Madison Square
Two married architects living in an 1870's brick rowhouse on a garden block in Center City Philadelphia. We work, we work on our house, we take pictures with our iphones and try to write a little something that makes sense. What you see is what we did… it’s just how we roll.
Spring Gardening
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- Published on Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
In anticipation of Cinco de Mayo and my birthday, we freshened up our front stoop flowers and garden with the help of our garden cat:
First things first, bring out the freshly purchased flowers and decide where to plant them:
Such a beautiful day for hanging out in the garden:
A new spring mix in the old chick&hens planter:
Ou...
A New Distraction
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- Published on Saturday, 04 May 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
So this is a project from back in January that has become a bit of a distraction (in addition to the usual life distractions) which has slowed our house progress and of course this post!
We had one of these tvs for the last 10 years and before that I had actually inherited it from my grandmother… So you could say its a...
Why We Renovate!
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- Published on Thursday, 25 April 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
Okay, so this isn’t technically about our renovation project. But websites like these, listing all of the fabulous and unique aspects of our neighborhood, remind us WHY we love working so hard on our specific home in our specific neighborhood. Note our green “Graduate Hospital” hood is right in the middle...
Garden Update: April
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- Published on Sunday, 07 April 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
The garden is starting to look more like it’s spring every day. No buds on the mulberry tree yet, but that’s ok- we can certainly wait for berry season… But check this out- don’t remember this from last year:
These other little purple flowers are tucked in among the ivy, creeper and onion grass:
The...
Reuse
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- Published on Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
Our first project to reuse some of the cabinets we salvaged was to build a new fish tank stand.
I built the current stand during my early college years. I took a circular saw to an entertainment center that was put out in the trash, deconstructed it, reconstructed it and painted it black.
We definitely got our money’s...
Salvaging is Green ( Free!)
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- Published on Saturday, 16 March 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
The architecture office we both work at is moving. I have worked on this awesome block of Walnut near Rittenhouse Sq for over a decade, and Kelly for half of that but alas the building was sold to become apartments…
We will certainly miss the neighborhood, views, and especially our roof terrace on the 25 floor! The...
Snow To Spring In 24 Hours
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- Published on Saturday, 09 March 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
Yesterday morning the garden looked like this:
One of the only snows that stuck this year… You can tell it was a mild winter because the onion grass is already up:
So to get in the mood for spring, we checked out the Philadelphia Flower Show last night:
Lots of fresh colors and ideas for spring:
Something worked because...
The Art Of The Powder Room
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- Published on Saturday, 26 January 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
Our powder room, like many rooms, still needed a few finishing touches… art, antiques and plants.
The art: currently this cool old artifact given to us by the previous owner of our office building. The art deco tower was sold recently (and is being converted to apartments), but it was originally built for Sun Oil in the...
Now We Are Rolling
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- Published on Sunday, 20 January 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
Time to build our sliding door for the basement.
We ripped down plywood to be the nailing rails, squared them to each other, and clamped them to a table to keep the door square while we build it.
For the face if the door, we used the scrap and left over tongue and groove boards from the new paneling we installed in our second...
Back on Track … Slowly
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- Published on Saturday, 19 January 2013
Authors: madisonsquare
After the holidays it is always hard to get back on track with house projects in the new year… So we are taking baby steps.
Remember that wall we framed in the basement last year?
We put strips of scrap plywood across the stud framing so that we can now installing wood paneling.
We are using original tong & groove wood...
