November 16–23, 2000
cover story
Men at Work
A good man is hard to find.
So the saying goes. But when it comes to construction, that saying is all too true. Pick the right workers and you get timely, beautiful results; pick the wrong ones and who knows. Dr. Kevin Kilcoyne and his wife Ann know this all too well.
When the Kilcoynes moved into their 1830s rowhome at 19th and Spruce two years ago, they didn’t want to change a thing. But they soon realized that the kitchen needed some major renovation.
They hired subcontractors who, in the middle of the project, discovered that the kitchen, and therefore the entire house, was wired with old-fashioned knob and tube wiring which had to be replaced for safety’s sake. The subcontractors had to tear through the house room by room, destroying parts of the walls and ceilings to install modern wiring, and then replaster it all again.
"We started out with subcontractors," says Dr. Kilcoyne, surrounded by boxes in the unfurnished, half-finished living room. "They did the plaster on a lot of the walls and the tile floor in the kitchen. They did such a terrible job that we had to have it all redone again. Now they work as handymen in the house, doing odds and ends to make up the debt."
So who did the Kilcoynes turn to for the redo?
Philly’s own boys in blue.
Joe Reilly, vice president of the Center City Residents Association and co-chairman of the committee that runs house tours of historic homes like the Kilcoynes’, told Kilcoyne about some men who had done construction for him before. Formerly contractors, the men left the biz to pursue careers in the police force, but they continue to do some contracting on the side.
Kilcoyne promptly hired the part-time contractors.
"Now I don’t have any worries about leaving the keys with the contractors," he laughs.
The policemen/ contractors did such a bang-up job fixing the subcontractor’s mistakes, Kilcoyne had them add another fireplace in the living room, and begin building some wood bookshelves.
And the work is far from over. The Kilcoynes are planning a deck for the second floor and another bathroom on the third floor, and they also want to add an entire fourth floor. Which just goes to show, there’s no limit to what you can do when you’ve got the right men for the job.
