INC NEWS - Come out for the 'Hard Hat Home Tour' on April 13

[Alice Bumgarner]

Come out for some house ogling on April 13th, as Trinity Park holds  
its 2008 Hard Hat Home Tour!!

You'll have a chance to see inside 10 homes, several of which were  
student-rental "party houses" before being purchased by Duke  
University in 2006, then resold to owner-occupants. Now they're being  
restored to their early 20th-century glory.

The tour is April 13, 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Tickets are $10. Purchase in  
advance at Regular Bookshop or Stone Bros. & Byrd, or purchase on the  
day of the tour in front of George Watts Montessori Magnet School  
(Watts St. and Dacian Ave.).

On this tour, you'll see what it takes to restore an old home, from  
the framing and foundation work to picking out the perfect slab of  
granite for the kitchen. And you can learn how green building  
techniques can be integrated into your older home. Several of the  
renovating contractors and designers will be available to answer  
questions.

Tour-takers will receive a Source Book that tells the story of each  
home’s transformation, offers how-to advice from experts in the trade  
and offers a complete list of subcontractors and resources used for  
each project. It’s a useful guide for anyone planning an old-house  
renovation of their own.

Some of the homes on tour are at the beginning of the process, while  
other homes are finished and lived in.

A sampling:

__ 704 N. Buchanan Blvd. is a three-story, 4,000-plus sq. ft. house  
getting a 'green' makeover over by Sam and Jo Wells and their  
contractor Trinity Design/Build. Sam Wells is dean of Duke Chapel,  
while Jo Wells teaches Old Testament and Anglican studies at Duke’s  
Divinity School.

One green approach, in particular, seems perfectly suited to the  
region’s recent conservation challenge: dual-flush toilets, which  
allow users to control how much water they use, plus a pipe-and- 
cistern greywater system that captures water from the shower and  
recirculates it to all the toilets in the house, conserving many  
gallons of water a day. At this house, you'll also learn techniques  
for preserving original single-pane windows, while adding efficiency.

__ 1005 Watts St., or the Sweaney House, used to stand on the  
McPherson Hospital site, until late 2006, when it was split into  
several pieces, put on trailers and driven down the street to its  
current location. Today it has been completely restored, and is  
occupied by Travis Pipkin and Rick Kappelmann, who is, coincidentally,  
a physician at North Carolina Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat Hospital --  
formerly McPherson Hospital.

We thank Duke University for purchasing the the houses and investing  
in an urban neighborhood. We also thank TPNA sponsors, whose support  
makes the Hard Hat Home Tour possible: Accent Hardwood Flooring, Acme  
Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, Bellasara Massage, Benjamin  
Franklin Plumbing, Center Studio Architecture, Downtown Durham Inc.,  
Ellen Cassilly Architect Inc., Gary and Beth Berman, Housewright  
Remodeling, Marie Austin Realty, Morgan Imports, One-Hour Heating &  
Air Conditioning, Rockwood Furniture, Stone Bros. & Byrd, Trinity  
Design/Build, and Whole Foods.

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