Capitol Hills, DC - Residential Historical Restoration

NARI CotY "Grand" Award Winner 2000

Brief Explanation of the Scope of Work

More than any job our company has done in eleven years of business, this one required us to be the most resourceful in locating and working closely with top quality craftsmen to meet the client's needs and expectations.

The project was for a repeat customer on Capitol Hill who is an architect. He scoped out much of the project development before having us do the working drawings. Much of the challenge in the job dealt with returning the 115 year old house from 4 units to a single family home.

Unusual Constraints/Challenges & Creative Solutions

To achieve this most of the trim in the property had to be replaced with custom milled trim to match existing. Eight windows had to be re-created to match original ones that we were able to restore. They were custom made to match, using single pane glass and weights and pulleys. The 9” crown molding and medallions were re-created in plaster to match original pieces we found above a dropped ceiling. The new molding was made on site by one of our workers who has over 12 years experience with a company specializing in plaster fabrication and restoration (see photo). The owner took special effort to locate several old scroll radiators for the main rooms and over a dozen restored and reproduction light fixtures that helped give the property the desired old world charm.

Strengthen and re-store the heart of pine floors. To do this we protected the floors and then carefully patched them using salvaged and re-milled old pine. Where possible we added sub-flooring in between the joists, as the original floors had none.

Restore interior doors. At first the customer tried having several of the original doors dipped and stripped. But when they did not turn out well we built a number of them from scratch including two with transoms.

Make the property single family from 4 units. We installed all new systems in the house and added 2 Zone AC. A great deal of radiator re-piping work was required. Making the new floor plan work well from that of a four unit building required a good deal of structural and framing work.

Add more square footage to the house. This was done in 2 ways, a) digging out 1/2 of the basement and adding a new entrance, including under-pinning masonry walls, and b) building on a wooden screen porch with a metal roof and mahogany decking.

Overall Results

The end result was a radical transformation and not only that, it won our company a "Grand" award at the NARI 2000 Contractor of the Year Awards (CotY 2000).

Kitchen