The Great Soap Dish Dilemma

I’m taking a break from expensive and time consuming projects, but there are smaller things I should be doing. My roommate has been away for 3 weeks and I promised her that stuff would happen while she was gone. I didn’t follow through. Some of this is dependent on the Irishman, who also promised to help me and didn’t follow through, but the bathroom’s lack of towel bars and other storage items is all on me. The toilet paper sits on the radiator, which doesn’t bother me. Towels hang on the side of this temporary storage cart, which I’m also fine with except that guests never find them.

It’s in the bathtub thatthings get ugly. All I have is a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo (usually large and inexpensive), and a scrub brush. My roommate has 2 additional bottles. And then I use a clean wash cloth every time I shower and with no place to hang them I let them sit in a nasty pile until laundry day.

My roommate said she’d like to see all of that stuff go away. Her tone was gentle but that didn’t imply that I was welcome to slack off. But I did, mainly because my search left me disappointed. I want fixtures that are as plain and sleek as possible in shiny chrome at the dry end of the tub away from the shower head. And there’s a slim chance that I’d want storage for just a wee bit more in case someone more high maintenance ever lives here.

Chris suggested a magnetic soap dish like he used in his house, and this idea sounded fantastic. But there’s a problem. There’s a very limited selection of these, and the most sensible ones have a very traditional look that’s wrong for my bathroom. Everything else is either very high end and imported from Europe or looks as cheap as it is. But I could get one from Zack Scala with a look I liked – for about 50 bucks.

That’s not super cheap but I figured it would be okay and I should get it. But then I was thinking of the other stuff I want that would be on the same wall. It’s one thing to cheat and use cheaper fixtures across the room, but here wouldn’t it look stupid? But getting them to match would cost like $300! And even after spending all that money will it look any good?

And I went back to the alternative, finding a different manufacturer whose product is close enough. But they’re all chrome when this soap dish is polished stainless steel. Polished stainless steel that looks like chrome is apparently not a thing in the US.

I thought when I was planning this project out that marble shelves would stick out like a sore thumb and thought I should get glass. But then I wondered about safety if I broke it. So I considered getting wire shelves. No need for a soap dish that way. But I couldn’t find anything I liked and decided that the risk of breaking a glass shelf (that I like) is pretty small anyway, right? But that takes me back to where I have to order expensive things online and decide if I’m going to hold my nose and spend hundreds of dollars or try to mix different styles of fixtures that I’m buying sight unseen.

So then I decided to ignore the house and wash up to do something fun. And I threw another washcloth on the pile.

Facade Plans Post 2 – A Cornice Vocabulary Primer

The first day of façade work is gonna be fun. I’ll triumphantly rip down the awnings, the capping around the windows, and the siding over the cornice. This will wait until after there is no danger of frost, probably next spring. All façade work including the brick and windows will then need to be done by fall so that the house is waterproof without the awnings.

But let’s start at the top. The cornice is aesthetically important since it’s really the only decoration a flat-roofed rowhouse has, but it also has a function, partially protecting the façade from rain. At first I regretted having a wooden one, thinking the stamped metal ones would be easier to restore. Now I’ve thought better of it and feel much less intimidated by what I have under the ugly.

But today let’s take a very geeky look at how it’s put together.e. Though it has a distinctly Victorian look, my cornice has essentially the same parts as Classical architecture. And so I want to name them properly.

The drip edge is part of the roof. This is the roof’s highest point – there are no gutters and the downspout is on the back. I think the original would have been galvanized tin but now I have a modern aluminum one. I’ll probably dent it and call the roofer back to replace it. And today’s off-the-shelf aluminum drip edges are deeper than the traditional ones, so I’ll have to decide if I want a custom one, if I want to cheat the crown down, or if I’ll just let it partially obscure the crown and ignore it.

Then comes the crown. This part is where I most often see rot on other houses, so there’s a good chance I’ll be replacing it. Luckily it’s a standard molding.

