718 I St- Almost Done

We're in the final week of our rehab at 718 I St. NE. The house looks beautiful, and I can't wait to see the finished project. It looks like we're going to have to put this house on the market during the slowest time of the year (between Thanksgiving and New Year's). We were hoping to finish slightly sooner, but I think this house will sell quickly regardless of the time of year because it's such a unique project. It has several features that are rare for the area (off-street parking, a separate rental unit, end-of-group, two high-end kitchens, orginal historic details, etc...).

Here's the entryway. All of the trim and paint is done, and the lights are all up. All that's left to do here is to finish sanding and staining the floor.

Here's the main stairway. We need to make the wood pieces that go on top of the posts. I had originally planned on staining the top of the handrail, but after 100 years, it had too much wear to just stain. We ended up painting it black, and I think it came out really slick.

Here's the basement rental unit. We bought the matching crown moulding over the weekend and it will go in tomorrow. We also have all of the cabinet hardware, which needs to be installed.

Here's the front of the house after we painted the steps. All that's left to do here is landscaping. We bought some awesome brass hardware for the front door, which also needs to go in. I like to do that last so it doesn't get damaged when contractors are coming in and out of the property.

Here's the garage structure we built in the back yard. We also repoured all of the concrete, built a new deck, and added a new fence.



Here's the main kitchen upstairs. This picture doesn't really give you an idea how great the granite looks with the floor tile and the kitchen cabinets. I'll upload a better picture this week after the place is cleaned up.





The next set of pictures for this property should be the finished and cleaned product. We're excited to get this on the market and move on to another one.

2214 Randolph- Progress

Things are cruising along nicely at our project at 2214 Randolph St. The majority of the framing is finished, the roof is done and the HVAC rough-ins are in. The plumber and electrician are at the house this week, and the following week we'll insulate and get the drywall up.

We raised the roof in the rear in order to make space for a master bedroom in the loft area upstairs. It came out really great, and the ceiling height is well over 9 ft. We were able to make space for another full bathroom upstairs. The other window and white siding is going in this week.

You can see the new roof framing by comparing it to the house next door. This weekend, the crew was there putting all the trash in a dumpster and building a huge rear deck. We're then going to make the old kitchen door (on the right side) a window to accomidate the extra kitchen cabinets, and make the dining room window (on the left) into a french door to access the deck.

The old roof was torn off and a new one installed. We replaced all of the gutters and downspouts, as well. The main roof is finished but the porch roof still needs to be done this week.

Here's the new steps to access the loft bedroom upstairs. It's in the location of the old bathroom.



This is how we decided to pull down the old iron steps. We used a Sawzall to slice the supports, and then the truck to pull it off the house.

New Rehab- 2214 Randolph St, NE- Before Pics

We just purchased another new project in DC. This one is in an area called Woodridge, which is in the NE corner not too far from Catholic University. It's a great stable neighborhood that is a popular place for young couples with kids to purchase their first homes. The area has a mix cape cod and colonial style houses.

We were attracted to this particular property because it is all brick, on a huge lot and on a quiet street. It's also close to major roads and buses, but far enough away not to have any road noise. Also, the other houses on this particular block all show great pride of ownership and people really seem to care about the health of the neighborhood. The house has a loft space upstairs and will have a finished basement downstairs, so there is a lot of usable space. It's currently 3 bedrooms and 1 bath, but it will be 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths when we're done.

The house has been vacant for almost two years after the original owner died. At some point, there was a fire in the property. The fire smoked out the entire second story, but the burning actually did very little damage. The fire department broke out all of the windows and cut holes in the ceiling to give the fire more oxygen to burn out, which caused more damage than the actual fire.

Here is the street view. We're replacing the main roof and the roof above the porch. We're also rebuilding the front steps, adding lighting, landscaping and all new windows. We're also putting in an iron railing around the porch.



This is the rear of the house. We're going to bump out part of the attic to allow for a bedroom in the attic (loft) and build a huge rear deck. The two windows on the main floor on the left side are going to be torn out and we will install french doors to open onto the deck. The steps to the basement will be moved to the side of the house to allow better access.



Here's the huge rear lot. This will get a wood fence around the entire exterior. We haven't decided whether to resod the whole area or pave part of it for parking.



This is the existing kitchen. It's pretty terrible, but we're gutting the house down to the studs and rebuilding everything new. We'll put in some great wood cabinets, tile floor and stainless steel appliances.



This wall is currently dividing the kitchen and the dining room. We're going to tear out the wall and put a kitchen island in this space. This entire floor will get new hardwood floors.



The old handrail is missing, so we're going to build a new one. We'll probably cover these steps with hardwood floors, as well.



This is the original master bath. Once we gut it out, it's going to be where the new flight of steps will go to access the loft.



Here's the front bedroom. You can see all the smoke damage on the walls.



The rear bedroom:



This is the basement, which will be another bedroom with a working fireplace.



Here's the spot where we're putting the second full bath in the basement:



We've got a lot of work to do, but this one will really be beautiful when complete. The house is getting all new HVAC, electric, plumbing, roof, floors, decking, windows, trim, tile, etc... It will be better than new. Check back to see our progress.

412 Mellon St- New Water Service

We realized after we started rehabbing this property that there was no manhole cover in front of the property to access the water meter. We thought this was because the house had been vacant for so long that the access had been paved over or covered with dirt over the years. Unfortunatley, the worst case scenario happened, and we determined that the property no longer had any water or sewer service. Now, a few months into the project, we finally decided to solve the problem. We had to get all sorts of approvals from the city in order to install the new water lines. First, an engineer had to draw plans to show the proposed work. Next, an inspector had to come out and make sure that we didn't hit any gas or electric lines where we were planning to dig. We got all of our permits, traffic control diagrams, sewer authority approvals in hand and we finally tackled the project this week.

This is the machinery that was needed to dig the trench for the new lines:

The crew went down at least 8 feet in order to get down to the level of the pipes below the surface of the street.



The main water lines run right down the middle of the street. Here's the final place where my new lines will terminate:

Inside, the project looks amazing and is actually almost done. I'll post pictures this week of the progress (hardwood floors, tile, crown moulding, etc.)