Front Door

Replacing our front door and improving the front steps have always been on our to do list.  The lack of a railing at the top of the steps was an obvious concern from day one and after witnessing our metal door ice over on the inside during severe cold spells we knew we had to have it replaced sooner than later.  

The Before Shot

We have always liked the brick steps, but the wall built up along the side was always a bother and we decided to take it down as part of this project.  A sledge hammer made quick and fun work of it and luckily for us it proved to be a clean removal.

Already a nice improvement

We tackled the door replacement over a weekend.  Removing the old door and glass block was not as clean and easy as the wall along the steps but in the end it cleared up pretty well.

No more door..yikes!

We removed everything down to the original door jamb and header.
The original door was huge!

For the replacement door we used an antique door  we got from a friend (Thanks Samir!).  Even after having a custom jamb fabricated ahead of time we did not finish installing the door and closing up the rest of the opening until close to 10:00PM.

New front door in place, waiting for the glass transom

 With the new door in place we tackled the railing next.  One of the nice things about not having a railing was moving larger items in and out of the house was made easy.  As such, we wanted to make sure the railing we put in could be removed when needed.  We ultimately decided on building 2 posts from 2x4s and plywood and using steel angles with metal conduit pickets to compose the rest of the railing.  We chose an aqua color as an accent to match the color of the tiles identifying our address.

Finished Shot of Railing

The final steps were to paint the new door trim, install the glass transom and repair some of the miscellaneous brick and tile work that was damaged during the project.

The After Shot... yay!

Tin Ceiling Completion

After months and months of scraping and stripping the original paint, planning and laying out our design, installing the furring strips, cutting the tiles to size, applying the fresh coat of paint and finally installing the tiles, at long last the tin ceiling is finished!  This project has been by far our most ambitious, labor intensive and time consuming project to date but we are thrilled with the results.  The ceiling does not look perfect by any means due to the reclaimed nature of the tiles, but we think all of the imperfections add to the already distinctive character of the house.  Needless to say we are excited to move onto other fun and exciting projects!

The Filler Pieces Went up First

Nailing up the Final Piece!!!

We Love how the Copper Color Looks with The Barn Doors

Close Up View of the Lights with the More Intricate Tiles

The Copper Paint Shimmers in the Morning Light

Panaramic View From the Floor

Ceiling Progress, New Kitchen Lighting

When we originally had the idea of installing a tin ceiling I think we both have to admit we had no idea how much work it would take.  So much time has gone into stripping and cleaning off the old paint and rust to get them ready for paint that motivation to keep going has been hard to come by.  As I write this we are about half way through scraping and cleaning all of the tiles we need, but on a more exciting note we have installed our first tiles!  The good news is that for how hard it has been to get the tiles ready to install it has been just as easy to install them.  Big thanks to Joe and Kate Horan for lending us their nail gun and thanks to Brian Navitsky for the install help.  

Furring Strips in Place

The Tiles and Light are in!

Woot!

In other news, we just recently stumbled across some light pendants in a local shop which specializes in the resale of salvaged building and art materials that were too perfect for us to pass up.  Not only were they affordable, but they just happened to be the perfect shade of yellow and they had the exact quantity we needed for our kitchen!  

View from the Bathroom Door

View from high Up

2nd Floor Ceiling

When we moved in the 2nd floor ceiling was a mess.  There was thin set on the entire ceiling, some of which was flaking off in sections, and it looked as though the previous owners had planned on tiling the ceiling like they had done in the kitchen area. There was no way we were going to finish what they started so our first thought was to scrape off the thin set and see if we could patch it up, smooth it out and give it a more finished look. It turned out that despite our best efforts there were some large areas which refused to come off without damaging the drywall so we gave up on the idea and went back to the drawing board.

Scraping... Not Fun

Ceiling Post Scraping.  Yikes

It took almost a year, but eventually we came up with the idea to use tin ceiling tiles.  Our thought was a tin ceiling would cover up the ugly mess of a ceiling and fit right in with the rest of the funky tile we have in the space.  After scouring the internet and local salvage shops we were able to score a lot of tile from Craigslist and also removed some tiles from a local business that was undergoing some demolition. (Thank you to Michael's Decorators for letting us take them!)

Once we had enough tile we had a lot of work to do before we could put them up because just about all of them were rusted in areas and had a lot of peeling paint.

The ceiling tiles were painted an awful bright
white color and were all peeling and flaking

One of the more decorative tiles from
Michael's Decorators

We employed an arsenal of paint stripping tools to get rid of all the peeling paint

After experimenting with a number of techniques to remove the old paint we conceded we were never going to be able to git rid of it all and compromised by only removing the areas of paint which were contaminated and flaking off. After removing as much paint as we could our plan was to paint them a copper color and sponge on some green paint over top of it to give the tiles an aged copper patina look.

