Old House My House

Kevin and I joined Mike (Streaman, our contractor, in photo 2nd from left) and his crew at the house for an early New Year's Eve celebration. It was nice to spend some time with the guys over homemade cookies.

Mike proudly showed us the first newly skim-coated plaster wall in the house, in one of the bedrooms on the 3rd floor. The perfection and meticulous smoothness of Mike's walls, which we had long admired in our friends' renovated brownstone, was one of the many things that attracted us to Mike.

We also enjoyed our first viewing of the newly installed wainscoting in the main vestibule…

…where a gang of nine institutional, metal mailboxes for the boarding house tenants had been. The wainscoting was created by Mario (in photo 3rd from right standing). It is absolutely beautiful and so closely matches the original on the other side. Once it's stained, I'm sure we won't be able to tell which is which.

It's great to be entering the finishing stage of the project and to be able to see the exquisitely crafted details emerge. Thanks to all of the crew!