Hauser Haus

Spring Find

2011-04-20T22:07:00.002-04:00

It's about time! Right?

Went to my first estate sale of the season Monday and got some great deals because I went just before closing time and they were changing all the prices for Tuesday. Picked up this sweet Art Deco Boudoir lamp for around $4.00. (Don't look at all my junk!)

Looks like the man of the house used it in his workshop and abused it.

Here it is after I cleaned it up and added a new cord. The cord cost twice as much as the lamp!

Lighted

I Survived Snowmageddon

2011-02-05T17:41:00.003-05:00

We have gotten off easy so far this winter with minimal snowfall. This one was a workout. If I had been working I would have missed most of the week, as the city plows didn't do my side street until Friday morning.

This is the walk out to the garage.

This is the front porch. Ignore the tacky paint on the bricks.

Out the front gate to the street. Since I live on a corner I got all the snow that blew down the street North to South.

The driveway. All shoveled by hand, I'll have you know.

As far as I got on Thursday because the plows had not yet been through. I didn't want to duplicate effort and wasn't going anywhere anyway.

My unplowed side street.

Taking pictures with mittens on is hard.

A Small Frustration

2010-11-02T17:14:00.002-04:00

When I took in the hoses last week I noticed that the front sillcock was dripping. I twisted it as far as I could, but it would not stop. My mother mentioned that it was dripping when she was over this weekend watching my brother and I fix the blown-down fence. I put a bucket under it until I felt like tackling it. It was dripping so fast I had to empty the bucket several times a day (when Bertie had not already knocked it over--he loves water.)

First I went in the basement to see if there was a shut-off in the water line to the sillcock. There was, but someone had stolen the handle to it.

So I turned off the water at the main, down at the bottom of this pipe.

You should be honored to get to see how "special" my basement is, and how up-to-date my pipes are. (Side note--isn't that a great old kitchen table? Someday I'm going to refinish it and bring it back upstairs.)

Getting back to my story: the sillcock continued to drip, even with the main turned off. I did not have a spare handle for the turn-off, and it is not configured for modern handles, anyway. I did not want to take the channellocks to it and mess up the shaft, so replaced the bucket and went to the hardware store to see if I could find a new handle. I wanted to replace the sillcock, too, but couldn't take it off until the shutoff was in place.

The hardware guys at Ace had never seen anything like what my shaft looked like and had no idea how to put a handle on it, because all the modern ones have a square end. They tried to sell me one of those cheapo pot metal ones that has little clamping teeth inside with screws on the outside to engage the teeth with the rod. I have those on my tub and they are crap, so I declined. I bought a kit to fix my kitchen sink faucet, which was also dripping and went to another hardware store, which also is a plumbing store, hoping they had some old stock, because they are, after all, plumbers. I found an old guy and explained my problem. He was sympathetic, but could find nothing to fit my shaft. He suggested I go to the salvage store. I may still do that.

I came back home and fixed the kitchen faucet and put WD 40 on the basement shaft and the nut holding the handle on the sillcock, because I thought I could replace whatever was inside it that wasn't working anymore. I turned on the water and put the bucket back.

Today I turned off the water again and took my channellocks to the shaft. I was running out of options. The WD 40 did it's job and after a while I was able to turn it enough to shut off the water to the sillcock. The nut on the handle of the sillcock also had loosened up enough to remove it--after I spent half an hour looking through my tools for something to remove the nut with. See, my ex bought me a complete cheapo socket set and then lost the most useful size and the tool, so all I have left is a box of unusable sockets. Fortunately I kept his toolbox and raggedy rusty tools, and there was a socket wrench and the right-size socket! --Note to Self--buy a new socket set.--

I got the handle off and the large nut around the shaft and found that the shaft is sealed into the unit and there are no moveable parts to remove. You have to buy a whole new one. This I cannot do because I do not have the tools or the strength to twist the sillcock off the wall. I replaced everything and turned it REALLY HARD and turned the water back on. No dripping. OK, now I have all winter to find a new handle and convince some big burly sort to replace my sillcock.

Bertie is pissed.

Problem Areas

2010-10-25T16:30:00.003-04:00

Here are some problems I have been thinking about for 16 years, but have had the money do do anything about (or found a competent craftsman to help me!). They are all on the least visible side of the house, which is probably why I have not done anything with them yet.

The first pic is of my kitchen windows. When someone decided to modernize the Victorian kitchen with no built-ins they wanted the sink under the window instead of on the common wall with the bathroom (which is to the right in this picture). To do this they chopped the upper window frames in half and added these wonderful pieces of wood and lovely storm windows in the openings. On the inside there is a cabinet with sink and counter. I'm afraid of what is under there after all these years--probably rotten floor boards. The plan is to turn the kitchen back in time to around the 1930's - - - some day. I have the stove and Hoosiers!

All this will take is a competent window craftsman to replicate the upper frame and some inside trim pieces. Of course, the window frames need serious work, too, but I can handle that. I would then have to build storms and install them. I am working on a design that lets me remove the bottom pane and insert screens in summer, but not on the downstairs windows unless I find some nice window pins. Anybody seen any that aren't just big nails?

The following are the basement windows that are just below the kitchen windows above. The frames have been removed and the sills built up with concrete and chintzy metal framed windows put in. The bottom one is really scary--being just two pieces of plexi.

To do this right I would have to have the new sills chiseled off and frames and sash made to match the other windows. There is a lot of water that accumulates here from an adjacent downspout. This used to be a cinder drive between the houses--the other house is not very far away, behind my board fence.

One reason nothing has been done is because the washer/dryer is right there. The plan is/was to move the laundry to the second floor as part of an enlarged bathroom--which has not yet happened. You know how it goes--you have to find the one thing that can be done before all the other things can be done and do it to get the ball rolling or you end up with everything torn up and an unliveable house. I need one working bathroom at all times, so need to get the downstairs one finished first. That is my "first project" and I need a serious kick in the pants to get that room cleared out and get to sanding the walls and then laying the tile floor. (I have had the tiles for years, now.)

Here's what a basement window done correctly looks like. I made a new sill, repaired the stonework, and built a screen.

Disclaimer: The Google AdSense ads that appear on the left for replacement windows are way too numerous for me to block. I do not endorse replacement windows when original windows are repairable. Heck, I never endorse them!

Around the House

2010-10-18T13:59:00.001-04:00

I was without my computer for 4 days last week and had problems for two weeks before that, so I've had to re-learn how to live without that daily routine. Fortunately the weather was just beautiful and cooperated in getting my fall painting done. (Yet again!) It seems I paint the porches and steps every year. It doesn't matter if I undercoat, use oil or latex, sand first, or anything. The winter just peels the paint off every time. That's one of the reasons I have never painted the porch floor you see Tommy sitting on below. It still has its 108 year patina.

This is my under-porch hidey-hole for kitties. (And where raccoons go to die.)

I know those piers look bad, but they are terrible to begin with and I refuse to try to pretty them up. Some idiot replaced the rounded-red-brick-with-granite-cap ones that were there with these abominations many years ago when they painted my brick and foundations.

I'll end this with some photos of the awesomeness that is my house.

Sibley Learns to Play

2010-10-17T17:03:00.001-04:00

Sibley, my formerly feral cat, has now learned how to play interactively with me instead of running away when I flick the snakey toy at him. He comes when he sees me playing with one of his brothers and seems to enjoy it. One more little victory!

Finished Frame

2010-09-26T17:23:00.001-04:00

It's done, but I'm not all that thrilled with it. The clay I used this time shrunk by about 1/2! I have cracks and low spots and it just doesn't look as good as it did when the clay was wet. Live and learn.

I used a new paint, too. Not acrylic, but a gold leaf that I had to mix up and use right away. I thought it would give better coverage and help the new areas to blend it, but to me they still stick out.

Yet Another Frame

2010-09-22T00:25:00.003-04:00

After being excoriated by several people for not having any new posts for a while, I've come up with something. While I have been stripping paint off a mantel, it is not really blog-worthy, so here are some before and during pics of my new old frame.

You can see that is has a significant amount of missing gesso appliques. When I bought it there was a baggie of pieces that had fallen off. When I got home I washed the frame with a toothbrush and water and glued the pieces back on.

I needed an intact corner piece to replace the one that was mostly gone. One of them was almost complete so I made up some of my Amazing Mold Putty and applied it. I also made some casts of trim.

It looks really good. I added the parts that were missing and touched up the missing trim.

It is taking longer to dry than the Paper Clay that I used before. The store was out of Paper Clay so I had to get something else. It is taking longer to dry and I hope it sticks as well. It's called Super Dough.

When this is dry I will seal the clay and paint it.

Catnip Hill Genealogy

2010-09-03T00:26:00.001-04:00

As I am still unemployed I have started a website to promote myself as a Genealogist-For-Hire. Please tell all your friends and relatives about my new service. Here is a link to Catnip Hill Genealogy.

Thank you.

What's Blooming

2010-06-26T01:08:00.002-04:00

Sibley Update

2010-06-26T01:03:00.001-04:00

For the fans of Sibley the (formerly) feral house cat, today he started wearing a collar and name tag like all his brothers. He didn't try to rub it off or protest or hiss. He was a docile gentleman. I'm so proud of him! He still has the glowiest eyes in the family, however.

It's Daylily Time Again

2010-06-20T17:49:00.003-04:00

Here's whats blooming around the yard today.

I decided to try something new, being frustrated by the width of the last template of Hauser Haus. It doesn't have the vintage "feel" of the other template, however, but I did add some wood around the edges.

Late Spring 2010

2010-05-26T15:11:00.002-04:00

I haven't been doing much on the house lately because I'm concentrating on finding a job and selling things on Etsy, but took time out to take some pictures yesterday.

And here's the kitty nest.

Who's home?

Spring 2010 Is Happening!

2010-04-27T00:17:00.002-04:00

Sorry for being incommunicado all winter, but I was busy with my Etsy store and keeping warm, and projects in the basement were just not all that appealing.

This was March 20. You can see yard cleanup has already been happening and the patio swept of its winter detritus. Then boom! More winter.

Unhappy kitties, because the day before they were having a good time outside.

By March 31 we were back on track.

April 12. Two weeks later these are all on the ground.

Today the yard is fragrant with the last of the Golden current bush, the lilacs, and the lilies of the valley. I even saw two iris today.

R I P Loki

2009-12-25T20:53:00.001-05:00

I can't tell you how much I hate writing another post like this, but there isn't any home improvement going on lately to keep me occupied.

Loki, as I wrote previously, was in the habit of taking summer-long "vacations" away from home and yard and living in the next block somewhere. He may have snuck home for food after dark, but I didn't see him this year until just a week before Thanksgiving. He was skinny, going blind, and had no teeth. His fur looked good, though, so he was eating somewhere.

I think he contracted kidney disease over the summer, like several other of my cats had when they got older.

I knew it was just a matter of time before I would be digging another grave. I hoped he would make it until Spring when the ground is soft, but he died this morning just before 4:00 a.m. while I was petting him.

Fuzzy pic of Loki and his brother Tigger when they were kittens.

Loki

1 Oct 1996 - 25 Dec 2009

RIP Lexington

2009-11-29T14:46:00.001-05:00

2008-29 November 2009

Lexy died in his doctor's arms today. He had an internal injury that the doctor couldn't find. Goodbye my curious sweet-natured little boy. I'll miss your funny loud purr every night.

Followup on the Pit Bull Attack

2009-11-28T21:18:00.001-05:00

Lexington is staying at the vet all weekend because he is not doing as well as the vet would like. Dr wants to make sure he is eating well and the shunt is draining and Lexy is getting fluids, etc before he sends him home. That is fine with me. They can care for him much better than I can. Poor little guy.

I went out this morning to take pictures of the fence damage and have come to the conclusion that stupid dog got in my yard and broke the fence trying to get at Lexy (probably after chasing the other cats around first--they were all pretty panicked and ran inside when I was running out) I couldn't hear anything until the growling because I had the door shut.

The screws are only in about 1/2 inch, but it takes a lot of force to do this amount of damage. The attack happened right beside that bush on the terrace. Lexy was undoubtedly outside the fence in front of deranged neighbor's house on the left and tried to get home when he heard the ruckus. I will give these pictures to the Sheriff when he gets here on Monday.