Below the crown is the fascia, just a flat upright board. Behind the fascia is the soffit, a flat horizontal piece of wood. You can see that the fascia makes a drip edge, so I’m hoping most of the cornice is protected.

Below the soffit is the bed course, which is much bigger on my cornice than in Classical architecture, but it’s still the same thing. It’s mainly a big flat board with reeding cut into it, and I think I can count on that being in good shape. There are also 5 decorative brackets, 4 rosettes, and half round molding near the top and bottom. These fancy bits are often missing or damaged.

Below that is the frieze, which is technically not part of the cornice anymore. (Architecturally correct language would call all of it together an entablature – but I’ll avoid pretention and stick with cornice.) It’s also reeded and has 4 more rosettes that are smaller than the ones in the bed course. And below that is the foot molding, which is small enough that it might also be wrecked. Below all that there are 2 courses of brick set to look like dentils. I suppose we could call this the architrave.

So when it comes time to restore this, my fingers are crossed that the larger flat boards are all intact. I can use some Bondo if I need to. I’ll have new crown and foot moldings made out of good wood if I need to. Luckily I only need about 14 feet of each. This much of the job has to be done in Phase 2. The brackets and rosettes, not so much. If they’re in bad shape and I max out my budget again, they may have to stay down a while.

 

Planning the Facade Post 1 – Existing Conditions

I wouldn’t call my endeavors to get rid of junk and catch up with routine cleaning blog worthy, at least not yet. So now seems like a good time to get back to what I really like writing about – obsessively scrutinizing old details and making fairly technical restoration plans. So to start, here’s the most important job I’ll do in Phase 2, restoring the façade.

The house. Facade restoration to come.

The good news is I have all the original window and door openings, the marble steps, and the cornice. None of these things are in good condition but they’re all there. Stripping these houses of their character was a thing, especially in the 70’s it seems.

Here’s a good view of all the abuse these houses get. From right to left, vertical siding on a cornice, removing lintels and sills, patching with non-matching brick, punching through holes for air conditioners, replacing facades entirely with ugly brick, and leaving the original facade in place but covering it over with new brick, formstone, stucco, or siding.

 

And so I snapped up something with enough left that it can be great someday. So let’s look at some of the details. At the top I have  a pretty wooden cornice.

You don’t believe me? Under that siding I’m expecting to find this.

Of course I have no idea what condition it’s in. I’m hoping that most of it is restorable. What can’t be restored can be remade, some of it in stages.

Then there are the awnings. Some people told me that they’re charming, but I hate them. They cover half my windows, block my view of the sky, leave me with a dull yellowish light. Plus they are showing their age and they obscure the charming little scallops on the marble lintels. This is one of the only architectural frills the place has. (Also note the shiny lunch truck-style capping on this house.)

So why are the awnings still up 3 years later? Look down by my front door. There’s a fair bit of water damage and they’re chalking away. I don’t care about restoring the damage, but I need to seal this area with something appropriate to stop it from getting worse.

Things aren’t rosy for the rest of the brick either. It’s been painted red, the marble is painted white, and although the original mortar joints were red, they painted white lines onto the bricks! Usually over the mortar joints but not always.

Then there are the windows. I have some of the cheapest vinyl windows you can buy here, and they’re 15 years old – near the end of their lives – and so poorly installed I had to seal the top sashes shut with caulk. I bent out the aluminum capping in 2013 to see what’s behind it.

I peeked behind the capping to see what’s there, and 3 years later it’s still bent out like this. But I don’t care. Aluminum capping is so vile I don’t think this makes it any worse. I have the original trim around the windows, but under the white aluminum capping the sills are capped with lunch truck style chrome plated capping.

The basement windows are also poorly installed and missing their original security bars. (These are next door.)

The front door is relatively new. I wish it were old. It’s in a style that comes pretty close to Victorian but misses the mark slightly. But it’s solid mahogany so I don’t plan on replacing it. The glass, however, is not authentic and I’d like to replace it with something plainer before refinishing the door. And the latch that was on the door wore out. This interior door knob gets the job done but it’s not long for this world.

