1449 Harvard St NW- Rendering

Moving along at our new condo building at 1449 Harvard St NW.  Right now, we're working on framing back the floor joists.  Here's a sneak peak of what the building will look like once complete:

1449 Harvard St NW- Framing

We have all of our attention focused on framing the building at 1449 Harvard St NW. We're also working hard to finalize the name for the building. We should have it settled by the end of this week. In the mean time, our masons and carpenters are busy getting in the new floors and repairing the old ones.

The ceiling height in the basement is great.  You can see in this picture that the 8 foot tall bobcat fits with no problem.

The masons are busy repairing the brick so the floor can be attached to the wall.

After the brick is repaired, the new floors are bolted to the wall and look like the picture above.  Here, a carpenter is putting joist hangers on each joist to make them sturdy.

The Charles at 2431 Ontario Rd NW- More Pics

We decided to go ahead and stage Unit 2. It paid off- we received multiple offers within a few days! Pretty amazing how much staging can help show off the space. The photographer also took some new pictures of the front and rear, which is now finished.

The new cornice on the top of the building really helps tie everything together.

We added the patio furniture and the plants in the front to help "warm up" the space. The sod still isn't as green as I'd like and we may replace with a small garden if it doesn't catch.

The back looks impressive. We made the spiral stairs slightly wider than in previous projects to help make them easier to navigate with bags or groceries.

The sod back here is doing better than in the front. I like to think of this as a little touch of country living right in the middle of the city.

Unit 2 is unique because it has an area on the right side for a full dining room table.

One thing I noticed going through these images is how much great light comes through the rear glass.

The marble floor works really well with the bathroom wall color.

I love the huge island with the open layout. This theme will be continued at 1449 Harvard St.

Neighborhoods- Columbia Heights

Us DC natives already all knew it, but Columbia Heights is hot. It's an exciting neighborhood with several unique restaurants, bars and shops. The New York Times just ran a feature on 11th St, calling it "Columbia Heights' Hip Strip." The link is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/02/20/travel/20110220-SURFACING.html

It's a great read and worth checking out. Our new project at 1449 Harvard is right in the center of all the action.

Demo Underway at 1449 Harvard St NW

We just finished the project at 2431 Ontario Rd and without a break moved about three blocks east to our new development at 1449 Harvard St NW. Last week was the first full week, and we made a ton of progress. The new layouts are totally different than what was existing, so we are demolishing all of the existing interior walls. Also, the building has a lot of old plaster, so we're removing it in order to install all of the new insulation, electric, plumbing and HVAC.

The front of the building is unchanged and won't look much different for several months until we replace the front steps and paint the front.

Inside pretty much looks like a tornado came through the house.  To the right center you can see the old chimney shaft.  We took the fireplace down to reuse again in the new units.

Here's one of the old fireplaces.

In the rear, the masons worked to put back a piece of the fencing between our house and the apartment building next door.

The basement is finally starting to get cleaned out.  All of the debris on the ground is shetrock that was pulled down today and put in the dumpster at the end of the day.