Stupid Neighbors, Stupid Dog

2009-11-28T01:13:00.001-05:00

My cats go outside. Only when I am home and they are called in when it gets dark or is raining. They usually stay inside the fence, but like all cats and children, explore the neighbor's yards cautiously while making their rounds. Lexy likes to sit just outside the driveway gate where he can pop back in through the pickets when he wants to. I think it's cruel to make them stay inside when they don't want to and they are usually pretty good with coming when I call. I have some cats that don't want to go out. That's ok too. I also have one who lives outside most of the time because he pees on all vertical surfaces.

My entire yard has either a 6' board or 4' picket fence to keep out the dogs and children, but if one of them is determined they could still breach the perimeter. Some of the houses on my block have college students who never come outside, so the cats feel safe to explore their yards. Several yards have dogs. Several have kids. I have not had any problems with dogs or kids for a long time.

I heard a commotion outside this afternoon--sounded like cats growling--which I hear a lot because some of my cats are grouchy and like to chase each other around outside--but different somehow. I saw past the driveway gate a ball of yellow and black fur rolling around on the terrace. As I ran toward it I saw that there was a yellow dog fighting one of my black cats. I opened the gate and saw that there was a fence picket laying on the sidewalk so I picked that up and began whacking the dog's butt with it. It finally let go and I saw that it was a pit bull. I chased it to the corner as my cat limped back through the fence. When I got to the corner there was a girl with a leash, who I have seen walking this dog--always on a leash. She was alarmed that I was carrying a picket and I yelled that her dog had just attacked my cat--I'm not getting close to either of them at this point. I wanted to see where the dog went. The girl was getting belligerent as I explained that her dog had badly injured my cat and I was trying to see where she lived. She was not saying she was sorry this happened at ANY point during this confrontation. She was acting like her letting the dog run around outside without a leash was my fault.

Gotta love those stupid pit bull owners. It's never their fault when one of their uncontrollable dogs attacks a pet or a person.

As I was hurrying home to see how badly injured my cat was another cretinous neighbor--the one who gives me the bird every time he sees me and never fails to have a string of cursing ready to throw my way (because I told him when he stopped swearing at me I would start listening to him)--had the nerve to say. "See what happens when you don't keep your *&*&*## cats in your yard" I told him to shut up and kept walking and he kept flinging invectives at me so I stopped and yelled as loud as I could "I LOVE you Zeke and want to have your baby!" His look was priceless and he muttered that I was too stupid for him. I continued to say "But I LOVE you, Zeke" until I was in my own yard.* That's my new tactic for dealing with him. My way of swearing.

Lexy was badly injured and was having trouble walking so I took him into the house and got him in a box with towels and made a vet appointment. They graciously made room for me so I rushed him over. He was covered with dog spit, poor little guy. He crawled into my lap while I was driving.

His exam showed several puncture wounds and a massive rip of his lower belly that fortunately was just through the skin and fat--not touching organs or muscle. His fat tummy was an asset!

The vet called me after surgery and said Lexy was still touch and go but he would check on him later. I had an appointment to keep with a part-time job I have so I went after I got the report. There was nothing on my answering machine when I got home, so I'll assume everything is good for picking him up tomorrow.

I called the police to make a report and they referred me to Animal Control. Of course, their office was closed, so I called the Sheriff. A nice officer took my report and said that he couldn't get out to visit the dog's home until after the weekend, so one good thing is that they will worry all weekend what is going to happen to them. He will call me before he goes there to get an update on my cat.

When I came back from the vet's I noticed that the fence section with the missing picket was torn loose from the posts at both ends. This section had just been repaired 2 months ago, so it was secure. It looks like the stupid dog dragged my cat through the fence as he was trying to get away or something. It's not that easy to rip both sides of a fence loose and take a picket off without a lot of force. I will have to take pictures and repair this before the officer can get out here because a broken fence is an invitation in this neighborhood--especially with irresponsible pet owners around.

Oh, and my unemployment ran out two weeks ago and I have not been informed about any extensions. But I fought off a pit bull today.

*If you have ever looked at http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ this guy would fit right in. A cadaverously skinny redneck with an Ernhardt hat and shirt and a scuzzy gray ponytail who smokes and drags an oxygen canister around and is lately driving an electric cart. (Not) married to a fat bleached blonde with her own multiple ailments and a foul mouth to match his. I have known this couple for over 15 years and they have always been on some kind of medical assistance and banned from driving. No visible sign of income, and signs plastered all over their doors about their own dangerous dog, and Don't knock on the door, etc. A lovely couple who I am waiting to hear have died, but they never do, though they have come close a few times.

The Birds

2009-11-21T22:36:00.004-05:00

Pretty scary looking, isn't it? There were a lot more of them in the other trees, too, all screeching and pooping. I wore a hat to go out to the compost pile and was glad I did. This was last week when I was trying to do some outside painting while the weather was still in the 50's and not rainy. I had to wash the bird poop off the cellar doors twice before I could paint them, but did get a coat on that's relatively untouched. Got another coat on the front porch, too. Hopefully it will hold up over the winter. The undercoat and oil I put there last fall did not.

Here is the other thing I accomplished, which usually is cut short by snow.

I always pile them in the side yard and they flatten out over the winter. I have been piling them here for 15 years, so it must be pretty good soil by now.

The Cat Came Back!

2009-11-21T22:28:00.001-05:00

Loki came back tonight!

I had written him off last week as deceased over the summer. He has been taking summer vacations from home for the past 4 or so years and showing up again when it gets cold, but this year he was late, so I figured he was dead. He's back, but very bony and he has lost all his teeth. He is, after all, 13 years old, but very independent.

He is destined to be an inside cat now that I see his condition is deteriorating, even though it will be a battle with the other cats, as it always is. That is why he runs away. He is basically timid and the other cats intimidate him and chase him, so he runs to the next block where there must be some source of shelter for him (even though I provide warmth and shelter right here) and sneaks back for food. As there are many animals eating my outside cat food I was not aware he was also eating it.

Loki's sib, Tigger, died last summer. So far he is not eating that wonderful, rarely seen canned cat food I prepared specially for him, though he did lick the can. I hope he is not also sick.

A Pissed-Off Pussy

2009-10-28T16:55:00.001-04:00

Poor little Bertie! On Saturday morning I noticed that his right ear was all swollen like a balloon. Of course I couldn't get to the vet until Monday, so I took him in and the diagnosis was hematoma caused by ear mites. Somehow the mites made his ear fill up with blood.

I had to leave him to have an operation the next day to drain the pocket and quilt his ear back together. That's right. Quilt his ear back together. He ended up staying two nights and I just went and got him. He is having quite a problem navigating. He wants to travel close to the walls and objects instead of just going down the middle and keeps bumping into things. I think they fastened the cone too narrow and want to widen it out a bit so he can eat and see and not be all squished in there, but he won't let me do it right now. It's held together with duct tape, so will be quite the project.

I have a couple kitties traumatized under the bed right now because they saw this monster in their kitchen. Sibley is acting quite courageous and stalking Bertie to get a good sniff. Three of the kitties have not seen him yet, so there will be more drama later. I took the hood off one of the litter boxes so he can use it, but that may prove to be the most attractive box in the house. (Not in the pretty sense.)

I have to take him back in two weeks to get the stitches out and he has to wear the collar the whole time. We'll see. His poor little ear is covered by pink sutures.

Storm Windows Finished

2009-10-17T20:05:00.001-04:00

They're done! The hardest part was fiddling around with the hooks and eyebolts to hold them in. There wasn't a lot of room between the storms and the windows, and there was a quarter-round trim piece holding the windows in, so had to screw to that. Not being able to stretch out the length of the hook makes the storms a little jiggly. The maid's room feels warmer already. Next is replacing some torn insulation and eradicating some bird condos

Fall is so depressing. It's my most unfavorite time of year next to winter.

The only saving grace is fall crocuses.

Installing Spring Bronze Weatherstripping

2009-10-11T19:33:00.002-04:00

While the putty is drying on the storm windows I have finished two coats of exterior paint on the multi-paned windows and shaved the edges down a little to make room for the spring bronze weatherstripping.

I purchchased a box of it and the bronze nails to install it with here. It is a little hard to work with if you are doing this by yourself, and another person holding the ends down would have helped a whole lot, but I got 'er done.

It's really easy to cut with tinsnips. I laid it on the floor after measuring around two sides and the bottom of the opening, standing on the coil with one foot and measuring and cutting and holding it down with the other foot. The nails go through it like butter and they are placed about an inch apart.

At the corners, to get a nice crease, I nailed down to near the bottom then placed a block of wood in the corner and hit it from two sides with a hammer to bend the bronze. At the end, instead of cutting off the excess I just bent it to a 45 degree angle.

For the top piece I measured about an inch longer and bent the ends and stuck them behind the side pieces and hammered them in.

The hardest part is the last--bending the weatherstripping to have "spring". You take a screwdriver or flat scraper and insert it under the strip and pull towards you all along the length of the strip. I then inserted my windows and temporarily tacked them in with scraps of wood because I will have to take them out again next week sometime when the putty finally dries and I give the storms two coats of exterior paint.

I had intended to also add the missing outside sash trim at this time, but don't have the router bit I need ($97!!) to put the right profile on it. I had a carpenter lined up to do this for me but just before I was walking out the door he asked me what profile I needed. I said that I had indicated which one in my email, but I guess he didn't read it, because he said he had no panel bits at all. Oh well. Greg! Come to Michigan and bring your panel bit!

By the way, I'm loving the fact that Blogger finally got their act together and made picture insertion so much easier! You all know what I mean!

Making Storm Windows

2009-10-07T17:09:00.003-04:00

Following are the steps I'm using in making storms for these windows, which I had made 15 years ago to go in the wall that was repaired because it was rotten from the water eating away at it for years (previous owner).

First I measured the space, bought the wood, cut and mitered it, then routed a channel on the inside edge of the outside of the window with the bit in the lower right of this fuzzy picture (sorry!).

I am a router novice, but am learning. I made two passes a little over 1/8" deep each to make a nice deep shelf for the glass about half-way through the depth of the frame. It ended up being about 1/2" deep.

Then I assembled the frame with glue and corner clamps and then secured it on the back side with flat screw-on corner braces, since I don't have a fancy biscuit-cutter for joining. Note to self: Never use the table saw for mitering again!

After painting an undercoat on the whole frame I purchased glass and put it in with glazier's points. Gotta admit, that routing looks sweet!

Then I smushed glazier's putty around the frame, covering the points. It's ok to be a little messy at this point--just don't get putty all over the glass.

Then take the putty knife--be sure it is not rusty and rough--and start at a corner, tilting it at an angle that meets the top edge of the frame on the other side and is tight to the bottom of the frame on the other. Easier done than said. It is about a 45 degree slant on the knife. Just keep it nice and firm--use two hands if that helps--and slowly drag it to the other corner. At the corner, lift the knife up making a nice bevel in the corner. If your putty is fresh, this will go quickly.

AAAACCCKKKK I don't believe it! I ran out of putty 8 inches from being finished! This was a new 8 oz container and it didn't even do two windows roughly 36" by 34". Must keep that in mind. I'm going out later and was going to stop at Meijer's on my way home, so will have to add another container to the list. It will take days to dry, so adding the final 8" won't be a problem. I have to put another coat of paint on the multi-paned windows anyway and then put the spring bronze weatherstripping around the opening.

I'm going to hold the storms in with hooks and eyes as I don't want to climb a latter and hang them from the outside, although this would be the best way to do them. These windows are going to be fixed-in-place windows so I'll just have to remove the inside moldings if and when the storms need attention in the future.

Buy Locally

2009-10-04T02:07:00.002-04:00

I really want to support local businesses instead of national chains, but it's hard. It's really hard.

I'm finally getting around to weatherizing the former maid's room that had an exterior wall replacement in 1995. Has it really been that long? I had stuck some insulation between the studs on the inside and called it done until it was remodeled into a bigger bathroom/laundry. Well, no timeline on when THAT will happen, yet, but the windows needed attention.

When I removed them I found that some of the putty has dried out, some new paint is called for, and there is some rot starting on the bottom of one where the gutter drips onto the sill. There was also some rot starting on the outside sash, so I gouged it out and got out the WoodEpox and LiquidWood and took care of that problem. Also silicone caulked where necessary and painted the trim and sill. I undercoated the inside of the sash and sanded the edges. I need to take off about 1/8 " on a side and bottom because I'm installing spring bronze weatherstripping around these windows when I put them back in.

While I had the windows out I thought I might as well replace the decorative trim that went on the outside sash and build storm windows. This is what precipitated the trip to the local lumberyard.

This local business, about one mile away, has been around for probably over 100 years at this site, but has really trimmed back on products and services. If you want a really nice piece of clear pine instead of sorting through hundreds of holey, bent, twisted, and rotted pieces of wood at Menard's or Home Depot this is the place to go. You also pay well for it.

