Memorial Day Adventures

Since we had an extra day off this weekend, we got a truck from Philly Car Share, and headed down to Baltimore to an architectural salvage store. With 5 warehouses of stuff we came back with a 15 panel door, a claw foot tub, slab of marble and few other small items for the house. The salvage place was well worth the drive. We are making progress, and you can see Bryan working on getting the tub all clean! The tub also has really ornate feet, which was one of my criteria. They are different on the front and the back so that the tub drains properly they are shorter in the front. You can also see Bryan's golf clubs sitting longingly in the living room. He has made it a few times to the driving range, but mine are still in the basement. Maybe next weekend.....

Household Finds

So we are now officially on our contractors schedule for June 8th which leaves us 2 more weeks for little projects and gathering new things for the house. Since we haven't had much true progress, the top picture shows our new china cabinet, which I was not really looking for, but was being sold at a price I couldn't pass up from a dealer willing to deliver! Now we just have to make it through construction without breaking the 3 panes of curved glass......The bottom picture shows another piece that we bought at an architectural salvage store here in Philly and is a brass shower head, which Marco seems to be quite interested in lately. We hope to use this in our new bathroom. We are off this weekend to another architectural salvage place this time in Baltimore. It has 5 warehouses of glorious items (which I am sure Bryan will love as much as I do) we hope to find a claw foot tub, and pedestal sink for the bathroom.

Opening Day

For the last 18 months or so I have been working on a project in Reading PA that is a new Pediatrics Unit for the hospital. I started this project with early client meetings and followed it through to the end with construction administration, so this is my first true project of my own. There was a party at the hospital to open the unit on Wednesday, and the unit officially opens to patients on Friday. These aren't the super fancy professional photos, but I will post those eventually, these do give a sense to the space. So far it has been well received by the staff, and the one child to visit for our photo shoot really enjoyed the playroom and seemed to think the red crush acrylic had goldfish in it! The top picture is the nurses station with the playroom in the back, and the lower photo shows one of 2 color schemes for the foot wall of the room and the white piece on the wall holds the 32" plasma TV that is connected to the playstation 3 with Blue Ray in each room. Quite nice amenities for sure.....

GO FLYERS!!!!!

It's Bryan....

I know that Pittsburgh is closer to Indy than Philly....I get that. But just this one time, say LET'S GO FLYERS!!!!

Thanks. They/I need it I think.
Bryan

Bing the Electrician

Even though he doesn't have his hard hat on, Bing decided today was his day to be a helper for some electric work! Bryan has been working on removing ALL the knob and tube wiring throughout the house. It is hard to tell from the picture, but Bing is on the 3rd floor looking through a hole in the floor to the hallway on the second! We are trying to do a few more things around the house before our contractor starts. The tentative schedule is for the contractor to start the week of May 19th, but we have to find a claw foot tub before he starts so it might move a little bit. So check back for updates!

Star date 2008-05-03 - Bryan's log

This one will be short as we're about to head out for dinner in the burbs. We have OFFICIALLY finished the demo portion of our mission, as there is a mountain of debris in the living room as the final proof. We're getting it picked up tomorrow by "The Hunk of Junk" (yeah...we hope they are really hunky too, I guess) and then our contractor will be starting in a couple of weeks...finally. I've included a picture of our trash mountain (it is hard to tell that it 4' high) as well as a shot of the cleaned up third floor.

Now it's hard to see the space as it was before: two bedrooms, a hallway, a framed in closet, and a plastered drop ceiling throughout. I mean seriously...anyone who complains to me about demolishing a room with drywall needs to whine elsewhere. We've lived the plaster and lath nightmare for too long.

On the bright side, I am now a master at the reciprocating saw, and will be showing it off when I use it to carve our turkey this Thanksgiving. Just email me for details. It'll be a show!!!!