Next up, we’ll get into the nitty gritty with historic masonry.

A DIY Urn Fountain Tutorial

We’re going back to a time before blogging and progress photos were a thing. Mother’s Day 2011 that is. The photos are from last year’s redo but they get the point across.

My mom had always wanted a small fountain or pond and after considering a few different spots, we decided that a kind of boring slope right next to the patio would be the place to put it. But ponds are too much work and the fountains were far too ornate. I went on the hunt for something massive and multi-tiered with a statue of a naked baby pissing up into the air. Then a neighbor built her own using a nice urn and a hidden underground basin. Yes this is a real person’s garden.

The great thing about these is you can make them as rustic or as formal as you want. We decided to build the slope up to grade with the patio with a semicircular retaining wall and put the basin in the middle of that new flat area.

To start we needed the wall. I looked at decorative concrete block systems but they’re expensive and not that attractive. In fact, the tops of them don’t look any different than regular old cinder block, and for us, the top would be the only part that showed. I decided to cover it up with one layer of stone, but the stone options at the Home Depot SUCKED. Instead I went to the Media Quarry and got mica schist (or Wissahickon schist) dry stack for only 20 bucks!  So definitely source your stone locally. We also wired up an outlet here.

So here’s how it goes together. Dig a hole about 6 inches too deep. I used crushed stone “paver base” underneath the basin. Remember to get 3 times as much as you think you need. It’s way better to return the extra than to run out.

For the basin, a regular pond liner did the job for about 15 dollars. And to size the pump, I bought one that was rated to carry water about twice as high as the urn we got. Pumps will be labeled with a maximum flow rate with minimal change in elevation and a maximum elevation at which you’ll only get a trickle. So go in between. A couple of cinder blocks will hold the urn.

The urn needs to be shaped so that water will trickle down the sides and not splash out of the basin. We got this one at City Planter in the Northern Liberties and they were nice enough to drill the bottom for the fountain. I plugged the old hole and shoved the rubber hose from the pump through the new one. Then we used whatever was available to shim it level. Slate seemed like a good idea but my dad used wood and it was fine.

Then, my mom wanted it to gurgle on the surface a little bit, but the stem the fountain came with doesn’t connect with the rubber hose. So I dumped some pea gravel in and just shoved the stem in. This sounds half-assed but it worked. It’s not watertight but what leaks out stays in the urn anyway.

I backfilled around the basin with more stone and arranged more schist (and an antique frog) it.

And then regular pond pebbles from the home depot finished it off. Happy Mother’s Day Mom! I made you a giant fermata! (And of course I underestimated the work, so on Mother’s Day this was still just a muddy hole.)

And here it is with plants. (Seeing them in a photo is a reminder that they’re never really done)

The Dreaded Post-Construction Clutter

Amid all the odds and ends and this goal to not work too hard on the house, I’ve been chipping away at the dreaded clutter. And there were some pleasant surprises. First, I had some old kitchen cabinets in the basement but decided they won’t be reusable after all. I was ready to drive them out to my parents’ place in the Land of Good Public Services. But luckily for me, the Irishman was cleaning out his basement, too. And he rented a very large dump truck and loaded it up. And now my stuff is gone, baby, gone! This also marks the first time, I believe, that there is absolutely no scrap wood or scaffolding anywhere in the back yard. I still do have a big pile of Belgian blocks in the alley but they can stay.

Then there were lots of boxes to go through. But it turns out most of those were half empty. And half of what was in them was construction detritus. I found broken trim pieces from the old recessed lights, small strips of bathroom floor tile that were cut off, and of course lots of dirt. I also finally found the roller ball catch for the linen closet door! I was not willing to buy this again since I knew it was down there, so now I’m finally free to make all the interior doors operable

(If you forgot, I put a dummy knob on this door because it’s too thin for a mortise lock. At one time it had a latch more like a cabinet door.)

And this is now all that’s left in my big dumping ground under the kitchen. Trust me, it’s progress.