I needed, ultimately (2) pieces of 2" x 1" x 10' and (2) 2-1/2" x 1" x 12' for my trim and storms. I like to pick out my own wood. I also asked if they had a carpenter on site who would make my trim. The answer was "not today" but he is in on Friday. (This was last Wednesday.) I said "Never mind. Do you have a card of a carpenter?" They gave me one and I will be seeing him on Monday--hopefully he will work out because I periodically need a carpenter.

I headed out to the wood shop after horrified looks from the counter staff. I told them I wanted to pick out my own wood and had been doing it there for years. (I have gone there periodically over the years.) The worker in the wood shop was nice and polite but denser than waterlogged cedar. I told him what I wanted and he started wandering around looking for it. There were no stacks of lumber cut to size back there. They seem to cut all on demand. We found two nice pieces--one 12' long and one 14' long. I explained over and over and over what I wanted him to do and finally found out that I had to pay for all the cuts to make the pieces I wanted. Vertical cuts were $1.25 and horizontal cuts were $.50. Naturally I wanted to make as few as possible. The wood was 6" wide, so this guy wanted to make two vertical cuts in each and lop off 2' from the 14 footer. That was unacceptable and I finally convinced him just to cut at 2" vertically on each piece and cut off 2' from the 14 footer. This took quite a while to get across. I then went inside the store to get the lumber order for him to get my order. This had morphed from me wanting 4 pieces of lumber to "creating" 4 pieces of lumber and when she wrote it up it was $45! I suspected it wasn't right, but went out to have it cut. The worker also said that it wasn't right but he would get them to revise it after he was done, and then he cut them at 2-1/2"! I had lost patience, so said "That's fine. Leave it like that."

I had been charged for the 14' piece of wood, even though I was leaving 2' behind. This stuff was $1.52/bd foot. I got a refund, but I think they made an error to my credit. I tried to buy the other things I needed there, but they only had one corner brace in the box and they were 69 cents each.

It took so long there that I had no time left to go to the hardware store for the braces and sandpaper so I just went carefully home with my 12' boards sticking out of my 6' truck bed during rush-hour traffic. I ended up going to Meijers later and got two packages of braces, 4 to a package, with all the screws for about $1.99/package.

I really want this business to succeed but don't see how they can if they sell wood like that. I only had them rip it because I wanted the 12' pieces and they are too long for me to handle on the table saw by myself, not having a wood roller thingie. They do have nice wood, though.

I've cut and mitered the storm window pieces and routed out 1/2" for the glass to sit on and glued them up. Tomorrow I'll screw the corner braces on and undercoat and paint them and Monday will go for some glass and if I get up early enough, get it put in. I have to use corner braces because I don't have a bisquit joiner or screw pocket gizmo.

It started raining the day after I took the windows out, so we'll see if the weather will cooperate until I get these holes in my house filled.

Piano Stool Transformation

2009-09-20T17:07:00.001-04:00

Finally got it done today. Ain't she a beauty? This was the worst strip job I've ever done. All those grooves and curves! Found the best tool was good old steel wool and a dental pick. I opted to make it look new instead of leaving the feet all brown and rust-encrusted. The glass balls are really chewed up on the bottoms but they still shine.

Since the wooden seat top was missing and someone put that rough wood on there I made a nice thick cushion and used some crushed velvet I had laying around and tacked it tight all around. I found some fringe that matched perfectly to cover the tacks and give it some oomph. In the picture the colors are a little off. In reality the trim matches.

More "Projects"

2009-09-01T00:43:00.009-04:00

Take a look at the neat Eastlake-Style Gentleman's Chair I picked up Sunday at Allegan for $30.

>

Lexington says "I'm a Gentleman".

I'm thinking that this is quite late in the Eastlake period as the decoration looks more modern than on the other chairs I have. It's missing casters on the feet and needs better upholstery, but it is in good shape and just has one repair that I can see.

I also picked up this piano stool for $35. It needs some tlc and somebody removed the wooden seat when they "upholstered" it, so I will probably make a leather padded seat for it.

Here it is after removing 72 staples and foam and the blanket cover. I found a layer of Depression Green under the white and the glass feet are really chipped and ground down, so this poor little stool has seen a lot of rough use.

I had a nice closeup of one of the claw feet but Purrcey got in the way.

After I had bought this and taken it back to the truck I found another one for $30 that was in better shape. Oh well! Will post progress reports.

Time for a Little Politics

2009-08-06T14:54:00.004-04:00

Our governor, Jennifer Granholm (MI - D), in her infinite wisdom, has decided, probably upon pressure from benefitting interests, to demolish the State of Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries (HAL). That was not enough. She also decided to establish a brand spanking new "Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention". It will have a board of nine members to divvy up the carcass of HAL. Here is the makeup of that board. (I have just found out that Blogger will not let me cut and paste.)

"Nine members will form the Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention Board: the director of the Department of Natural Resources, superintendent of public instruction, and seven gubernatorial appointees. Three of the members selected by the governor will be from a list of candidates nominated by President Simon, and a fourth will be from a list of candidates nominated by Mayor Bernero. The board will issue its final report to the governor by June 1, 2010."

Look at that list. The DNR, three cronies of the president of MSU, a person selected by the Mayor of Lansing, the "superintendent of public instruction"--that leaves three people without an agenda, but they will also be hand-picked by the governor. This does not look good for historians, genealogists, and preservationists in the State of Michigan.

If you read the article I linked to above and scroll down to the very bottom you see what happens to the State Historic Preservation Review Board. It goes to MSHDA! All the irreplaceable historical records and books go to the DNR! And they will "evaluate and implement additional cost saving measures". What does that mean? Will our archives end up as litter in the bottom of animal cages, or as landfill in some state park? Why put an agency devoted to the outdoors in charge of things that should be stored INDOORS? And with MSHDA running the Historic Preservation Review Board will we now be mandated to use vinyl windows and siding and "encapsulate" all lead paint? I shudder to think what will happen.

The Department of Education will now be running the Library of Michigan with the same caveat to "evaluate and implement additional cost saving measures". Oh, wonderful.

And who will get the wonderful, almost new building just two blocks from the capitol? Why, probably MSU!

Here are some links to articles written by other concerned genealogists/historians:
http://mimgc.org/LOM.html
http://globalgenealogy.com/globalgazette/gazsh/gazsh-0034.htm
http://http//www.mla.lib.mi.us/node/1027

If you are a resident of the State of Michigan, please take the time to let the governor know how you feel about this at this link: http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168-21995-65331--,00.html

Sorry for all the links, but this is an important issue and I wanted to cover all the bases.

A Little Reconstruction, Fini

2009-08-05T16:21:00.004-04:00

Had a few days of rain and/or wind over the weekend, and, as I was doing this outside I had to wait. Finally got the chair finished yesterday. I had some Formby's "Tung Oil Finish" here so tried that and it looks great. Got some clear shoe polish for the leather seat, put on two coats and it's nice and shiny. Worn and beat up, but hey, it's old. I'd had to remove some ugly paint splotches from it already.

My mother offered me another chair just like it, but not broken--just in need of some TLC so I'm taking it. I have no idea what I'll do with it, but it's solid oak with a leather seat, so it will look nice no matter where I put it.

A little dark, but I didn't feel like hauling it back outside.
Now I need to finish the sideboard. . . .

A Little Reconstruction, Part Tres

2009-07-31T22:04:00.007-04:00

I ran into a little snag today with my router. I have had it for a long time, but haven't used it very often, but want to get more proficient with it. I know it's bottom-of-the-line, but should work ok for what I want to do with it. I just had to make one of these:

They hold the seat on. First off, I couldn't find the owner's manual for the router. I always like to check them out before I operate any of the machines I have around here because I don't use them all that often. Looked in all the places it should have been. Don't remember seeing it for a long time, so the ex must have put it somewhere. So I went online and found one in 15 minutes. I love the internet! Printed it out for free and figured out how to get the cutter on and off.

I cut up a piece of the right thickness of wood and started trying to set the height of the cutter. Another problem. The thing you're supposed to turn to raise and lower the cutter got jammed up by my weak girly hands and I had to take the stupid thing apart to re-align it. Got that done and then the stupid fences kept moving no matter how tight I turned the thumb-screws. I even hit them with a hammer and they still moved. So the piece I ended up with is not pretty but very functional.

Got them glued and hammered into place. By this time it was 8:00 at night and I wasted all afternoon on it. But hey! I'm unemployed and have nothing else to do. Still haven't checked to see if I have any poly for tomorrow . . .

A Little Reconstruction, Part Dos

2009-07-30T22:30:00.008-04:00

I cleaned up the dried glue around the pegs and dry-fitted some of the pieces together. While I had some pieces clamped I was working by the compost bin on the other side of the garage and heard something happening high over my head. A dead branch broke off (probably a fat squirrel) and fell right where I had been standing a few minutes before. I rushed over to see if my chair was ok and had it cleaned up before I thought to take a picture.

Here is the tree. I put everything away because storm clouds were rolling in.

And here are the pieces of the limb.

Scary how you can get hurt just standing under a tree with no wind blowing. Anyway . . .

I went back outside after I was certain it was not going to rain after all and I got the chair glued together and clamped.

Tomorrow I will clean up the stain some more and put some poly on it if I have some. I have to fabricate a small screwing block for the seat, too. It's amazing the trust we put in a few little pegs and some glue that's all that's between our butts and the floor.

A Little Reconstruction

2009-07-29T23:15:00.017-04:00

Thought I'd tackle one of the many "projects" I have sitting around the house. This is one sad chair I got from my mother. I don't know what happened to it--maybe someone dropped something heavy on it--anyway, some of the pegs were broken off and it fell apart.

I had to really work to get all the broken pieces off the chair and ended up cutting through some of the pegs with a coping saw. The plan is to drill out and replace the pegs and glue it back together and refinish it. I have already used Formby's Refinisher on it and removed a lot of the darkened shellac and finish. It's solid oak and sort of Mission-style and will go nicely with the Mission-style desk my father gave me.

On the left is one of the stringers. Unfortunately, the dowel ends, which were integral with the stringer have broken off. I will have to drill them out and put in pegs. They will not be as strong, but will hopefully stay together. On the right is one of the pieces of the seat frame.

Here are the steps I took to remove the glued-in old pegs.

I clamp the piece to a horse, padding it with a washcloth and get my biggest drill bit and drill through the center of the pegs.

Then I get a skinny wood chisel and a hammer and start tapping and prying out the rest of the glue and dowel. It doesn't look pretty and the edges get a little ragged, but they will be covered up when I'm done.

I can't take a picture of that step because I don't have another hand.

I got these nifty tools the other day. I could really do some damage with these puppies!

I cleaned up the holes with the appropriate size spade bit.

Then I glued in the pegs and glued and clamped some cracks and let it dry overnight.

Great New Old House Pics

2009-06-14T22:26:00.006-04:00

I just got back from a visit with a granddaughter of the woman in this pic who grew up in my house, which was built by her aunt and uncle. She inherited some wonderful photos and I had her copy them for me in high res. This is a pic of the house that was on the corner of Sibley and Gold, which is now my yard and garden. When we blew it up to look at the details I was looking at my front porch! I had thought that this house was torn down before my house was built so there would be room to work, but this proves me wrong. What is great about this is this is the first time I have seen exactly what my porch railing looked like--also the brick and sandstone piers on either side of the front steps. Now I actually have something to show a carpenter to reproduce for me. Note the new cement sidewalks with the wooden boards leading to the streets. There are no curbs, so the streets are unpaved as yet. They were first done in brick and asphaulted over now.

Here is the original picture. Notice the street signs on the corner of the house reading "Gold" and "Sibley".

Here is a blowup of my front porch (the brick one) and the house next door's front porch which doesn't look like that anymore--it was redone in brick and cement and later vinylized.

So check out that corner post. When blown up you can see four round ornaments in a row on all four sides--they are catching the sun. I had an AHA moment when I saw those. Back when we excavated the Egyptian tomb that was the cement steps leading up to the entrance to the second floor apartment, which went up the front stairwell, I found this wooden ornament.

So, what do you think? That's a CD case its sitting on to show the size. Too big? Perfect? There can be no other place in the house this thing would go as there is no ornamentation at all anywhere but on the two mantels--and this is not oak.

