Denver Squared

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Denver Squared

Denver Squared sources antiques and salvages architectural pieces, while restoring our 1898 Denver Square one DIY project at a time.

10/29/2026

After a long hiatus with some personal travel and a basement demolition mixed in, I installed two sides of red oak shelving today. My neighbor graciously cut the cleats on his table saw so I didn't take off a finger with a circular saw. 😬 But it took me a lot longer to drill and install each shelf because I had to go back and forth with a drill bit, a hex head driver, and a level, while balancing on a rolling ladder about 8' off the ground.

Now we have a dark space to store homemade canned goods and other things like honey that shouldn't get direct sun exposure, and a mouse-proof space to store items in thin bags like extra pasta, crackers, rice, and cereal.

10/06/2026

Some neat finds in the basement of our 1898 Denver Square this morning. I love finding old newspapers because it helps us figure out a more accurate timeline for the folks living in our house.

10/02/2026

I'm making progress but it sure is slow. The beauty and the frustration of restoration level demolition is that you have to take things out in reverse order. So the last thing installed is the first thing to be removed. Sure, I could just rip things apart, but if I want to reuse the beadboard and want to do the least amount of damage to structural elements that will remain, it's better to go slow and be careful.

I've done all I can handle in the main room without doing more plumbing and electrical, so today I'm trying to take down the ceiling in the small coal room. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the boarded up window near the AC unit sits 3" proud so I'm having a tough time getting the last nail undone and I'm probably going to saw those boards by hand.

My only other frustrating find is that the cold air return in the living room went nowhere. So we have a vent that is directly connected to the place I'm making a mess 🤦‍♀️

09/29/2026

Just another day and another epic mess. Taking down the coal room is going to require so much more laundry and clean up than I expected. 🤣🚿🧺🧽

09/25/2026

Check out one of the cool finds from demoing the basement coal room yesterday. This was a piece of wood from the wall but harkens back to the original owner, J Henry Tindall, who worked at the local slaughterhouse and meat packing plant (an "abattoir").

Original history: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJrAbU4FM6G/?stkn=dzRhcHFlNWttMmI2

09/24/2026

It's never a dull moment around here. While I'm waiting to install shelving on my stairwell cabinet, I decided that yesterday was the perfect day to start hauling all of the extra antique baseboard, trim pieces and kitchen beadboard out of the basement and into the garage in preparation for demoing some walls to an old coal room. I'll also need to take down a beadboard ceiling so I'm mentally gearing up for a mess.

I generally do a terrible job of grabbing before photos and video (hence you don't get to see the full room of wood from yesterday), but decided I better take a video of the rest of the space before I truly start remodeling. What you are seeing is almost 20 years of stuff in two transitional "office" spaces. 😜🙃 Our long term goal is to get a rec room, a guest room/exercise space and a dedicated office, keeping the sink for a homebrew area.

09/21/2026

In my house one project turns into five more. Because it's time consuming to clean up after using oil-based paint, I realized that I should probably paint the door at the same time as the cabinet. And if I was going to paint the door, I needed to prep it and I should go ahead and remove an outdated lock that we never used.

So 2 weeks later than intended, the first coat of oil-based paint is on all of the woodwork. I also use this time to touch up little nicks throughout the house.

That said, I love that it takes oil-based paint a long time to dry because it's so much more forgiving and the fact that you can clean up any mess with just a little bit of mineral spirits even an hour after you're done painting.

09/08/2026

The canning pantry is coming along, one tube of caulk at a time. 🤣😁

09/01/2026

With the kids getting back to school and getting used to a new routine, I've been in parent mode over the last week, but today I wrapped up the first round of priming on the pantry cabinet in my basement stairwell. This will help me see where I still have gaps to caulk, where I have spray foam to cut back, and where I need a layer of sanding before a second coat. But it's already looking more like a cabinet!

You may wonder why I used obvious screws on the back wall -- that's so we can easily pull the panel if we ever need to access the back of the fridge. And all of the wood was repurposed beadboard and flooring from the basement. Waste not, want not.

08/19/2026

Do you ever have those moments where you just kind of go for it? Back before the kitchen remodel 5 years ago 😳, we used to have a little built in pantry behind the butler's pantry that stuck out into the basement stairwell. When we moved the fridge to that space, we lost access to the storage.

At the time our contractor wanted $2k to finish out a cabinet and it just wasn't in the budget. So this past weekend I started exploratory demoing (can those two go hand in hand?) and realized that the back wall of the old pantry was actually set further back from the dry wall than I expected with 1" thick tongue and groove boards. Three hours, one reciprocating saw, one spade bit, and one sheet of plastic later, I now have access to the pantry from the stairwell side. Thank goodness for respirators and I'm grateful that my earlier self remembered to take photos of the electrical so I was able to cut safely without nicking any wires.

While the access is high up on the wall, it's easily accessible from our library ladder, and we are hoping to use the space for canned goods so the light doesn't impact our homemade canned goods. Sadly, my cute baby is almost a tween and no longer interested in helping with home remodel projects.

Address

Denver, CO

Website

https://www.denversquared.com/

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