 

And the same thing happened in my bedroom and the bookshelves in the living room. I’ve passed Peak Box and shedding cardboard fast.

But there is a downside to all this. The bookshelves are much tidier, yes. But what’s left on them is morphing into the physical manifestation of a to-do list. There are hinges for the doors that aren’t hung, missing pieces to the kitchen drawers, rolls of non-slip shelf paper, laminate adhesive… but I’m loving being able to put these jobs off.

Of all the random junk sitting out, I started with instant gratification. I owe Mary Elizabeth a big thank you for mailing me curtains for the only room that’s ready for them, the one that I don’t use.

And I’ve finally hung up the bathroom mirror. This was probably the most pathetic thing to hold off on, but apparently I found it less aggravating to sit on the floor to shave than to put 2 screws in the wall. It’s kinda junky thermofoil over particle board and didn’t hold up very well to being stored in the basement through demolition but I’m thinking of painting it a fun color to spruce it up until the Phase 2 bathroom work happens. Whadaya think? Maybe not worth the trouble since it’s going in 2 years.

And I hung up “Ne buvez jamais d’eau,” which was easily the best piece of artwork in my grandmother’s house. I thought it was too small for this wall but it’s actually fine. You can kinda see the scale in the photo above.

Planting Drifts

It’s pretty weird to write about this at all – since it has nothing to do with me at all. But it was kind of a fun project. The deal is, my parents have always liked bulbs but haven’t gotten around to planting them. Which is a shame because they have a zoysia lawn that’s brown for half the spring. When she did get bulbs, my mom got something like 25. That sounds like a lot but it was only enough to do one little clump. I’ve always wanted to plant a lot of them, and last fall we did.

My friend Eric works in horticulture and hooked us up with colorblends.com, a wholesaler that was cheaper than expected. And so we got 400 tulips!

It started with debating the catalog. My mom said that I should pick because I know more than she does about plants. I said only she could pick because it’s not my job to pick colors for her. There was some back and forth about this and finally I gave up and asked, “How about this one?”

She said, “No, I don’t like that one.”

“This one is kind of nice”

“No, I don’t want any red.”

“How about this one?”

“No.”

I love being right. So finally, I decided that we’d plant the bulbs in drifts in the large area out by the street. We should use solid colors in the drifts and stick with the types that are supposed to come back a few times. Usually tulips don’t.

 

So here’s how we laid out the drifts. We had 100 of each color, so I figured that would make 6 drifts with 50 bulbs each. We laid them out with rope and then tossed the bulbs in at the recommended spacing, alternating the colors. It turned out that they didn’t all fit so we ended up making 9 drifts.

Believe it or not, it took us only about 2 ½ hours to plant all 300. Eric said to get up all the little skins or the squirrels will have at them.

And here’s how it looked!

And the best thing about this is – look carefully – there’s deer fencing around them! My dad tried spraying when they first started eating them, and it kept them away until the flowers opened, and then the deer left the sprayed parts alone but ate the flowers off. My mom told my dad that he would be putting the fencing up every night and taking it down every morning. He counter offered to do that only on the one day when she leaves early for work and let her do it the other 6. But instead they decided it was well enough to just leave it up.

Then up by the front door they put in a blend of tulips. This mix was called Chiquita Bordeaux, which has to be one of the best plant names there ever was.

Note: Colorblends did not comp me for writing this. But if they would like to do so retroactively I wouldn’t say no.

This concludes Phase 1

And I didn’t even notice!

Which is funny because I’ve been fixated on the end for a solid 3 years now. And it was 3 years of scope bloat. At first it was the things I needed to make the place safe, like this chimney. (This is behind my bookcases in April 2014)

To the “while we’re at it” jobs that couldn’t feasibly happen later, like moving the bathroom.

To the surprise problems I couldn’t fix later, like the water behind this stucco. It was at least not getting behind the asphalt.

The messy things I wanted over with, like the patio door.

And the things that seemed unnecessary until I was living without them, like kitchen storage. (The oak chopping block on top of this cabinet has been deferred beyond Phase 1.)

