So close!

I was going to wait until the whole thing was done, but I'm too impatient. Here's a sneak peek at the facade of our Philly row home. Our awesome contractor and his peeps chipped away the damaged areas of the stucco and re-covered the entire surface in the metal mesh that you are supposed to use for stucco. (Our neighborhood isn't known for expert workmanship...that's for sure.) They also removed the rotting wood lintels and sills, and replaced them with limestone slabs. The stucco is a synthetic material with the added gray pigment that I selected. The synthetic is believed to last longer and crack less. The first pic is a "before" image that I took on the day we signed the contract for the house, back in 2006.




Now that the biggest part of the project is done, we'll move on to the little things like replacing the front doors and restoring the original features of the house facade: the cornice, the transom, and the wood framing around the windows. We had originally considered fully restoring the cornice by having our contractor recreate the decorative finials that adorn most original cornices in Philly, but a neighbor of ours did a really nice, polished, and cheaper job on her cornice, and I loved the modern look of it, so we are going to go in that direction. I've picked out a color to paint the door, window frames, and cornice. It's a green called Happy Camper! Perfect for my mood, today!