing: a simpler oak newel

A bit of sewer line excitement

Since we bought this house, I have been impressed with how dry the basement was (in fact, I've been bragging about it).  So dry it was that I had done 3 things that some folks questioned:
- I had the home-made plywood hatch door over the basement steps removed and added a floor drain at the bottom of the steps (to catch what rain might come down them),
- let the neighbor hook up his downspout to ours (which ran into our basement as it appeared to have been originally but had been separated before I bought the house),  and
 -replaced the ratty old basement wood door with a brand new custom-sized one.

Given that in Pittsburgh, this has been the year of the Spring monsoon and the torrential rains, I expected some water to come in the basement.  But, I didn't expect it to come bubbling UP out of the new basement entry drain!  The plumber assured me that it was one of two things:  either there was a clog in the sewer line or combining two downspouts was too much water for the lines to handle.

My worst fears kept running through my head:  there's a break in the sewer line out in the street and it's going to cost $10,000 to repair!!!  So, we paid to run a camera through and "fortunately" found a huge clog halfway through the basement.  The plumbers broke up the floor, replaced the clogged portion of pipe and found the rest to be clear to the street.  What a mess  but what a relief!  (though, i'm still waiting for the plumber's bill for this extra...)

Unfortunately, the next torrential rain came along, and more water came up out of the drain at the bottom of the basement steps and into the basement.  So, now the neighbor is going to disconnect his downspout and we'll wait for the next big rain.  Let's keep our finger crossed...  if that doesn't do the trick, we'll have to put our thinking caps on and come up with a solution  (stay tuned)...

Improving the back yard

How I wish that I had taken "before" pictures of the back yard.  What a mess it was.  A little but majorly rotted rear stoop.  A "fence" along the alley made of stacked concrete blocks.  A mish-mash of planters and broken sidewalks.  All covered by 6' weeds and young volunteer trees.

With the help of Shannon (the next-door neighbor) and Rocky (and his Hauling Services), the backyard became a blank slate for Joe and Ron to do their thing: a small but nice Trex deck, steps; and a neatly edged gravel parking pad and stepping stones, respectively.  Gates along the alley will soon be built for what will end up being a perfectly private and very manageable backyard.

Let the floors shine!

Under the smelly shag carpeting and disintegrated carpet padding, we knew there was a wood floor with layers of old linoleum - some times covering the entire room, other times in the center as a "carpet" with the edges faux painted to look like oak.  But how pleasantly surprised we were to discover that the original flooring was nice old pine with very tight grain and joints and no knots.  So nice that the plumber suggested that we even leave them exposed in the 2nd bathroom, which we did.

First on the agenda for the floor refinishers was removing what seemed like thousands of staples and filling in the abandoned electrical outlet holes.  Then the sanding began:

first in the dining room

and, then up the stairs

Once it was all sanded down, the first coat of varnish was applied, bringing out the color of the wood.  Here's how it looked as the living room floor dried:

And, then when it was all done!  Tah, dah:

the living room:  great first impression!

the dining room with kitchen beyond

the front bedroom (see the shadow of the linoleum "carpet"?)

the rear bedroom with 2nd bathroom beyond

Arts & Crafts exterior colors = New life

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet but a house with the appropriate colors for its architectural style surely looks much sweeter.  While these townhouses were most likely painted in dark and drab colors to accommodate Pittsburgh's early 20th century polluted air, their Arts and Crafts style was screaming for something more fitting.  Sherwin Williams Exterior Historic Palette did the trick, specially on the doors and windows where Roycroft Copper Red contrasted nicely with the surrounding Birdseye Maple details and Roycroft Vellum trim:

(more to come)