David and I bought an old wood dresser off of craigslist. It has curved front drawers giving it a vintage look. The dresser also came with a mirror. We put the dresser to use as a buffet in our dining room to store extra dishes and kitchen items.
Craigslist dresser.
I didn't mind the color of the wood, but it didn't match with the other furniture in the dinning room. We have a very dark wood dining table and secretary desk and a white fire place.
Dining room furniture.
David wanted to paint the dresser so that it would blend better, but we weren't sure what color. He decided to paint the drawers white and stain the top a dark color to tie it in with the rest of the furniture.
We had this project on our list for a long time, and we decided to tackle it right before it got too cold outside to work on it. We wanted to work outside because we were using paint stripper which has a strong odor.
Preparing the furniture.
First we brushed paint stripper on the dresser and all of the drawers. After giving the paint stripper time to do its work, we used a putty knife to peel off the shellac. This process took a long time because we had to strip it down completely to the wood. After we got a lot of layers off, the next step was to use sandpaper to get all of stickiness off. David decided it was best to do this by hand rather than with an electric sander so that we could get into all of the grooves. At this point it was dark outside, so we had to put the project on hold for another day.
Giving the paint stripper time to work.
Paint stripper on the drawers.
The paint stripper and the sandpaper did not get all of the sheen off so we had to resort to using steel wool to get the final layers off. Finally after a lot of hardwork we had stripped everything off.
Using steel wool to remove the rest of the shellac.
Drawers almost ready for paint.
David painted the side of the dresser and the drawers. He used a cloth and rubbed stain on the top. It took a lot of coats of stain to get it to the right color.
Painting the drawers.
Staining the top.
This project like most, ended up taking much longer than anticipated. I probably put 4 hours of work into it and David put in around 10 hours. But we ended up with vintage dresser with a modern touch that looks a lot more expensive than it was.
It has been a (little over a) year since I began my blog! Although I haven’t
updated as much as I wanted to because well, life happens; I am happy that I’ve
stuck with it this long. David bought the house almost four years ago and has
been working on it ever since, so there are still many projects that I
need to catch up on and blog about. I am glad that I will be able to look back
on this blog and remember all of the changes that we made to the house. It's very easy to forget,
but I have the documentation and can see the transformation.
On another note, I was happy to see that Redfin named
Hampden as one of the 2016 hottest neighborhoods in the U.S. It really is a wonderful town to live
in with lots of charm, great places within walking distance and a nice community feel.
I can see Hampden changing and growing before my eyes, so I hope it doesn’t
get too congested like other neighborhoods in Bmore, but I think we will be here for a while. Which means I'll have plenty of material for my Historic Hampden Rowhouse blog.
Thanks for letting us share our home renovation journey with you!
Christmas is a magical time with all of the decorations, lights and cheer. Hampden goes all out with the 34th street lights. I love seeing the neighborhood lit up and all of the merriness.
Although our home is not quite on that level, I do what I can to make it festive. I was lucky enough to get some hand-me-down decorations from family members and added some of my own.
Here are some pics of our house all decked out.
Stockings on the staircase for David, myself and the pup.
Nutcracker and little beefeaters.
Fireplace decorated.
I was really excited to hang Christmas lights outside this year for the first time because David installed an electrical outlet outside and now we have a place to plug them in. Unfortunately, I made a rookie mistake and strung the lights before checking if they worked. Of course, when I plugged the lights in they didn't work, so I tried checking each bulb and replaced the broken ones. The lights still weren't working, so I just left them. A few days later about 30% of the lights magically turned on. I couldn't get the rest working though, so I am not sure what the trick is. I ended up adding another strand of lights so we didn't have random sections lit up.
Finicky Christmas Lights
Our main decoration is the tree...
I have a lot of ornaments; like too many to put on my small tree. My mom usually gave me several each Christmas and so I have amassed many over the years. I like to collect ornaments that represent important moments/things in my life. My favorite thing about decorating is pulling out each ornament and all of the memories that are connected to it. I have ornaments from the places I traveled, ones given to me by grandparents, ones to remember pets and ones of books/TV shows/hobbies that I was into. Decorating the tree takes me a while, but as I hang each ornament I like to reflect on what each ones means to me.
I have many, many Santas from different cultures.
Ornaments to remember our engagement and wedding.
Irish Blessing, Scottish Santas, and a Crab.
One of David's three ornaments (the soccer ball), my Bella angel and Raven's pride.
Ornaments from my childhood.
Ornament from my mama.
And lastly, Stevie getting into the Christmas Spirit.
Sad reindeer.
Decorating our house brings warmth to our home and gets me excited for the season. Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope your holidays are filled with joy!
My garden did not flourish as much I had hoped, but it did yield some food. I was able to harvest about 4 zucchinis, 15 peppers, 12 tomatoes, lettuce and some herbs.
Garden starting out in May.
At first my zucchini was very plentiful but the plants ended up getting blossom-end rot early on and died off.
Zucchini growing.