Even with the washer and dryer it didn’t really feel finished. So how do I know it’s over? Because I went away for the weekend and my social calendar filled up every evening but one this week. Normally, there’d be something I wanted to do to the house and knowing that I was even slower would make me grumpy.

As far as actual work goes, it’s been only little things. My bedroom door has been down for a while. I was going to paint the jamb and install vintage hardware and all that. You know door hardware is my favorite. But after that got held up I just hung it back up again as it was and felt great about it. The only real house progress was the furniture and pretty things on this wall. Well, that and polishing silver.

That dresser was in my grandmother’s childhood home and the mirror was in her living room. The mirror always looked really, really formal in her house and I thought it would be too much for me, but I love it. And I got the bust because I used to be afraid of one just like it at my friend’s house when I was little. The Irishman’s kids haven’t seen it yet.

And otherwise, I’m working on putting life before the house. On Tuesday I threw together a small dinner – this kind of thing is why I have a house at all instead of a studio apartment.

And I’m starting to get used to regular cleaning. Not shoveling up debris, the normal people kind. And I went to a neighborhood tree planting today after 3 years of no volunteer work.

So while I’m not doing house work, I have some other stuff that I’m looking forward to writing about. I think it’s time to put together a proper little tour of my little house. Then there’s the house hunt, stuff about the neighborhood and city, past and current projects for my family (because you know I owe my parents forever and ever), and other fun stuff.  There are little projects to do during the “break” and loads of clutter – moving my grandmother and dealing with her stuff is unfinished business. There’s so much more of it after my sister and I got what we wanted. And it’s never too early to plan out Phase 2. I’ve had ideas in my head and can’t wait to write them down. Stay tuned!

Queen For A Day

This reminded my mom of that terrible old show where women would tell their tale of woe and the one with the saddest story would win stuff. Can you guess why? It’s not because my life is impressively sad.

No, it has something to do with my washer and dryer. And the big priority was getting something that fits. Remember how narrow my stairwell is? (It’s not this dirty anymore.)

The only place to go for this is a Mom and Pop South Philly appliance store. Somewhere under that siding is a Victorian building, but we’ll rant about that kind of thing later.

Usually in my family buying appliances is complicated, but not here. They told me that I can get the fancy Speed Queen top load washer with the digital controls or the plain one with a knob that was $100 cheaper. And my mom said that’s what they gave to the women on the show.

They also told me that the the breakdown guy was going on vacation and so I got them delivered the very next day! Eep, so weird to go fast! And what do I mean by the breakdown guy? The one who does this.

I guess that very expensive paneled wall was worth it now.

And then was what may have been a reality TV level tale of woe. The new plumber had some staffing issues and backed out of coming a couple times this week. So when he finally showed up yesterday it was super exciting. I may be done with Phase 1 contractors now!

And you remember what my basement used to look like? Here, I’ll remind you.

After the stuff went away only the dirt remained. I used 15 gallons of water. First tried scrubbing normally but it wasn’t working. The procedure that did work was pour water out from the bucket, scrub, vacuum up, repeat. Most of it needed to be done 3 times. Behind the boiler was worse. The floor at the bottom right in this photo used to be black and now it’s clean enough that you can see where the paint is peeling! Yay!

And this little halfassed shelf I built above the shut off valves – I’m getting too happy over little things. And using the gas line as a clothes bar is totally fine, right?

So there we are! The house is 100% functional! My roommate had to use a laundromat once (and got a discount on the rent accordingly) and then was so out of her clothes I did her laundry – 3 loads between the 2 of us. But this too was exciting.

And then some more odds and ends – I had 4 mystery bins in the basement. Going through them made the house messy all over again. I took a lot of random crap and then when my grandmother went to assisted living I got better crap. This one was the most ridiculous – mostly scrap metal. But I found corner braces and 12 pair of scissors, pulled out the flatware to sell, and put out the rest for scrap. My roommate donated some furniture to Habitat and I sent some more stuff off with them.

