His name is Fender and...

he is 7.8 lbs. of fury.


Two weekends ago, on a drive back to DC through West Virginia we almost hit this dog. He came out of nowhere into the road. He had no collar, fleas, and looked like he'd been outside alone for a while. Fearing that the local Humane societies in those parts share billing with the local gun gun club we took him back to DC to find him a home. It's easy to get attached so it looks like we've got another dog...

Turkish on the other hand, well... Turkish abides.

Kitchen Door

One of the final [major] projects remaining is to move the kitchen door... ultimately it's moving about 11" to the left from it's original spot and it will be about 38" wide (originally 28"). The challenge is that it's in a bearing wall and the wooden sill atop the foundation it sits on turned to swiss cheese long ago.

Undeterred by limited time, Alli tore into the floor saturday night to get at the sill while i braced the bearing load at the second floor. We found similar rot and replaced studs with new bearing at every point.








we are perpetually changing the working drawings.



we keep finding a disturbing amout of "Indian Burial Grounds" under the main floor



the dog's cute but he can't swing a hammer so he's of no use.




Finished late sunday.

Elephant in the room

Finally took it to the Radiators this Saturday. The radiators in the dining area, and the future bathroom needed to come off the wall so that we could work behind them. These old cast iron things weigh about 300 lbs... and we have been avoiding this nasty work for months. Needed to drain the entire system first and then unfasten them with a big-ass pipe wrench. Thanks to my father for the help.



We needed an extra 2 1/2' of leverage on the end of the pipe wrench to get the old galvanized pipe fittings to turn.

bathroom framed

In a weekend Leo framed our new bathroom...


alli approves

fussy-ass drywalling

I totally credit [blame] alli with the idea of exposing the ceiling joists and drywalling in between.








Big thanks to Sean for lifting all the heavy boards and to Javier showing Sean where to put them.

The First coat of mud is on the walls now on the second layer of drywall. We've now have two layers of drywall with a Visco-elastic-sound Damping compound between them. a lot of work later - the place looks just like it did before we started.

... i heard they sold the house and gave up...

seriously the last two months have been distraction filled... I got slapped with a three and a half week jury summons and summer plans have us grinding to a halt. Work has carried on however with drywall and additional wiring. almost all of the original fabric wrapped wiring is out of the house now



and most every point of structural curiousity has been dealt with
new studs sistered to old 2-piece studs

and the stair header has been stiffened with new bearing