Here is a pic of the back of the house on the corner taken in front of the carriage-house-that-is-no-more, built for my house. I can't tell if my house has been built yet or not, so am not sure of the date of this pic. You can see the church across the street and the other houses in the neighborhood that are all still standing, although vinylized, as is the church. They even covered over the bell! You can also see a pole and wires here. I do not know if these are telephone or electric wires, but my house was built for gas only and converted in the 'teens to electricity.

Just before my house was built there were 6 people living in this house--possibly 7. Augusta Schmitt, son Crescencz and his two children (and possibly his 2nd wife), and daughter Rosa and her husband Charles Hauser.

Sibley Update

2009-06-10T15:47:00.009-04:00

I thought you might like to see photos of Sibley the Feral Cat's progress towards becoming a Tame Cat.

Here he is getting petted while I am sitting in my computer chair. This is now a nightly routine for him.

He really is enjoying this! If I stop he stands up and taps me on the arm for more. I still don't dare pick him up, however.

He will lay on the floor and watch me at the computer.

He also wants to be petted when I am eating at the table in the kitchen. It seems whenever I am in a chair he is not afraid. The only place he doesn't want my attention is in the bathroom--which is the place all the other cats seem to think is where I am doing nothing and should be petting them.

This is Bertie, Sibley, and Purrcey on the kitchen floor.

This is Bertie and Sibley enjoying some catnip sleeping pads on the bathtub in the dining room. (Don't we all have bathtubs in the dining room beside antique stoves and half-refinished Victorian sideboards?)

He is progressing daily and knows his name and will perk up when he knows I am talking to him, but still will not come when called. He hangs around when the other kitties are getting treats, but is still somewhat afraid of having treats tossed to him and a little slow on the whole treat thing, so doesn't get too many when greedy Tommy is around.

Right now he is sleeping in a chair in the room with me, but still aware of every noise I make so I don't sneak up on him and kill him.

Cristallo Lighting

2009-03-14T18:20:00.005-04:00

My taste in lighting fixtures tends towards the Edwardian/Victorian end of the spectrum, but I just love this collection! Look at the beading on the shades. I think these would look great in any restored home.

You can see the rest of the collection here.

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with this company.

Kissed By A Feral Cat

2009-02-08T19:50:00.003-05:00

This is Sibley.

He is a feral cat. I trapped him on the back porch last Spring, got him neutered, and then, not wanting to release him back outside to fend for himself, released him into my house. These pictures were taken several months after. He hides most of the time I am around--most lately under my bed, and when I enter a room I see a fluffy yellow tail leaving it. Sometimes he will lay on the floor in the kitchen with the other cats when I am at the kitchen table quietly reading late at night. I turn and speak to him and use his name so he will feel included. As soon as I get up he is gone. He has learned to play with cat toys, batting them down the stairs and in the bathtub, and he and the other cats play chase up and down the stairs and down the hall. He has always been a gentleman and uses the cat box and has no problem finding the food and water, as you can see by his picture.

I have not touched him since soon after he came here, when he used to cower in a cat house and I would touch his nose. When cornered he has said terrible things to me and rushed past to escape the horrible things I am going to do to him. All my other cats love him and get along just fine. I pet them in his presence to show him that I am not going to kill him. He has entered my bedroom, sitting just inside the door, to watch me as I am sleeping. I wake up and say Hi to him. He snuggles on top of my clothes on the vanity stool, and lately he has been sleeping on my bed when I am actually IN IT! Last week I woke to see him on the other pillow--just 12 inches away, and he didn't run.

This morning I woke up and, as is their custom, the other cats came and stood on me and started purring and getting their morning pets. I had one in each armpit and two on my chest, several on my feet, and one on the other pillow, and Sibley was on the far side of the bed. (A double, so I can reach both sides.) I pet Spot and got him all purry and happy and he went over and started washing Sibley's head and ears. Spot is my best ear washer. I reached over and pet Spot and started petting Sibley. He didn't object, and soon he was actually PURRING. This is the first sound he has made other than a hiss. Soon he was rolling over on his back, stretching out his feet, and giving my hand little kitty kisses. He didn't want me to stop. He found out that hands are good. I withdrew my hand to pet the other cats and then resumed petting Sibley several times. Each time, he kissed my hand and rolled over so I could scratch his chest. He was making little purry whimpery noises and then he rolled off the bed!

I dozed off and he was back when I woke up. I pet him again and got up. I haven't seen him the rest of the day.

W00t!! Progress!

Misty

2009-01-05T22:52:00.003-05:00

Misty

24 October 1994

5 January 2009

RIP

Ebay - The End of an Era (Non House Related)

2008-12-22T22:49:00.004-05:00

Back in 1997 when the internet was all new and fun I discovered eBay. What fun I had buying things and meeting new people--some bad, but most good. I slowly built up my feedback purchase by purchase--all positive, until that time I tried to be a seller. It only took one newbie jerk to ruin my 100% feedback rating. Of course, I negged them, too, and it wasn't long before they were gone for negative feedback.

Selling didn't work out for me. Out of 100 listings I only sold about 6 items--for about what I had paid for them initially--and the fees ate up all the profit. I didn't try it again, though I was "always going to". Now I never will.

Why, you ask? Well, I guess you haven't been buying recently. Or maybe you have and wondered why you can't find any auctions you can pay for with a check or a money order. Have you also noticed that you cannot contact any of the sellers directly anymore? There is no more personal contact. The great world marketplace is going paperless.* Sellers can no longer list any payment methods other than PayPal or ProPay, methods conveniently owned by eBay. If they do, they are kicked off eBay! I understand that if you contact a seller early in the auction, preferably through a non-eBay email method, you can arrange for a surreptitious check or money order payment, but I'm not sure how you can circumvent the Checkout procedure which requires you to use one of these methods.

My last purchase was for a local item and I drove to pick it up and paid for it with cash. Sadly, that will be my last purchase. No longer will I browse page after page of goodies I want to bid on and own because I refuse to knuckle under and have a PayPal account. I have resisted ever since their inception--hearing horror story after horror story about screwed up accounts, exhorbitant fees, and missing money. I just don't want to trust my money to a third party. I suppose this makes me a dinosaur in the eyes of some younger people who do all their transactions by card or electronically. Some of them probably have no clue about how to write a check or balance a checkbook with a bank statement. (Even my bank refuses to send me a statement any more. I have been forced to sign up for E-statements. The bank says they are going paperless. Ha! I still have to print it out at home, so where's the tree-saving? They have also put me on an allowance of 10 checks per month before they start charging me to process them.) I like the process of writing down every purchase and deposit. It keeps me aware of where my money is going and how much I have at any given time. If I miss recording a check, it is immediately apparent. I didn't even have a credit card until 1994 when I got married and needed to purchase some big ticket items for the house.

But back to eBay. Paypal, and it's parent, eBay, now has a double dip into every transaction on its site. They have also taken something that was fun and turned it into a chore. A friend of mine in Germany, who has sold on eBay forever, and has a PayPal account out of necessity for International transactions, is also upset with the change. In fact, it was he who drew my attention to the change in the first place. The fees associated with selling have gone up appreciably, as the market for collectibles of all kinds has dropped, making it not the money-maker it used to be.

Hopefully all the people who will leave eBay will go back to selling locally and we will see an upsurge in the collectibles economy, and more antique malls. Us dinosaurs still have spending power

*You may have to have an eBay account to read this article. It's pretty scary--full of YOU MUST this, and YOU MUST NOT that.

Second Parlor Picture Update

2008-12-14T20:14:00.004-05:00

The sender of the wonderful pictures sent me the uncropped version of the second parlor/music room pic. This one includes the window treatment, the papered ceiling, and a ceiling gas light not in the center of the room. How neat is this! You can see the border better and I can locate the exact hole in the casing used for the tieback. Interesting to me is the use of simple lace curtains instead of fancy velvet curtains. This is about 1900 if the girl is age 15. They may have given up fancy curtains, but the piano drapery is pure Victorian! Rose, the younger, gave piano lessons in this room. Rose and Charles Hauser were her aunt and uncle and she lived with them.

New Old Pics

2008-12-05T21:26:00.007-05:00

Wow! Look at this! It's a picture of my second parlor and I'm sitting right now where the girl is, typing on my computer. The walls don't look anywhere near as nice as that and there is no carpeting. The sender didn't identify the girl, but the man is Charles Hauser, and they are in the music room, so labeled on the fuse box, or second parlor. She is probably his niece, Rose. The sender is her grandson.

He also sent me this picture of Charles' wife, Rosa. (update: After looking at this picture again, I realized it couldn't be Rosa, as she was born in 1855, and this is clearly a carte-de-visite from the mid 1860's. It has to be Rosa's mother, Mary Augusta Schmitt.)

And this nice picture of them out in the yard somewhere. This is undoubtedly on Union Street in Heritage Hill where the Hausers spent their last years. The clothing looks to be late 30's.

I was working on my history/genealogy program of the West Side's early German families when I ran across this great website. Since these families went to the same church, worked in the same factories, and lived in the same neighborhood, they were all intermarried. I have quite an extensive database on them and now I can add some more dates and pictures and fill in a few missing pieces on some of the families.
I will definitely be printing that top picture to hang in my music room. (If I ever get it done!)

Fixing the Porch

2008-11-25T20:59:00.006-05:00

I totally forgot to post about fixing the rotten elements of my front porch this summer and fall. It had been rebuilt about 1996, but water and snow had taken their toll on an exposed corner and several floorboards and trim boards were rotten. This is a pic from 1996.

Of course I had help!

It was due for a paint, too, so I primed all reachable surfaces. This corner is most exposed to the elements, and, as tongue and groove floorboards don't come in pressure-treated wood it is likely that I will be doing this again in 10 years. I removed the grille parts and replaced the boards chewed by squirrels and repainted them, too. The trim pieces nearest the ground were also replaced. Finished up and gave it one coat. Will do another in the Spring. It was a little difficult bullnosing that long board. I had to go get a neighbor man to "catch" the end of the board for me. Next year I'll build some adjustable rollers for long pieces of wood.

In case you're wondering why there is no railing, I don't have a picture of this corner of the house, so don't know what it looked like. I can just barely see a piece of it in one picture. I had hoped there was a carriage step on this side, but there is no evidence for it, which is strange, because the carriage drive is right here between the houses. Perhaps the Hausers got in at the barn. There was one stall in the barn, so I know there had to be a tiny paddock in the back, too. It would be nice to have a picture of the carriage and horse. (By the way, that gray paint you see on the bricks was not done by me! A leftover from the ex, who was a painter. Ha!)
How do you like the drainpipe? You can see that water had eaten my mortar for a long time before I replaced the gutters when I bought the house in 1994. Then there's that awful red and white paint and those horrible stoop piers or whatever they're called. But lets not go there.
Have a nice Thanksgiving everyone!

The Kitty Urinal

2008-11-15T21:38:00.007-05:00

The other night while I was refinishing furniture in the basement, where I do not allow the kitties, I was smelling cat pee quite strongly. I was right under the wall between the stairs and the front parlor where there is a large hole in the floor for the passage of an ancient steam pipe. The kitties like to watch me through this hole and throw their toys down it to watch them float around when it rains in the basement. I looked around and saw a large dried puddle on the floor directly below this hole that wasn't there last time I was down here. The little beasts had found a new way to torture me!

Note the dimples in the boards from the very heavy cast iron radiator that used to sit here. This hole is not a very good example of Victorian carpentry, so may be a later addition. Anyway, the plan is to square up the floor boards and leave the subfloor to hold a patch.

This is Purrcey saying "Wow. Look at that hole. It would make a great urinal! But I would never do a bad thing like that Mom." Sure he wouldn't.
I pulled off the shoe molding and found an entire ecosystem living under there.

I scraped it all up and vacuumed and scrubbed the floor then got out my ancient jugsaw which I had forgotten I had bought years ago until just recently when I needed to cut a circle out of a board. I started squaring up the hole. Of course the blade broke so I had to go to the hardware store. It seems that everyone had the same idea today so I parked at Wendy's and walked over, got two blades and waited in a long line to check out. They keep all their blades and tools locked up since the last time I bought anything here. How annoying! And how tragic that they have to do this.
Finished the squaring up by eye. Set up the table saw in the basement and cut a patch.

I can't believe it fit on the first try!

Yeah, I know you can see it, but this floor will eventually be coverd by carpeting and is not fine hardwood. I didn't feel like getting out the caulk. You can see my plaster washers here. This wall is trashed and I will probably have to drywall it instead of save it.

The Lion In Fall

2008-09-26T22:00:00.004-04:00

The old boy is looking a bit battered after a summer of rain of Biblical proportions and some freaky hail. His crunchy coating is wearing off his nose and the rain is eating it away.