And I finally unpacked the china! Because every civilized home needs a celery and salt dish set. I’ll eventually paint this cabinet blue and stand plates up in the back.

And the roomie and I came out of Aldi with a 2 foot long receipt. And with this I think it’s a fully functional house!

 

 

April Fools! And yay for organized storage!

First of all, that last post was totally fake. Maybe my April Fools jokes are too subtle, but if you may notice that I did many, many things that were not cost effective to try to preserve or recreate my house’s character, and the facade is the very last thing I would want to modernize. If the original one fell off I’m not sure what I’d do but short of that it stays, period. And although I’m not wholly against panel siding, it’s gotten to be an unimaginative cookie cutter look. According to the architecture column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, it is “now the default on developer-built apartment buildings. That isn’t architecture; it’s a colorful form of weatherproofing.” (Incidentally, she said that here, rightly skewering a bland replacement for an art deco landmark.)

Back to the real world, my plywood drawer fronts are coming along! I told you about a lot of what got the place ready for a roommate but left out the most important part: the first 7 kitchen drawers. I’m putting as many drawers as possible in my base cabinets and it’s amazing. To make them fit, I went to IKEA and measured out the real ones. Then I had to drill out the backs to make them look like store bought fronts. And I made a lot of mistakes, most of which don’t show.

Before everything was either inaccessible or sitting out in clay pots. They were kinda charming and definitely the best I could do at the time.

And now I have this!

So the flat plywood fronts are working out better than I thought they would. I screwed up drilling holes into a few of them so I have a little patching and repainting to do but for now it’s much, much improved. And I love the way things fit now. So much.

Like these drawer dividers. They look like filing cabinets, but in a good way. And they really help things fit together.

And this drawer that is JUST the right size!

 

And this empty strip of countertop! The 4 drawers next to the dishwasher just went in today. They weren’t as important as the first 7 until the first 7 went in and I really wanted to finish the job.

Plus getting the upper cabinets cleared out and organized. It looks like I have room for china now! (I also got the exhaust fan vent hooked up, finally.)

Seriously, it’s so great.

And I’ve started to sorta arrange the crystal in the display cabinet! Ignore the pile of candles.

I kinda wanted to bring over china right away, but it was clearly smarter to hold off on that. I want to add little bits of trim to the shelves in that cabinet above so I can stand up plates in the back. And then I think I’ll paint it the same blue as my fronts and maybe get brave and make homemade glass doors. Am I up to the task?

And what do we say about the brass knobs? I’ll need to buy 4-6 more to finish off the lower cabinets.

 

Going Modern on the Front

I was supposed to take a break before Phase 2, but these awnings and the dingy yellow glow they cast on the inside of my house are driving me crazy. So down they’re gonna come and I wanted to talk about the new plan.

You see, the façade is original to the house. Which is cool and all, but the flaky paint is nasty and in a few spots the brick is water damaged and rotting away. All of this is a mess and though I always planned to restore it, I’m coming to terms with the fact that that won’t be cost effective.

 

And since I always wanted to mix traditional and modern styles until I filled the house with antiques, I’ve decided to be bold and daring on front and re-clad the house with a rain screen and panel siding. Kinda like this handsome rehab a few blocks to the west.

Except I’m really not a minimalist at heart, so I’ll probably want to add a splash of color to my mostly-red street like this Mondrian inspired panel siding, and/or texture with some corrugated metal accents.

And the front windows are total garbage, so they’re coming out too. The old plan was wood 2-over-2 windows like I have on the back of the house, but now I’ll make it a bit sleeker and just put large 1-light casements in. Kinda like this house where I grew up, also a really great look.

And the best part is that now I can just get clean fiberglass windows and it’ll all be totally affordable. I’m very excited. Onward and upward folks! Feel free to weigh in on accent colors. I’ve seen good use of red, orange, lime green, and teal. Whatever I pick, I’ll temper it with plenty of grey. And the mahogany door is gonna stay. It doesn’t really go with the new look but hey, I’m cheap.