A DIY love story

Newlyweds Jordana Swartz and Dan Spellacy, who married earlier this month, bought their 1,000-square-foot South Philadelphia home about a year ago. It had been on the market for over a year.

“The home was the ‘landlord special’ — sloppy white paint job, crap vinyl floors, bad finishes, two poorly designed bathrooms and kitchen,” said Swartz. But she liked the location, and “we got a good deal for it,” she said.

Nearby, Paolone Park is tucked between Sears and Medina Streets, “and it’s maintained by the neighbors very well,” Swartz said. “It’s a gem.”

The South Philly rowhouse appealed to the couple because they are self-proclaimed “fix-it-up people.” Spellacy is “handy,” his wife said.

In their living room, for instance, sits a 1960s radio and record player, that Spellacy fixed up himself.

“We prefer things such as decor, tools, furniture, clothing that have been repurposed, fixed, and loved again,” said Swartz. “Almost everything in our house is second or even thirdhand.”

Spellacy, 27, is an electrical engineer contracted by the U.S. Navy. Swartz is the climbing wall coordinator and a staff trainer at Drexel University. Both grew up in the area, and their grandparents are from South Philly.

”It feels special to invest where our great-grandparents raised their families,” Swartz said.

The couple are also car-free — “We’re passionate about biking and pedestrian infrastructure,” Swartz explained — but it does make furnishing and upgrading their home a little more challenging. It takes planning to buy materials and transport equipment.

“We make it work with our bike trailer, Uber, and SEPTA,” Swartz said.

“I love Facebook Marketplace, and have done many ridiculous pickups with my bike,” she added.

They “got lucky” and found furnishings and items nearby, like patio tiles, an outdoor bench, a bed frame and mattress, and even a clothes dryer.

“South Philly is so dense, and people are always buying and selling and trashing,” Swartz said. “Being patient and waiting to see what I stumble across has led to many fabulous street finds: multiple wicker baskets, two beautiful armchairs, electronics, books, plants, and clothing.”

Since moving in, the couple has painted the interior, refinished the hardwoods, and tiled the entryway.

Swartz wanted to incorporate the neighborhood into the home’s color palatte, seeking “something that felt like it carried Paolone Park inside the house: sunny, inviting, cheery,” she said. So they chose golden plumeria for the living room.

The pair pulled up the vinyl boards and found original hardwood covered with dust and plaster from a previous renovation.

“As a test, we rubbed the floor with a walnut, which cleaned off the grime and showed the original floor in all its glory, boards beautifully close together and rippled with tight wood grain,” said Spellacy.

He described how these boards were from older-growth trees, which were naturally grown larger, and the grain is tight together and varied. But after removing the rest of the vinyl floor, he said, they found rougher, wider, uneven floorboards in the front half of the home. Seemingly original, he said, they were “square-headed” and possible over a century old.

“We weren’t sure if we should try to refinish these old boards; with the two types of boards the floor would not have a seamless look” Spellacy said. “But after some deliberation and talking with family, we decided to celebrate it.”

The couple spent days scraping off plaster and pulling up nails and staples from previous coverage by carpet and linoleum. To pass the time, Swartz listened to Little House on the Prairie on audiobook.

Learning from YouTube videos, they rented professional equipment to sand down the floor, and followed by vacuuming sawdust with a borrowed shop-vac.

“We worked 10 a.m. and stopped at 7 p.m. so as not to disturb our new neighbors or violate any codes — the sander and shop-vac were so loud,” continued Swartz.

Tiling was the next undertaking. The tile in the entry was cracked, and the mortar was coming up.

“While removing the tile we found a Bicentennial quarter, a specially minted quarter in 1976 to celebrate the Bicentennial,” said Swartz. It now sits on their bookshelf among other keepsakes.

They opted for small black-and-white entry tiles. Installation was a two-day process.

“It was a tricky, cramped install, both of us working crouched in the entryway,” remembered Swartz. “We listened to music and took turns with the work.”

First, they cemented each tile down, then let them dry until the next evening. Adding grout felt like “icing a cake,” Swartz said.

“We entered and exited the house by leaping over the tiles,” she recalled. “When the tile was complete, it was like it had always been there.”

“That’s how I feel with the projects I am satisfied with,” Swartz said. ”It seems as if it had always been that way.”

The kitchen and bathroom are Swartz and Spellacy’s next projects. Renovating a home together, she said, “I found that Dan and I are excellent partners.”

“We were two years into our relationship when we bought our house and had never lived together, so it was good to know I was building a life with someone who was driven, patient, and a natural problem solver,” said Swartz. “In our DIY renovation, things go wrong — what I love about working together is that when challenges come up, we step back, put things in perspective, and adapt.”

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