My Baltimore home is a living art project

(My art tools. Photo by Diana Gross.)

My house felt cold. I’m not talking about the temperature.

I bought it because of its location, the size of its rooms and the fact that it had been completely renovated. The point was to move in and not have anything else to do.

So it troubled me to be settled down with all my furniture organized and all my art arranged but to feel so little warmth in my home.

I told myself that the house just wasn’t lived in yet but that didn’t ring true.

The house was 100 years old. Not only was it lived in but it must have had a story to tell.

It took a glass of Malbec to bring that story out. Three glasses, actually.

With the first glass I was sitting on the stairs glaring into the living room and listening for ghosts.

With the second glass I just came out and asked, “What do you need?” not really expecting the house to answer me.

Right at that moment my eye caught a detail that I had missed when I first moved in.

The original architecture of the house intended for the windows to be the centerpiece of the living room. Starting at the ceiling they went down to the floor but as I looked more closely I noticed that the top of the widows didn’t have molding on them.

The ceiling had been lowered and simply covered the windows with drywall.

By the third glass of wine I had a hammer in my hand and the inclination to investigate.

I banged a hole just big enough for my head and the camping headlamp it was wearing to fit through.

Not only were the windows two feet taller but there was two feet of additional space all around the room and in the dining room as well.

The crown molding and textural designs in the plaster ceiling had been concealed by drywall.

A lamp shines on the rehab project. (Photo by Leah Cooper)

Before the night was over, the entire first floor had been transformed from a neat and tidy façade to an interesting, if not messy, living area.

And I was transformed as well.

I could hear the rest of the house calling out to be uncovered.  For the next year I spent most of my time demolishing drywall, exposing and repointing brick, and reframing doorways.

I became familiar with fantastic establishments such as Second Chance   and I made daily visits to Falkenhan’s Hardware store where every clerk was a wealth of information and taught me what tools I needed and how to use them for every project I took on.

The original knotty pine floors were waiting under generations of linoleum and carpets to be discovered and polished to their original luster.

Transoms that had been removed or covered were restored and returned to their rightful positions.

My home became a living art project, an excavation of fashion trends in home design and a right of passage into the Baltimore do it yourself community.

I met people who moved into to a perfectly fine house and, while they lived there, gutted them and started from scratch.

I made friends with people who were renovating their homes to historic specifications and friends who were designing and creating their own visions.

We had many dusty beers on our stoops as we shared mishaps, mistakes and success stories. We took neighborhood tours of works in progress.

It wasn’t easy. I didn’t know what I was doing and I was doing it alone. Half way through the project I was running out of money.  I was tired and I wanted my life back.

One afternoon I came out for a break and sat on my stoop with a beer. I was wearing cut off shorts, a wife beater, a fully stocked tool belt and work boots.

Work in progress. (Photo by Robert Keller)

My next door neighbor, a photographer hipster who smoked like a chimney was sitting on his stoop. He looked at me for a long moment and then asked,

“Nancy – are you turning into a man?”

I was so tired and sick of the project by that time that I burst into tears.

“I guess not.” He said and returned to his cigarette.

As hard as it was, it was gratifying to hear people who came to dinner at my house say that the place felt warm and comforting.

My 100-years-old home didn’t want to be covered up with contemporary ideas of efficiency and ease. It wanted to show off the swirling knots in the wood that held it together. It wanted to creak when the baluster felt the weight of another person walking up the stairs. It wanted to breathe through its windows and transoms and brick.

And when I finally pulled out the last of that hideous renovation that was done solely for the purpose of reselling I found that I could breathe, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thought on “My Baltimore home is a living art project

  • September 19, 2012 at 11:56 PM
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    I remember when you did this!

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