TBT: The original sink

In what I rank as the biggest salvage find thus far, we managed to get our hands on the original sink to our house. Finding good stuff can be summarized into two steps: being at the right place at the right time, and not being afraid to ask: can I have that?

Haven’t you always wanted…

…a vintage stove?

An ode to our pine floors

(this is long). (I promise I will make a point eventually). (or not). As part of the epic never-ending bedroom restoration, it’s time to tackle the floors.

Another find from the trash heap

There has been a change in the construction crew at the gut reno project in my neighborhood. (I say this as if there is only one. Sadly, there are many, but that’s fodder for another soapbox). The construction foreman, who was saving me the stuff, is no more. It’s back to chucking everything onto the pile in […]

Tile carnage

While picking through a pile of house parts that were in route to the dumpster, a Brownstone Detective found this: It’s a section of the tile that surrounded a fireplace, with the wall still attached to it. It was covered in silver paint, probably spray paint. I know from the real estate listing photos that it […]

9 Billionty Nails (and a quandry)

All the salvage accumulating in our cellar comes infested with nails. Lots and lots of freaking nails. It seems that no job was too small for a 3-inch nail; nor, it seems, were nails in short supply: better secure that little strip of trim with as many (gigantic) nails as humanly possible. So yes, 9 billionty […]

Kilian Brothers part 2 (the updated version)

I found these ads in the Real Estate Record and Guide. A quick check of some of my neighbors fireplaces, and it seems that the Kilians’ were the go-to purveyors of fireplace surrounds of the late 1880s and early to mid 1890s. Another house in my area is getting fully gutted. Hopefully they will […]

Kilian Brothers

(a bit of a rant) It makes me sad when old houses are stripped of their detail. Not only is the craftsmanship amazing, the old growth trees that were harvested for all of our pretty ornamentation are long gone. I know a lot of people don’t share my opinion, but old houses are such a finite […]

I totally have a plan and I’m going to – LOOK! SHINY THINGS!

(actually these were painted, dirty and discarded things, but we’ll get to that in a moment) Ah focus. Some people have it, I don’t. I’m easily distracted by possibilities, by day dreaming and by imagining the worst of the worst case scenarios. Yet, once in a while, I will spring into action at a moment’s […]

Boiling Hardware

Our world is covered in (undesirable) paint: woodwork, walls and hardware. Sometimes it seems that all we do is remove paint – and yet, we haven’t made a dent! The door knobs and plates we picked up on our trip to the Historic Albany Foundation’s Parts Warehouse were no exception. Luckily, removing paint and grime […]