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.

More of the Same

Authors: madisonsquare

We’re still doing stucco and painting…

We did a bit last night with the assistance of our work lights

And then got up at 6AM this morning to do more.

We managed to get 95% of final coat done! And it matches reasonably well. It took a little while to get the texture right but once I got it it was relatively easy. The...

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Stained Glass Window – Sneak Peak

Authors: madisonsquare

We had a crazy Sunday, with a house full of spectators, installing the gorgeous windows! Megan of McElf Glass Studio finished them Sunday morning and then immediately got in the car for the 8 hour trek from Buffalo (She didn’t do the driving…)

So here are some sneak peaks until we have time to make a post out of...

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Finishes Blur

Authors: madisonsquare

The past few days have been a blur of living room finishing activity. The last coat of clear poly is on all the trim:

Then we cleaned / dusted all the walls and ceiling using this extendable dusting tool that was rediscovered… It came with the house … I don’t remember when we primed in here but there’s...

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Porch Replacement – Day 6.5

Authors: madisonsquare

It’s 6.5 because we actually worked on both Friday night & Saturday to get the project done!

So what did you do on Friday night? We played with cement!

We mixed up some stucco to apply the scratch coat over the metal lath on the new column.

You would never know that the column wasn’t always there.

We applied the...

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Happy Couchaversary

Authors: madisonsquare

We interrupted our crazy house schedule yesterday to celebrate our anniversary by going out to dinner at Parc on Rittenhouse. It was perfect: we got the table we wanted right away, made friends with the manager who helped us pick the perfect bubbly, the food was delicious, they didn’t rush us, and they ended the meal...

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Back Porch Replacement – Day 5

Authors: madisonsquare

Today is another big day, the gate must go up (since I have work tomorrow).

To start the column got wrapped in plywood,

Then it was flashed at the bottom, wrapped in tar paper, and covered in wire mesh in preparation for the stucco.

Next the frame of the fence was built with pressure treated preserved lumber.

Meanwhile Bill...

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Back Porch Replacement -So What Are We Doing?

Authors: madisonsquare

Before we started this project we had a cramped porch , with a deteriorating fence, and gate that typically stuck. And with such a small space and the gate swinging in it was always tight trying to bring in trash cans, groceries, bikes, etc, not to mention trying to open the gate when the area was filled with stuff.

So we came...

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Name Game – Vote!

Authors: madisonsquare

In honor of our upcoming 3 year housaversary this summer, almost 1,200 posts and over 52,000 hits (that’s not including all you lovely readers on google reader or who read by subscription) on our little madisonsquare.wordpress, we have started to think about a little blog renovation…   starting with a new fresh &...

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A Stained Glass Update

Authors: madisonsquare

It’s official- one week until install! Here’s a few amazing detail shots from Mcelf Glass Studio to tide us over for another 6 days while she makes some finishing touches. We can not wait to see it installed!

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What do you think? Amazing, right?


Tagged: living room, mcelf, stained glass...

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Back Porch Replacement – Day 4 … A Setback

Authors: madisonsquare

We started the day with a supply run that of course took forever as usual. Then we had to run out again for about an hour and in that time a scrapper must have come up the alley and stole our gate track!!! Yes the key item that holds the whole thing up that is hard to get! They also made off with our gutters that were down...

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