You can see the hail damage on the plant above.

So, should I leave him out all winter and let nature have at him or put him in the garage?

The Mysterious Hole in the Ground

2008-09-21T21:59:00.014-04:00

In my back yard beside the cement floor of the old carriage house next to where the single stall was is a hole in the ground. I discovered it one day when I was burying a dead bird. I hit cement and found a metal bowl filled with cement plugging up a crockery lined hole that went straight down. I dug it out as far as I could and didn't find the bottom. Since it is beside the stall I figured it was for pouring waste water down. I filled it with water and it slowly drained away, and I have used it a few times for dumping wash water. I have not yet discovered where the house drain field was, so it may be here, but it is a long way from the house.

One Cat

Two Cats

I rebuilt the top of the hole with cement and made a nice surround for it and made a plywood cover. That disintegrated a few years ago and it has been covered by a piece of plastic. Remember the pieces of the green man table? Well, here is what I did with the table top.

Incidentally, at the top right of this photo you can see the end of the horse stall cleanout ditch. It is an indentation in the floor of the stall you can see also in the picture below beside Beezer which led out of the foundation wall to another small drain field. When I excavated this I found a lot of rocks, and not too far down, so I just added some more rocks and covered it back up. (Yes that is a toilet.)
Four Cats

And - - Five Cats!

At the back of this picture is my cat cemetery complete with pink flamingos.

More about the strange drainage features around the house.

When built, the house had a cistern built into the basement into which the South side of the roof drained. There had been some sort of collection box on the roof which diverted the rainwater into a galvanized gutter pipe (still in place inside the wall) and into the cistern. This was located under the downstairs bathroom which shared the sewer stack with the kitchen on the other side of the wall. I don't know how the water was utilized, but lots of houses used this for doing laundry. There is a pipe through the wall near the bottom of the cistern which was probably connected to the washer.

On the North side of the house the front roof drain emptied into this cast iron pipe. See it with some cement rubble at the top of it down by the water course.

When I was leveling the ground here preparatory to laying the brick sidewalk I found that this pipe went towards the yard, and then turned and went back towards the back yard. I followed it up to the back steps and lost it.
The roof drain at the back went down to this.....

which I excavated a little, but since I had already put in a garden and a huge mound of dirt, I didn't do a full-scale dig. This pipe just ended about 3 feet beyond the visible end. I put in a small rock drain field, but should really dig it up and do it again to take care of some of my water problems. My thinking at the time was that the cistern must be about where this garden is, as this is where I lost both pipes.
At the South side of the house there are two other interesting water features. One was built after the cistern system either failed or was no longer needed and the gutters were re-configured. I found it buried under 10 inches of fill, which also was over the wood sills of the basement.
I have rebuilt this, but it has been severely water-damaged and needs some attention. I also dug out a small drain field at the foot of this, but really need to do it again, as my basement floods every time it rains. There is only about ten feet between houses at this point, and nowhere for me to direct this water except if I do something illegal, like directing it down this convenient storm drain, below. It's just past the white board.
It is a cast iron pipe surrounded by a cement sleeve, which used to have a ceramic jacket, and capped off with a cast iron removeable cap. The plumber says it goes to the storm sewer. In this picture you can see how close the houses are. This used to be a driveway back to the carriage house. The next door neighbors must have been pretty generous with their privacy, as the drive would have encroached on their property. There is an illegal curb cut and apron at the end of this, past my fence, which overlaps the property line. The fence was the first thing I did upon buying the house. The neighbors were parking cars right there by my front porch.
I can't run a drain pipe through this area without digging up the berms I put in in the front as a way to get rid of all this dirt I dug out. As you can see, I have already got half of it dug out at this point. Found some neat old bottles here and a lot of cobblestones. That pipe sticking out of the ground used to keep the carriage driver from sideswiping the house. The cement steps weren't there at the time and that was the corner of the house.

Almost a VERY BAD DAY

2008-08-12T14:31:00.005-04:00

This started out to be a VERY BAD DAY.

I got up at noon (I was up 'til the wee hours) and tottered into the bathroom. Turned on the tap and just a trickle. How could that be? I had just had a couple brothers over on Saturday to help replace the toilet seal and had turned the water on and off and there had been no problem. In fact, I had watered the lawn the evening before.

I hurriedly dressed, with a bunch of thirsty kitties meowing for water as their bowl needed filling and I couldn't do it. I couldn't even wash my face. Got downstairs and the kitchen just trickled too. Went to the basement turnoff and eeeeeekkkk! water all over the floor and pouring through the front wall by the intake. The water meter was spinning and I could hear the sssssss sound of water. I turned off the intake (so I thought--it is really old and you have to turn it many times) and rushed upstairs to call the city to turn off my water.

I thought I had a break in my feed from the street, which, to my knowledge, hasn't been worked on since 1892. I have always worried about that. Got the water department to come out right away and they would check things out and tell me what to do. I also searched through the yellow pages for a plumber--not an easy task when you don't have a regular plumber--and got one who would be right out.

While waiting for the water man to come I went outside to get some water from a watering can to water the cats. Went to the back hose to see if there was any water left in it for the can. To my surprise, water came out and I was able to fill the can. I guess I was not thinking too clearly at this point--my thoughts were all towards how I was going to pay for the tearing up of my front walk and deal with no water for a while. Since there was still water coming out I had not turned the water off completely, so went back to the basement and gave the handle a few more turns. Good. The meter stopped spinning and the hissing sound stopped. Dooohhhhhh! With all the noise in my neighborhood lately with capenters and other workmen I get used to hearing noises and don't always get curious as to what they may be. I just panicked and figured the meter running had something to do with the supposed break in the line outside my foundation, and the hissing was water pouring into the ground from the break.

Took some water to the upstairs sink so I could at least wash my face. While up there I heard the city truck in the street.

I went downstairs and out the front door to talk to him. When I turned to go back into the house I noticed the front hose spigot was dripping and the hose connection at the end had come loose. I have a short section of hose leading from this spigot to the side of the house where the hose is coiled and I have another place to turn off the water to the hose. I leave the house spigot on and turn the water on and off at the other spigot. (Spigot is a really silly word, isn't it?)

(Note the hose end in the lower left of the picture)

I showed the Water Dept guy the hose and had him stop turning off the water. He had been having a hard time, anyway, since the hole was full of dirt or something and he couldn't get to the connection. I talked with him a while about my fears that the connect from the street to my house, which I am responsible for, was done in 1892 and it would have to be replace someday and how I had terrible water pressure. He explained that it was probably 1/2" and lead and wouldn't be as hard to replace as I thought.

I went back in the house and he came to the back door and said that the connector thingie at the bottom of the hole was a strange one and looked like it was only open half way which may account for my bad pressure and let's do a test. I would watch the water flow while he turned the thingie and see if it got better or worse. I watched and waited and he came back and said that the thingie broke off! At least it broke off in the open position! He said the crew would be out in a week or so and dig it up and put in a new thingie and a short length of copper pipe and turn off the water for a while, but at least I will have warning.

So I will have the sidewalk torn up outside my front gate and a large hole dug in the ground and be without water for I hope only a day, but may gain some water pressure. Hopefully it won't damage the old pipe that is MY responsibility!

The moral of the story is "Don't trust hose repair doohickies and keep the water turned off at the house." Or, "That hissing sound you hear is water pouring out of an open spigot!".

(And the Water Department guy was good-looking and had the most beautiful light blue eyes I have seen in a long time.)

The 4 Faces of Ol' Windbag

2008-07-29T17:20:00.003-04:00

This one looks like Donald Trump. The hair even resembles him!
This is probably the best looking one.
This one looks Neanderthal.
This one really looks like he smelled that possum from earlier this year.

Not one of them looks like the North Wind, so I guess he is just a Green Man, as Jayne suggested.

Ol' Windbag

2008-07-29T02:38:00.007-04:00

My neighbors are not old house people nor are they preservationists. They are mostly landlords out to make the most money they can from an old house by covering it in plastic, putting in badly-sized plastic windows, and totally gutting the inside.

I am the neighborhood scavenger. When I see porches being pulled down I am there asking for the posts, or driving by and pulling them off the curb.

The brown ones are from across the street and the white ones from the same block around the corner. My neighborhood is slowly turning into a vinyl village.

These two beauties came from the house next door. The "vinyl siders" tore them off because they didn't want to work around them and threw them in the dank area between this house and the next one, where I dug them out of piles of leaves and who knows what else. This house still has brackets on the front and one side.

(These are upside-down)

These were from a beautiful house with a wrap-around porch about a mile away that I passed every day on my way to work. One day the posts were gone and I saw them in the back of a truck with the brackets. I went around that block about 4 times before I stopped to talk to the carpenter. He said he was told to take them off because they had "dry rot" and he replaced them with 4x4 treated lumber. I asked if I could have them and he helped me load up all the whole ones in my truck. I saw no dry rot on any of them. They needed scraping and painting. Unfortunately most of them had been hacked at and cut into pieces and the brackets, of which each post had two, were mostly trashed, but I got 4 mostly whole brackets and two whole posts and two pieces.

Anyway, this is just a prelude. I bought a funky little table at the Heritage Hill Home Tour four years ago from the guys who restored the Gerald R Ford family home (photo). Seems they, too, collect architectural salvage and they were getting rid of some of it. Its main attraction was the pedestal, which seemed to be a carved capital. I took it apart yesterday. It was held together by EIGHT whopping big long screws that were very hard for little old me to get out.

I want to use the different pieces for several projects, so need to fill in the holes, strip, sand, etc. I glued the triangular base together and started scraping the top. I noticed that the capital had some dings in it and I could see plaster through the thin, black latex paint that was covering an earlier layer of gold leaf.

>
This is black paint with a spattering of white sprayed over it. I have no idea what the guys were thinking when they did that. Anyway I started picking at the paint and then a large chunk of paint and plaster fell off and I was staring at an eye! I had thought this was a conventional capital of acanthus leaves and foliage. I excitedly started picking away at it and a face emerged.

Its a little creepy looking, but its hand-carved and there are 4 of them. I spent the rest of the afternoon picking away with dental tools at the paint and plaster that was smeared over the faces to smooth them out so it could be gold-leafed.

More pics tomorrow.

It's Daylily Time Again

2008-07-15T02:08:00.005-04:00

With all the rain we have been having this Spring and Summer the daylilies have been HUGE and just glorious. The pics I take just are so washed out and don't do them justice.

Here they are. Enjoy!

Another Frame

2008-07-15T01:48:00.006-04:00

I felt the need to do something, so pulled out an old frame that had suffered some water damage to the gesso. It was also covered with fly specks.

I got out my Amazing Mold Putty and Paperclay and proceded to repair those gaps like I did last fall. I then painted the frame with Antique Gold acrylic paint with Bright Gold highlights instead of the weird white hightlights of the original.

I had a little mis-registering of the pattern, but all-in-all I'm satisfied with the finished product. Now I need to order the oval curved glass and matting so gr-gr-grandmother can go back in the frame, but that will have to wait until I have extra money.

CSI - Hauser Haus

2008-05-11T01:53:00.003-04:00

She had been smelling something all week.

She knew it was coming from under the porch.

She even left the access door wide open to disseminate the smell.

She didn't want to look.

She knew what she would find.

Finally, the timing was right. There were no more excuses. She pulled away the hay bale forming one side of the kitty nest under the porch to find........ANOTHER FREAKIN' DEAD RACCOON!!!

This one had had his belly ripped open by some other animal, but had started to mummify rather than putrefy like the former possum.

Is there a sign somewhere that all the dying animals see that points to my yard?

The Return of the Feculent Possum

2008-04-26T22:04:00.004-04:00

It's Spring, so there must be a dead possum in my yard.

Since this has been the case for the past two years, I feared the worst when I began smelling something dead today.

Sniff, sniff. Is it in the garage? I went and got a flashlight and shined it in all the likely spots. The smell persisted, even though I couldn't find anything.

Could it be outside the garage? I have a lot of salvaged wood and fencing leaning against the side of the garage and it's a popular site for animals to hide. Sure enough, when I moved a stack of 2x4's I saw fur.

At first I thought it might be a cat, but as it was revealed it all its putrefascence it turned out to be another GIANT possum. Why do these things always choose MY yard to die in? I haven't had catfood on the porch all winter because I brought my outside cats inside for the duration, thereby cutting down on my food costs as I was not feeding every living thing for miles. I'm probably the cause of its demise in that regard.