In addition to the tin, we were also trying to come up with a lighting solution that would replace the bare light sockets we have now and look great with our vision for the ceiling.  We really liked the look of Schoolhouse style pendants but they can be very expensive.  We didn't let that deter us though and after some research we found some DIY blogs for how to fashion your own out of a cheap shade, some electrical conduit, a lamp base, pendant light kit, and spray paint.

Fresh coat of paint

DIY SchoolHouse Earth Fixtures

Tin Ceiling Mockup... More to Come!

We are still working on scraping and painting the tiles..... Stay tuned for the finished look!

Radio Cabinet Restore

 Jen's parents owned an antique Philco radio cabinet that had not worked for quite some time and were generous enough to let us take it home and see if we could breathe some new life into it.  When we got it home we could not resist plugging it in to see what would happen and as soon as we did the radio protested by showering us both with sparks.  Needless to say we unplugged it right away and agreed all of the original electronics needed to be replaced.

Before Shot -
The Original Radio Electronics

Before Shot - Doesn't Look Too Bad, But
Definitely in Need of a Refresh

The condition of the original finish was not too shabby outside of some fading and bare spots where the finish had flaked off.  After experimenting with paint stripper and sand paper we found the sand paper worked the best and we decided to try to keep the portions of the original finish that were still in good shape, mainly the slats on the front that conceal the speaker.   After the sanding was complete we wiped the cabinet down and applied a fresh coat of pure linseed oil (yet another thank you to harold and Viena Harr) which gave the cabinet a very nice cherry color.

Post-Finish Application, Pre-Radio Install

Out With the Old...

With the new finish completed the last step was to install a new set of speakers and radio.  After some research we elected to go with a touch screen car stereo to give the cabinet a sleeker look. Car stereos are made to run off of car batteries and use direct current.  To make the stereo work with a wall outlet we had to re-purpose a power adapter from an old game console which ran off the same type of power.  The switch shown below the radio in the picture is what powers on and off the adapter.

After Shot.  We Love the Look of it in Front of the Pallet Wood

Finished Drywall, New Tile, and a New Wood Stove

Our drywall had been hung and left unfinished on the wall for several months because having to move all the furniture, plastic off the area and spackle, tape and sand is dreadful work.  Consequently, we ended up paying someome to come in and finish off the drywall for us.  We are very glad we did too because we have done drywall work before and we created a lot more dust and came away with a much less quality finished look than what we got this time around.

Hanging Plastic.  Sealing gaps around
the duct and sprinkler pipes made things a little
more difficult.  

More Plastic

Taped, Spackled, Sanded and Primed. 

 

Guest Bedroom Side of the Wall

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With the drywall finished and the sliding doors hung we had a finishing touch to make on the bathroom side of the wall.  Since the entire bathroom is tiled we had no choice but to install new tile in the unfinished extent of the wall above the new door.  We used 4x4 while tile to match the existing wall tile but also included some fancier more interesting looking tile we found at a local architectural salvage shop.

The Before 

...And After

Tile Close up (Before Install)

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Even though we really loved the look of our retro style wood stove it just wasn't putting off enough heat to make it worth keeping.   After some more browsing on Craigslist we found a much more substantial and heavy unit which has made a huge difference.  It has a flat top which we have taken advantage of to steam some water and add some moisture to the air.  

Much better!

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Our next big project is to install salvaged tin ceiling tiles on the 2nd floor.  We got the idea from a cafe close by and love the look.  We are currently collecting tiles from various places.... stay tuned!

Teaser shot.... from One Shot Cafe in Northern Liberties

Barn Doors

We both wanted to do something fun and different for the doorways into the bathroom and spare bedroom on the 2nd floor and liked the idea of using barn style sliding doors.  Barn doors are very trendy nowadays and the hardware can cost hundreds of dollars, but after some research online we found a number of tutorials for how to make your own hardware from steel bars, angles and sliding door wheels so we decided to take the DIY route.

First we made the hardware.  Cutting, drilling, and bending the different steel pieces was difficult at times but for the most part everything came together pretty well.    

Fabricating the Hardware

Finished Hardware.  These attach
directly to the door

The doors themselves were much easier to put together.  We made each door out of a combination of 4" wide and 8" wide lengths of pine boards.  The individual boards are screwed together and the screws are covered with wood dowels  Each door is 8'-4" high.

Ready for Stain

Both Doors Installed

View from the Kitchen

Hardware Closeup

Hardware Closeup

Door Close Up