Before and After: From Defacto Dorm to Dream Digs on the Hill

• April 30th 2019

by UrbanTurf Staff

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For years, 207 3rd Street NE served as a defacto dorm for the WISH Foundation. Then Nikia Gray came along. 

"[My agent] was like 'This house is disgusting - Why are you buying it?'", Gray remembers. "I can't say I had a good answer for him"

Gray moved forward with the purchase in 2015, and set about on a vast renovation project. 

"I'm a Ritz Carlton type girl," Gray told UrbanTurf. "I can wield duct tape and tacks without mercy but, if it goes beyond that, it probably exceeds my practical skills. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into."

With the help of her father, Bennett Frank McCarthy Architects and contractors Evcon, Gray got to work. 

Not much could be saved on the first floor. When Gray pulled up the carpet, she discovered asbestos. Two months after moving in, the ceiling in the foyer caved in. 

The renovated living room and kitchen became the focal point of the renovation. The finished product was a blue, black and ivory kitchen with panels hiding all the appliances, except for a Wolf range. The floor tiles from Vietnam extended into the living room, and the ceiling beams are original wood that came from a wall that was removed elsewhere in the house.

Upstairs, Gray's father hand-sanded the floors back to their original glory. The bathrooms, which Gray believes were last touched some time in the 1940s, were completely reworked. 

"I wondered if the bathroom had been intentionally designed so that if you were over 120 pounds you couldn't fit in the toilet area as some sort of strange diet plan," Gray said.

The home, which hit the market earlier this week, won't be Gray's last renovation. For her next project, she is looking across the Potomac River in Alexandria. 

• Full Listing: 207 3rd Street NE (map)
• Price: $1.575 million
• Bedrooms: Four
• Bathrooms: Four
• Year Built: 1900
• Listing Agents: Mark Rutstein, Stephen Rutgers, Compass

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/before-and-after-from-dorm-to-home-on-the-hill/15330.