Off to find a spot in the yard I can dig a hole. Dug one and went back to get the decaying marsupial. Whoops! Too big, have to dig a bigger hole. Carried it across the yard dropping writhing carrion worms the whole way. Went back and scraped up the "pieces" that were left over and filled in the hole. It still stinks.

Hosed down the spot as well as I could and hope the worms die in the sun.

Well, got that job done for another year! That is, unless something comes along and digs it up.

Breaking Buds

2008-04-24T17:23:00.009-04:00

It's hard to believe that only 5 days ago I had buds instead of flowers. This is how the tulip tree looks tonight.

I had to take the picture because we have had wind all day and bad weather predicted--even snow for Monday--and the petals are already starting to fall.

Here are the buds on the wisteria. Here are various other things that weren't blooming Saturday. The bleeding heart wasn't even up yet!

The above is a black currant bush. You can't believe how wonderful my yard smells right now. This thing is powerful. Everyone should have one--not to mention all the black currants! (That I can't figure out what to do with.)

Count the kitties.

Beezer

The following owie shot is for Greg. I "broke the skin" on my thumb restacking some boards that blew down. It's not as dramatic without the dripping blood, but you can see the scar on my wrist where they repaired the triple break from a wallyball mishap. (Oh--and my toes.)

Yard Work with Cats

2008-04-20T16:16:00.010-04:00

Being a beautiful day, I decided to get a little done outside, even though my old winter bones don't want to move much. I did a lot of simple things like setting up the patio table and chairs,

(That tacky lion was gifted to me last week at 2:00 in the am by my ex, who thinks it's cool. He put it on the front porch, but not living at Graceland, I moved it to the back yard. If nature wants this thing to exist, it will stay there and not be broken--if not--Sayonara Tacky Lion!)

hauling the hoses out of the basement and hooking them up, and washing the mold (!) off the bulkhead doors preparatory to another coat of paint.

In all these endeavors I was "helped"by at least three cats at a time, and up to five at one point, when I happened to wander out into the yard to pick up a fallen branch. This was extremely fascinating to the in-all-winter group and they jumped and bit at it until it was broken into small enough pieces to satisfy them.

If we don't get a late freeze the Magnolia Soulangiana will be beautiful. (Tulip Tree to those not into botanical nomenclature)

One of the Forsythia is in bloom--the other is a poor performer, but it is useful as a scene-blocker, so it stays in the corner.

Great New Acquisition

2008-01-05T17:29:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the people who are still reading my blog. I know I haven't posted much lately--that's because I haven't started (or finished!) any house projects. I did find a new chair last week that I'm excited about, however.

Isn't that a great Eastlake side chair? Needs reupholstering badly, and refinishing, but only $35! I have two other Eastlake side chairs, well, the frames of Eastlake side chairs, and maybe I'll do them all the same. Problem being I have not yet decorated either parlor, so have no idea what color to do them in. Guess a good mixed Persian carpet fabric will have to do.

Halloween

2007-10-21T23:23:00.000-04:00

This is what I would buy if I had lots of disposable income. I just love it! I would even use it all the time.

Buy it here.

Ebay Fraud

2007-10-20T01:57:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like the four furniture pieces I "won" last week won't be coming home with me. The seller says "ebay screwed up". "There was supposed to be a minimum on that auction". Whatever. This is a relative newbie who usually sells used children's clothing. She referred me to her sister who owned the furniture in question and I didn't get any more from her than the above. She was supposed to call me back the next night but didn't. Now her answering machine isn't working. The seller does not have a phone listed with ebay or on Zabasearch. (Stupid cell phones!)

Today I get a message from ebay that there is a Dispute that I need to address. These two have decided to lie to ebay and tell them that we have mutually decided to ignore the auction and go our separate ways. Au contraire! I have not been consulted in this. They have not written or talked to me since Tuesday night and at that time I was not told I could not have the furniture--just that they needed to work something out with ebay. Hah! Typical seller's remorse. They screwed up and I got a fabulous deal and they don't want me to enjoy it. So I told ebay that we did NOT have any agreement and will wait to see what this scheming couple comes up with next. Suffice it to say, I will not be getting any new furniture.

Well, there are some estate sales this weekend...

Finally, Some Furniture!

2007-10-13T22:23:00.001-04:00

On my lunch hour on Thursday I was browsing Antiques on Ebay and decided to filter to local auctions. Found a four-piece set of two loveseats and a platform rocker and side chair that didn't have much action and put in a $400 bid. To my surprise the next day I had won! And the best part--only $305! I will be calling the party tomorrow to arrange pickup or delivery but now have the problem of where to put these pieces. My dining room has a bathtub and a stove in it and my parlor has the dining set in it. The second parlor, where I am currently typing this, is more of a storage area. Guess I'll be moving the boxes back to the attic.

A Frame Up

2007-09-27T22:46:00.001-04:00

Here's something I just did that's sort of house related. It will go IN my house on my wall so I guess it counts.

Here is the picture frame that my family has had since the 1960's. Someone had painted it with gold paint and it surrounded a paint by number that my Dad did. It fell to me, and not being exactly my taste (the picture) they were separated.

I recently acquired a wonderful photograph and decided this was the perfect frame for it. I started stripping the frame.

It was a very sunny day and you can't really see it, but there is an inner band of plaster interlocking circles, a band of white oak, another band of plaster with leaves, and a band of red oak. It's a beautiful frame.

It's also missing some large chunks of the plaster leaves. The worst spot is in the first picture. After I got the paint off the oak I started restoring the plaster. First I tried modeling the missing pieces with clay, but that didn't work, so back to the internet. I found this mold-making stuff and sent for it.

This stuff is wonderful! You get equal pieces from each jar and squeeze them quickly together and press them on whatever you want to make a mold of. It doesn't stick to it and turns into a rubbery mold that can be peeled off. I put it over a good section of the leaves and pressed it well into the carving and let it dry.

That's the mold on the right. Then I pressed some Paper Clay into the void of the missing plaster and lined up the mold and pressed it into the clay. It worked great! You can see a little of the pattern in the picture above. Sorry for the bad pictures. I can take close ups with this camera but the view finder doesn't show what I'm actually snapping.

Here's the mold and the impression.

This is the clay I used. It air drys and is easy to use and not sticky.

I went around the frame and repaired some other small missing chunks and let it dry. Then I painted it with Old Gold acrylic paint and put semi-gloss on the oak.
The next part was the hardest. I needed a specially cut mat so didn't want to attempt it myself. I had to go to three places before I found a decent price and a store that was open on Friday night at 8:00. I wanted a deep red or green because of the yellow tones of the photograph and the frame, but they didn't have the color I wanted in their custom cut inventory, so I chose the same color in a really wild plush that looks like the old Victorian photo albums, which is very cool, though not what I thought would have been used to mat a photo in the 1870's. I am really pleased with the way it turned out though it cost almost $45!

Can you tell which side of the frame had the repair?

Right here!

I wish I knew who these people were. That standing woman looks so familiar. The woman I bought it from (for $2!) is from around Lansing, Michigan and collects Victorian photographs. I will try to get a better picture later.
Isn't that a great picture? I have never seen such a large one of a group before from that era.

Hey! I'm Back!

2007-09-27T21:49:00.001-04:00

After a long dry spell--in more ways than one--I am finally gainfully employed again and starting to feel like working on things around the house. I didn't want to start anything that might escalate into having to spend money this summer so I didn't do anything.

After the initial excitement of March, the summer was pretty uneventful around the neighborhood. A tree the city planted in our early Spring warm spell slowly died over the long, hot, dry summer, even with me giving it gallons of water, and is standing there on the terrace mocking me in all it's bare, brown glory. At least no one will be able to tell it's dead during the winter. When I called the city to replace it they said they only plant trees in the Spring. I told the woman that that's contrary to all I have read about how trees thrive and grow and that Fall would be a perfect time to replace it. No dice. It was a Pyrus calleryana Cleveland Select. An ornamental pear tree. It would have been beautiful in the Spring. Oh well, hopefully they will replace like for like.

Being on the Historic Preservation Commission has been interesting and also stressful at times. There is a lot going on in this town--some good, and some bad, and I enjoy having a say in what happens.

I didn't mention it before, but I quit my job last October because my boss was a crook and a liar and I got tired of being all stressed out. That was before I started this blog. This teflon snake started out by being charming and getting me all involved in the new business he was starting up and then when money started coming in he started "appropriating" more and more of it until we weren't paying the IRS, the subcontractors, employee's commissions, you name it. Who were getting paid were plastic surgeons, Harley dealerships, health clubs, girlfriends, restauranteurs, etc. Lawsuits developed. After I quit, the sales manager, and some project managers and site managers quit and formed their own company. The former company folded in March and this guy has run away to California, towing his Jaguar and Harley behind. Last week I was contacted by a Sheriff's Department detective to write down everything I know about this guy and how he spent his company's money for the County Prosecutor. They want him. If they find him they will drag him back here to face his creditors. They may want to speak to me again. Since he also owes ME money, I will be more than happy to help!

Two of my cats died last month, Tigger and Tidbit, bringing me down to only eight in my little family. As I volunteer at a cat shelter I have an excellent opportunity to interview prospective candidates for additional family members. I brought a cute little guy home last night who doesn't have a name yet. (He does now--it's Ranger!)
He's about five months old and came from a Louisiana kitten rescue. He wouldn't stay still long enough for me to get a decent shot just now.

Oh, and this weekend I had another feculent deceased mammal stinking up my yard! A very large bloated possum just inside my front fence on its back in the garden. I really don't think it died there, but was dropped there by someone. Probably the same possum that has been visiting my cat food on the back porch all year. Anyway, since I discovered it on Sunday afternoon I started digging a hole for it. I am running out of places for graves and the ground was too hard and full of roots so I just put it on a shovel and deposited it back in the street. I had to wait until Monday to call the city to come get it. I had called last week for a skunk in the street and they got it the same day. They didn't pick up the possum. My windows were open and I had to smell that thing Monday night, too. I thought it was gone in the morning, but it had just deflated and sunk below the level of the curb so I couldn't see it. I emailed the city and complained and it was finally picked up Wednesday. I don't know what their problem was, but I had to give the woman who answered the phone on Monday my address three times and she was asking again when I told her I had to hang up because I was at work and people were starting to look at me.

OK, now I'm caught up. Not really house related, but the next post will be, sort of.

Annual Rites of Spring

2007-04-28T23:15:00.001-04:00

Today I finally girded my loins and decided to find out what was making the stink under my back porch that was so bad I could smell it through the walls in the basement. First I dug a big hole over by my neighbor's house--heh, heh--then moved the bale of straw that makes up one of the sides of my fancy under-the-porch cat shelter. IT WAS THE LARGEST, FATTEST POSSUM I HAD EVER SEEN!! I didn't get a picture because I wanted to get this feculent (to borrow a word from Greg at the Petch House) thing in the ground. The hole wasn't big enough so I had to stand next to this oozing stinking thing and dig some more. I folded it into the hole--it had lost its rigor--and covered it up. I can still smell it through the ground over there.

Here is Spot checking out the toy possum. The door to the space is standing open.

It still stunk under the porch so I raked out a lot of the straw that was under the possum and took it and one of the bales to the city recycle site. I was still smelling something so got a flashlight and peered in. Now I know where all those succulent suicidal squirrels ended up. Something had been digging up all my squirrel burials and carting away the remains for a while--now I know who.

It smells a lot better on the patio now.

In other news this is my Magnolia x Soulangiana or Tulip Tree as we call them here, today.

It should look like this right now.

That's not gonna happen this year because of this a few weeks ago.

All the buds that hadn't opened are filled with brown mush and are falling off the tree. At least the lilacs are doing great, and the Black Currant (ribes nigrum) smells wonderful. (That really helped with the smell of the feculent possum.)

Global Warming?

2007-04-11T20:31:00.001-04:00

Well, here we are 3 weeks after my last post when I was celebrating the return of Spring. Things were fine for about a week and then the temperature plunged again. The end of March brought another warming trend and I started cleaning out the gardens and brought out the patio furniture. I was preparing for a nice week of garden prep the week before Easter when the weather changed again. First lots of rain that percolated down to my basement floor, followed by snow. A few days later the snow was almost gone and the weather was warming again.

Then today! The following pictures were taken from my back porch.

See all the sad little clumps of bulbs out there? A few days ago I had lots of daffodils and hyacinths standing proud. I was going to cut them yesterday because they were looking sad after the first bout of snow had knocked them down, but didn't. When I saw the snow today I suited up and went out there and cut all I could find.
I wait all year for this season and am not going to let this stupid snow ruin it for me! Hopefully the buds on the lilacs haven't been frosted.