Before the zucchini died, I was at least able to make some tasty zucchini muffins.
Food made with zucchini.
I also made some salads with ingredients entirely from the garden!
Green pepper turns red if you leave it long enough!
The lettuce started to die off in July, perhaps from the humid, hot weather. It also didn't help that I was barely home that month.
Plants looking a little worse for wear.
My pepper plant was the most plentiful. It only recently started dying in the cold weather.
Pretty peppers.
Since I had so many peppers, I wanted to make stuffed peppers, but they were so small that I made more of a stuffed pepper casserole.
Not much room for stuffing.
Stuffed pepper casserole.
I put a lot of labor into my garden, so being able to enjoy some meals with fresh grown ingredients is a nice reward! I have more plans for next year and hopefully can use what I learned this year and be more successful.
In a middle rowhouse, we don't get very much natural light and so it can be a little depressing, but a skylight is a great way to get around this.
David really wanted to add a skylight, but he knew that this project was a little over his head. Lucky for us, David's brother-in-law, Geo has his own roofing business (ERG Roofing) and so he graciously volunteered his time and installed the skylight for us.
Before.
The location for the skylight was a tricky one at the top of our stairs. The boys probably should have used scaffolding, but instead they leaned a ladder on the stairs which is a little dangerous.
Making the first cut.
David's brother-in-law cut a hole in the drywall on the inside first through the attic. Then he used a level inside the hole and made a small cut in each corner so that he could match it up on the outside. Outside on the roof, he connected dots and made the cut. There were several layers of roof to cut through. There was an original metal roof that was completely rotted. There were also layers of shingles, rubber and tar.
Cut on the outside.
We found out that we have one of those old-school satellites on top of our roof. I have no idea how we will ever get rid of this, but perhaps we can use it to communicate with the aliens.
Seriously, how did this even get up here?
David scored and found a brand new skylight on craigslist at a discount. Geo built a wood box frame for the skylight and then placed the window on top and screwed it into the wood frame.
Checking to see if the frame is the correct size.
The frame was placed over the hole in the roof.
Attaching the frame to the roof.
Geo used a blow torch to melt rubber and covered the wood frame. He added two layers to prevent leaks. David said that this will outlast our current roof.
Finsihed skylight on the outside.
Geo installed drywall to the studs on the inside of the hole to finish the project.
Light shining in.
Check out this video of some of the work which shows the old roofs and cool blow torch shots.
The skylight definitely brightens up our house! Geo did a great job with this project so if you ever need some roof repair let me know and I can refer you to him!
After a long hiatus on housework, due to health issues and traveling, David finally finished our steps.
As I mentioned in another post, a few tiles starting fall off of our steps. David, had always wanted to change the steps later down the road, but the fact that he was going have to repair the tiles gave him the motivation to just redo the steps now.
Tiles falling off.
Having a Handyman Hubby is both a blessing and a drawback. Don't get me wrong, David is talented and has done many great things, but it also means he's more risky and open to fixing things up that don't necessarily need to be fixed. Before I knew it, we were ripping off the tile as well as brick and some concrete slabs from our steps. I ended up breaking my toe in an unfortunate accident and so David finished the demolition, but we took a break from the project. We were left with some old, un-level concrete steps for the time being.
Cement steps underneath.
The demolition was very strange. Behind the brick we saw a hug pregnant spider and then a small snake. I guess David was ripping up their home.
Snake living behind the stairs.
Pulling off the brick and cement
While I was healing, David and I debated on what to do to the steps. I liked the idea of having brick and slate steps. David wanted to make just basic concrete steps. Since David was doing the work, he won. In the demolition process, David had torn two of the slabs off of the top of the steps and left one behind. To make the steps uniform, David created a wood mold for a 2 inch wide slab and used heavy duty cement to create two slabs. Since I had a broken toe, I told David that I would not be helping him finish the steps. He planned to have his brother come over on 4th of July weekend to help him install the slabs. Then we had another setback in the project because David went to the hospital for three weeks. And after that ordeal, we went on vacation, delaying the project even more.
Making the slabs.
The steps we were left with for several months.
So our steps were in a state of disorder for much longer than planned. Altogether, this project spanned about three months. I'm sure our neighbors were wondering why we ripped out seemingly decent steps only to have ugly, mis-matched concrete steps. Finally, one weekend in September we were both able to finish the steps together. David spread a layer of mortar on top of the step and we placed the heavy concrete slabs on top. No toes were injured this time, success!
Slabs added on top of the stairs.
As with any house project, there were of course a few issues. David had measured incorrectly for the top step, so he had to fill in a 2 inch gap with concrete. After letting the slabs dry for a day, David painted the steps with Portland cement so that they would look uniform.
Adding went cement to fill the gap.
The steps only cost $50...and one broken toe. But finally being able to check this project off the list after all of the unexpected issues was priceless. It meant that David was finally completely recovered and we could get back to doing unnecessary and sometimes necessary projects to our house. God is good.
