Nothing is ever quick

We were all geared up to get the bedroom painted when we discovered the ceiling needed some plaster attention. It's been about a month of prep on the bedroom with scraping and sanding and plastering. why o why?

This house is 2 doors down from us and has been covered with various plants and weeds since the day we first saw it 9 months ago. In the past week a couple of landscapers have cleared the yard, mowed the lawn, trimmed the ivy off the fence, and have now started to clear off the house. I did some research on the property a couple months ago and found out that it was sold at auction last year to a woman who owns a publishing company in New Jersey. If I remember correctly, it was built for a well know African American physcian and later became the only school in the state of Virginia for deaf African American children. The school closed in the 70's and I think has been vacant for at least 20 years. The house is massive and seems to go on and on and on. It sure is exciting to finally get a peek at the structure.


see how far back it goes? This picture was taken back in February.

A Kitchen Floor

This is what our kitchen looks like at the moment. It's basically empty. We still have some work to do in here before we're cooking up a storm. Roy should be putting the floor down as I type, so hopefully I'll have updated pictures soon.

Sit TOTO Sit

Here's a closer look at our new toilet. It's the Aquia Dual-Flush Toilet from TOTO.

Dual-flush toilets offer two flush options: a standard flush for solid wastes and a lower-volume flush for liquid wastes and paper. The Aquia toilet, uses 1.6 gallons at the full flush and 0.9 gallons at the low flush. The company estimates that a typical family of four will save approximately 7,000 gallons of water per year with this toilet, compared with a standard 1.6 gallon-per-flush toilet.

Come on in!

A new blog

Our good friends recently bought a townhouse in Southwest DC by modernist architect Charles Goodman. The home is in need of some love and renovation so they've started a blog so everyone could see their progress. Check out their blog http://www.shaffthaus.blogspot.com/

It's almost a bathroom

We're still waiting for our tub to get fixed and a seat for our toilet.

Our bathroom is really coming along!

We're very excited about the progress in the bathroom

Another Successful trip to Caravati's

We found these marble slabs at Caravati's to go in the front vestibule. We're very excited about our find. These slabs were cheaper than other tile we were looking at and we're recycling. What could be better?

The hole is patched

The hold up is all fixed. Hopefully this will get things moving along.

Front Door

We're almost done fixing up these babies

We've painted the back door

Dipped Front Doors

First Coat of Finish Upstairs

Here's the hold up...



















Stairs need coat #1

Still Sanding...

The floors in the living and dinning rooms are finished and they look amazing. Here is a picture of the living room before and this is after...

Blue Bathroom

We've painted the bathroom!