There are some blue hyacinths in the middle that you can't see.

The Natives Are Restless

2007-03-17T03:13:00.001-04:00

The other day I posted about all the neighbors coming out of hibernation and carrying on in the streets. Well, I didn't find out until two days later, but that night there was a shooting in the next block. Probably involved some of those baggy pantsed persons I saw all over the street. I was not at home at the time or would probably have heard the shot.

Today I was reading in the kitchen and heard a bullhorn. I started looking out windows and saw police vans and cars parked all over the next block, where the shooting had been. They hauled someone off. It's going to be a noisy summer.

One of the problems with my urban neighborhood is constantly revolving renters. For a few months it will be quiet, then the bad ones move in and bring all their friends and it's a constant parade of noise and litter until they get evicted for non-payment. In the houses that I can see from my corner lot, probably only 5 of them are owner-occupied.

I'll be keeping the police number by the phone.

The Groundhog Was Right!

2007-03-15T00:29:00.000-04:00

Monday it was finally Spring in West Michigan. 70 degrees and sunny. A lot of the snow melted and mud was everywhere. I even saw worms. Birds were singing. Neighborhood children were screaming. I even saw people with their shirts off. (Of course their pants were almost off, too, and I could see their stupid underwear.)

I got busy with the clippers and started my Spring pruning. It's still a little early to start raking, so I'll wait until the leaves can dry out some more and the city compost dump opens. I did repair my gate, which I ran into last week when we had a foot of snow. I broke a picket and bent the hinge, so off with the hinge and I banged it back flat and put it back on good as new.

I also rehung a garage light which has been off for several months now because it had a short and I had to rewire it. Then it was too cold to put it back up. Today it was a little cooler and overcast, but I got out again and did some more pruning. The cats are loving being outside after being cooped up for so long. They are racing around and smelling everything.

Snowdrops and crocus are blooming, too!

Breaking News!

2007-02-24T00:53:00.002-05:00

I know, I know, I haven't been posting anything in the past month. That's because I've been hibernating. I haven't wanted to work on the stairwell ceiling because it's to the sanding point--and I just hate sanding drywall compound. I'm going to have to grit my teeth, get out the plastic sheeting, and just do it.

On another note--my news is that I was just appointed by the City Commission to a three-year term on the Historic Preservation Commission!! I have been trying to get on this commission for 20 years! I don't know why I want to be on the commission people love to hate, but it's a good way to meet people and to make a difference. Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride!

For those people who like to look at pictures, here are some of my children. Yes, I'm one of THOSE PEOPLE.

Beezer, Spot, Tommy, & Tigger destroying a catnip plant.

Purrcey killing the Sunday paper.

Tidbit

Tigger and Tommy

Beezer looking for something to spray.

Bertie playing with a mousie.

Misty looking soulful.

Not shown are Rover and Loki .

The Rest of the Lights

2007-01-28T21:38:00.001-05:00

This beauty has been installed in my ugly upstairs bathroom. It was originally in the sunporch of the house I lived in from age 5 to age 17. It was a Colonial Revival with a great sunporch with this chandelier and wall sconces to match. There was a wonderful pendant in the upstairs hall outside my bedroom door that I took, too. We sold the house to the grade school across the street and they tore it down! It was traumatic, but the neighborhood was going down and my parents were getting panicky and wanted to move. I was only 17 at the time, but knew that I didn't want salvagers taking these. I should have removed all the sconces, too, but wasn't as bold as I am now. This chandelier spent about 30 years gracing my grandparent's retirement home in Osyka, MS with the understanding that when the time came, it would be mine.

I had already hung a crystal chandelier in the dining room and couldn't figure out a prominent place for this one so decided to hang it in the bathroom. I think it looks great. Gives the joint some class.

This one is in the Morning Room, now being used as my bedroom until the Master Bedroom is ready. I got one like it with pansies and roses for that room. They are from JC Penney and are huge. They were having a 1/2 price sale last Spring and it was too good to pass up.

I just have one more bedroom to buy a fixture for. That one has a Winnie the Pooh light in it now from the FO. I'm not sure what the theme of that room will be yet, so will keep my eyes open for something unusual.

I Had a Senior Moment Yesterday

2007-01-28T20:36:00.001-05:00

I forgot to show the window I had made for the place where the '50's door had been removed. Here it is with a shot of the interior of the stairwell.

I called the only window-maker in town, the one who is supposed to be so meticulous and works on all the historic homes to replicate my existing arched window for the missing one and make the large picture window. The idiot made all the measurements and never came back to measure again, then made the window wider and shorter than the other, and with 10 lights instead of 12!! Didn't notice until they were gone after the installation and I looked at both windows from inside. Of course, they volunteered to re-do it, but it was the end of October and I had already closed up the wall around it and didn't want to have the area open for an unknown amount of time, so I settled on them making a new basement window frame for free. Then I discovered that they didn't make the outside window sill stick out far enough to put the molding piece under it. They also hadn't made the inside window frame correctly.
I made repeated calls and the owner was always--get this--vacationing in Las Vegas. I finally drove over there one day and dropped off the bad frame and a tracing of the part they had done wrong and told them to deliver the new one. FINALLY one day I got the call. They sent over a brand new employee who had never talked to me before and who didn't know I had waited over 6 months for these parts. He said he was the Customer Service Representative. Hah. I told him what I thought of the service and of the part he had brought over that still wasn't right. He got all upset and wondered why I was. He promised to bring me the correctly made piece, but that never happened. Needless to say, I will be looking for another window-maker for my kitchen windows.

Before and After

2007-01-28T02:03:00.001-05:00

Here is the Second Parlor or "Music Room" (as was written on the fuse box) wonderful sputnik ceiling fixture. I actually traded this ugly thing to our local lighting store with some other pieces to get a beautiful hanging fixture for the stairwell I'm working on right now.

Here is the beautiful brass fixture I replaced it with. I just love the (new) shades. Sorry you can't see them. I can't take good pictures in this room. The shades are clear at the top and frosted at the bottom and I used clear light bulbs.

When I knocked out the plug in the First Parlor ceiling I expected to find wires. No such luck! Just a gas pipe, so I hung the chandelier on a nail until I get around to running wire and putting in a box and switch. This is a "created" piece from unused old parts from a defunct lighting store. I think he did a pretty good job of capturing the Victorian spirit.

This job will be quite involved. I have to remove the door below and turn it back into a wall. This goes to the vestibule. Then I have to break out the wall behind the piano which was originally the archway into the Second Parlor. I had figured out the missing archway early on, but it took a while to understand the original configuration of these three rooms. That door woodwork always bothered me. It is put up sloppily and the door doesn't fit right, and there are two doors opening into the vestibule as well as the front door. That's not right.
The downstairs bathroom door is also missing. When I get done with this I will have an extra door. Bingo!
This new wall is directly in line with the studs in the ceiling so it should be easy to run the wire and put in the switch, as everything will be torn up anyway.
So guests will be entering the vestibule and then into the Second Parlor and on through the archway into the First Parlor or the Dining Room. I'd like to splurge and put a marble floor in the vestibule since it's not that large. I should be able to buy remainders if I'm lucky.

The Invisible Stained Glass Window

2007-01-28T01:09:00.001-05:00

Right after we removed the cement steps that used to provide access to the second floor when it was a separate apartment, we went to work rebuilding the wall and replacing the windows that had been removed to create this entrance.

These are the lovely (dated 1959) windows that were put in when our stained glass window was hocked. The story we heard was that the people that were attempting to buy the house, while living in it, defaulted on their loan and then hocked all the stained glass--and probably everything else of value, like the chandeliers and sconces. Compare this pic to the 1929 pic in the above link to see what the stained glass window looked like. This is what we put in as a "placeholder".

Someday when I can remortgage the house again maybe I'll have a new window built. I would like to learn the stained glass technique myself and replace the small oval stained glass window. (It looks like this window has a pattern in the 1929 pic, though why someone would put in a stained glass window that cannot be enjoyed from the inside is beyond me.) For now you just have to squint and imagine a full-blown Victorian swirls-and-jewels-and-rainbow glass window up there.

Shingling a Shirtwaist

2007-01-28T00:34:00.001-05:00

Here is a project I did a few years ago. This corner of the house had still not been painted (after 11 years!) and it bugged me. I borrowed two stages of scaffolding, so could not go all the way to the top, but did replace the old water-rotted sheathing and shingles. If that link worked it will take you back to a before pic of this area.

I took off the rotted shingles with my handy shingle removing tool and the bottom sheathing board. There was an extensive sparrow condo behind it. This board forms the flare of the shirtwaist style second floor and also presented a tricky mitered and flared corner. After many trips up and down the scaffolding to the table saw in the garage, measuring each piece and then cutting it to fit I am really proud of the finished product.

The replacement of the remainder of the bad shingles and the painting was accomplished in Spring of 2006.

Is It Spring Yet?

2007-01-27T22:21:00.001-05:00

Giant Tableware

2007-01-25T02:19:00.001-05:00

Just developed some film from last Spring 2006 from before I bought and installed some light fixtures. Here is a before before picture of the Dining Room from the previous administration. This was in my mortgage folder.

Note the giant fork and spoon and half-barrel liquor cabinet. Classy.
Remember the episode of The King of Queens where these were on the wall and they took them down but the faded image remained?

The filled-in pass-through to the Butler's Pantry is on the wall where that barrel is. Note the light fixture. Another pic below.

Isn't that the ugliest thing you have ever seen? But wait, there's more! The lamps used to have little metal petticoats that slipped over the middle part.

Here's what I replaced it with. The room is, of course, not yet scraped, painted, papered, or wood-floor-refinished, but I had to have something beautiful to look at.

Now isn't that better?

I know. I've never seen crystal chandelier lights that faced down before, either, but they do.

Here is the Bradbury and Bradbury paper I want to put in this room someday. It's the Fenway Roomset from the Morris Tradition line.

Freize

Ceiling

Dado

I bought a nice round oak dining room table and chairs to go in here but they are currently in the Parlor, as my bathtub and stove are in the middle of the dining room floor.

Another Blast From the Past

2007-01-14T20:30:00.001-05:00

The winter after we bought the house and had painted the kitchen just to have some fresh paint to look at disaster struck! I believe it was February, and an extremely cold night, we awoke to the sound of rushing water. A pipe had burst in the maid's room where we had removed the second floor kitchen and capped off the pipe to the former sink and there was water everywhere. It had been running for a while and had run through the wall to outside and down, covering the kitchen window, through the floor to the kitchen ceiling below, and on through the kitchen floor to the basement. It was so cold that the water had frozen on the back (interior) stairway and I almost went flying through the door to the kitchen on my way to the basement to shut off the water. (The FO's in their infinite wisdom had not installed any shutoffs in this kitchen.)

We did little plumbing work the next day and a lot of cleaning. The water had made a real mess in the kitchen, pouring through the ceiling and even getting into the cabinet and ruining my drawer of recipes. We took pictures and this is our card for the next Christmas.

The next year we had gutters and downspouts installed. There had not been any on the house for quite some time and you would not believe the amount of water that rushes off a house with a roof pitch like mine!
Sometime after that we started work in earnest on the maid's room. We took out the rest of the plumbing and the falling plaster and discovered that the exterior wall was rotted because of the lack of downspouts and gutters. We removed the rotted windows, one a replacement because the original had rotted. (Duh!) We removed the rotted sheathing and real 2x4's and kept the rest of the wall jacked up with one of our handy Model T jacks. I love these things and buy them whenever I see them. They keep coming in handy for times like these.

We doubled up on the studs and re-sheathed the wall.

I had windows made to match the originals and we installed them and insulated the wall. When I finish this room it will be the only insulated room on the second floor.

On the other side of the left-hand wall is the upstairs bathroom. The plan is to take out that wall and make a nice big bathroom. On the right of the windows is a closet where a washer/dryer stacked unit will go and I will learn plumbing and hook everything up so it drains correctly to the stack without having to put in another stack. The plan is to put my nice '20's pedestal sink in front of the left-hand window and a deep old porcelain wall-hung sink under the other window for laundry purposes. The tub will go along the wall opposite the windows with the head at the chimney. For heat I hope to find a wall unit like the ones you used to see in bathrooms that runs on gas and doesn't need to be vented. I have some old porch posts and gingerbread salvaged from a house in my neighborhood that I plan to use to separate the laundry functions from the bathroom functions somehow. I also want one of those nifty built-in ironing boards and one of these.
Oh yeah, I plan to make interior storm windows from some salvaged patterned glass for privacy. The toilet will stay in the old bathroom and I'll break into the wall under the attic stairs and put in storage shelves and drawers.

Dead Mice and Surly Repairmen

2007-01-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

I had a bad experience today and hope to be able to resolve it tomorrow. My stacked washer/dryer unit started making noise last week (well, it had started making noise a long time ago--it had just gotten way too loud) when I dried things so I started calling around for a repairman. The third one was able to work on stacked units.

The guy they sent out complained from the moment he appeared at my back door. No one told him he could park in the driveway. No one told him it was a stacked unit. (I had mentioned both things to the person taking my call.) He didn't like where it was situated. When he started down my basement stairs he started knocking things down. He is a large (ok, fat) guy and he had a big bag and things strapped to his belt and he was clumsy. I go up and down these stairs with a full laundry basket all the time. They are almost 4 feet wide (and 3 feet clear, as they are a handy place to stack paint cans).

Anyway, my bearings were shot and he had to order a part and would come back next week. He reappeared today with a helper. As soon as he came in he made a pointed comment to the helper about watching out for the narrow stairs. He wasn't polite to me or cordial and I could sense that he was going to be a problem.

I like to watch repairmen because I can learn things and it also keeps them on their toes, so after a few minutes I went down. They had a panel off the back and had laid it on the top of the washing machine! I got some rags and asked them to spread them out on top before they laid anything down because it would get scratched. The big guy immediately took offense and started in about having already found a mouse in the dryer and killing it. I asked about it and was not shown any mouse. Then he said he didn't want to continue. I said not to take offense because I watched every repairman who worked on my house because something always is getting broken or scratched. He threatened to quit so I told him I didn't like his attitude and said "Just DO it" and went upstairs to call his office. I hadn't been unreasonable or confrontative until he started threatening to quit. I was just doing what any concerned homeowner would do.

I told the story to the dispatch person and said I wasn't going to pay if they left. We left it at "just see what he does". They continued to work and I left the door open so I could hear them. I did hear another mention of the mouse while they were putting things back together, but don't know what they said.

Where's The Mouse?

The big guy came up the stairs and went out without even looking at me or telling me it was done or demonstrating that the repair worked, and I was standing right there. He left it to his helper to give me the bill. He didn't say anything about demonstrating that it worked either so I had to ask. Then I said that I had to see for myself and went down and tested the dryer. It worked fine and I noticed that the rags were laid across the top of the washer all flat and straight. After they left I went down to dry something and removed the rags. To my horror the whole top of the washer looked like someone with golf shoes had done the twist on it! They had damaged it and covered it with the rags so I wouldn't find it until they got away. That's why they didn't call me down to check the dryer. They also left piles of lint on the floor even though there was a garbage can inches from the dryer. As I was sweeping it up I wondered where the mouse was. He wasn't in the can either! I think we all know where the mouse is, and I immediately called the dispatcher and told her what had happened (I didn't mention the mouse) and demanded someone come out and see what their guys had done, tomorrow. She assured me someone would be here.

I want my money back and that guy disciplined for not taking ordinary precautions with my expensive appliance. Shouldn't he have pieces of cardboard or drop cloths in his truck for times like this? I shudder to think what this guy does in someone's living quarters after seeing what he did in my basement. And my basement is clean and warm and well-lit, not nasty like some I have seen appliances in.

Update

The next day a repairman showed up and proceeded to tell me that was normal wear on my lid and rubbed some of the greasy black dirt off. He said he was the owner of the company and had seen wear like this many times. When I insisted that it wasn't and that I didn't put anything that would scratch on my lid (you can't set anything there, anyway because the dryer is right above it) he said "You're paranoid, lady!" and practically ran out. There were no apologies for the way his men had acted, or for the way they had treated my appliance. Needless to say, I again called the office and the dispatcher gave me to to Office Manager (a woman) who listened to me and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted at least a new lid for my washer and she said that could be arranged.

One day a week later a knock came at my back door at 12:00 noon and it was the young assistant with my new lid. When I expressed my surprise at his being there he said the office was supposed to have called me. They hadn't. I let him in and let him replace it and stayed upstairs.

If anyone in my area wants the name of this company I will gladly give it to them, as they have the worst customer service I have ever seen.

Replacing the French Doors

2007-01-02T22:30:00.001-05:00

This was the sight that greeted us when we first bought the house. The wonderful, unusable garage. It was packed full of the FO's crap and was built by his loving hands from the remains of the carriage barn that he took down when he bought the house. I don't know where he got the French doors.

After we moved in and repainted the garage and had used it for a few years the doors started to seriously deteriorate. They weren't built that sturdily in the first place and were unsupported through the "window" sections.

After removal of one French door, and trying to hold the rest of the door together.

I designed new doors to look like hinged carriage doors and they look much, much, better!

I used some neat old barn windows I bought at an estate sale and reglazed them.

I still have the French doors. All the white paint is off and I removed all the window glass. I just know that there's some Martha Stewart thing I can do with them but "cottage" type decorating is not my style .

Just Dreaming

2007-01-01T15:07:00.001-05:00

It is such a dreary day I don't feel like doing anything constructive so I'm just imagining my house done and decorated the way I've seen it for the past 12 years. I had a little panic in 2005 with the news that Bruce Bradbury of Bradbury & Bradbury was retiring and the business closing. I quick refinanced my house so I could have the money to buy at least one roomset of paper before it was discontinued on December 31! Then later that year I read the news that an employee had bought the business and was continuing all the lines. Whew! Now I could afford to wait a while longer and do some other necessary jobs first, like painting the outside, re-coppering the attic windowsills, re-flashing the chimney to get rid of the leak left by the crummy roofers, and buying some chandeliers and furniture.

Anyway, now the money is almost gone and it will be a few years before I can refinance again unless I come into an inheritance or win the lottery or something. Here is the paper I want to use in the front parlor, which gets a fair amount of morning light and has oak woodwork. It's called the "Dresser II Roomset" in the style of Christopher Dresser.

This is the dado paper in "Ashes of Roses".

I will use this wall fill, but will save money by painting the wall and stencilling the figures on myself. I will use the light teal color from the dado.

This is the wall fill I like but will use only in the hallway between the parlor and dining room and probably the stairwell.

These are some of the ceiling papers that can be used in any configuration you can come up with.

The whole prospect of wallpapering with expensive papers is scary because I've never wallpapered before. Hopefully by the time I can afford to do this I can also afford to hire someone to do it, too.

So now, I guess that means teal velvet draperies with tassels and lace undercurtains. Mmmmmmm.

Front Porch Work ca 1995

2006-12-24T20:06:00.001-05:00

Since Blogger was acting up yesterday and I couldn't post pictures I'll do another post today. Just catching up on some old projects that were completed a few years ago. This one is the front porch floor. First, a beautiful before we bought the house picture:

You can't see it, but there is a lovely plywood and plastic grass front porch, accented by wrought iron, a bare bulb fixture, and an aluminum screen door. With the two--possibly three--air conditioners hanging out the windows and the artistic fence, a veritable Ghetto Palace.

Here's another shot showing the condition of the faux structural beams and the ceiling.

I had to take them all down and reconsolidate the wood and rebuild some of them, as water had turned them into veritable shells. I love Abatron! That stuff is wonderful. I still haven't put a few of them back up, though.

That's tongue and groove cedar, and you can't see it very well, but we ran a bead on the edge of each piece with a router, just like the original.

For a while I thought that I might have to put in a carriage step because the old carriage drive went along this side of the house, but didn't have any pictures to prove it, so didn't. It would have been a nice touch, though.

We bull-nosed the edges of the boards. Why can't I find a router bit that makes a 1/2" roundover?

Of course, we built new stairs and rounded over the edges and split the treads down the middle for water runoff, but I don't have any pictures of the finished product. I just hate what the FO did with the piers on each side of the steps! There are granite footings for each of these with ROUNDED fronts. That means that the bricks these were originally made of had rounded edges. That will be a big problem when I get around to re-doing those. The corner of the house to the right of the steps has a rounded edge also, just like the left side of the front arch, above. It's a nice touch. The owner/builder was a brick mason originally. When I dug into the pile of crap under the porch I had hoped to find these bricks. No such luck. A few have turned up in the driveway, but I have no idea where the rest of them went. I also don't know what capped the top of these piers. Shaped granite? And why would anyone throw these away? They have not been found anywhere I have dug on the property.

Finally, here is a pic of the 20's light fixture we hung before we removed the aluminum door and stripped the oak front door, and the house number plaque we bought.

I know, it still looks ghetto with all that painted brick.

Cracks & Holes

2006-12-23T20:36:00.001-05:00

I worked for several hours in the stairwell today because there was beautiful, natural light coming in the window. Yesterday it was so dark and gloomy I couldn't do anything in there. I am filling in all the gaps left by the guy who put up my drywall the other day. I have gone through a whole gallon of mud now and have to wait til Christmas is over to get another. Except for the rickety scaffold I enjoy doing this--making rough places smooth and filling in holes. It's the sanding part I hate. I'm going to skim coat the entire drywalled area (I know, I should use plaster!) and then seal it good before I paint or paper. I just hate the look of drywall--especially roller-painted drywall.

For a change of pace, here's something that fell out of the ceiling when we took the old drywall down.

Looks pretty good, actually. Reminds me of things my mother used to make.

Another thing that fell out of the ceiling was a cancelled rent check from 1960 that shows the party rented my house for $100.00 a month!

Above my stairwell ceiling is a large empty space and a "secret room" that the FO's kids used to play in. We found a Michael Jackson poster and lots of books and a folding chair in there. The books are all school-type books, of which there were a lot dumped down the wall chases in the attic for some unknown reason. There were some lurid True Crime type paperbacks, too. I have also found two ancient croquet balls up there. Can you imagine what that sounded like when those kids were rolling those around? It was bad enough when we had squirrel races under the floorboards every morning before we fixed the big roof hole.

You Get What You Pay For

2006-12-22T01:03:00.000-05:00

This week my sometimes helper (the ex) came over to help me put drywall on the ceiling and side wall of my stairwell. Well it proved too much for my ladder and plank scaffold setup and our shaky legs and my girly center of gravity so he suggested he call a friend who does this for a living. Today he and the friend show up and I have drywall in about 15 minutes. Now all I had were some leftover pieces--not nice 4x8's because SOMEONE never would bring the drywall in from the garage for years and it got all warped and I had to take it to a dumpster. Man, I wish that stuff was lighter and easier to haul upstairs!

After they left I got a good look at what they did. . . . . . . . . . . . . . only about 3 screws in each piece. No wonder they were done so fast. So I spent a shaky hour trying to screw in drywall with a heavy screw gun over my head on a plank between two ladders--something I didn't want to have to do. This admittedly looks like a jigsaw puzzle, so I'm going to have to use a lot of mud and tape to make it look good. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at that. Sure wish I had that original plaster up there, though.

Back to Work

2006-12-16T01:47:00.001-05:00

Today I finally got a helper for a few hours so I put him to work taking down some ceiling drywall in the front stairwell. Here are some before shots.

That drywall was put up by the FO who was not handy at all and is not a nice job. I also have to move the light box, so taking it all down and starting over seemed the best bet. I'm also nailing lath to the inside of the wall on the left in the above pic and then putting drywall over it to make the walls the same density and thickness as the undisturbed ones.

Hopefully the helper will be back on Sunday and we can put up the new drywall. Then its skim coating it all and patching the plaster walls (being stripped of wallpaper residue and scrubbed in the pictures). I also have already scraped paint off the oak window and stair trim in this stairwell, so will be sanding and varnishing it, too.

This whole thing started up again because I got the perfect light fixture for this spot and didn't want to hang it in such an ugly space. It's looked like this for over 12 years and I need to finish something. Well, not finish exactly..... I still need to find a finish carpenter to build a bookcase in the parlor that makes a wall to this space and case in the exposed framing beams of which you can see one in the above pic. There is also a missing bottom step into the parlor that needs to be built.

This opening was created when I took down the wall the FO had added to separate this stairwell from the parlor while it was the front entrance for the upstairs apartment. A former entry shows this entrance. Who knows what happened to the built-in bookcase!?

Here's the earliest picture I have of the house from the WPA city project of 1929. All the houses in the city were photographed and surveyed for the tax assessor. A wonderful resource.

Also showing in the right rear is the former barn. The shingles were stained red originally, with black and light yellow trim. The first floor was red brick, so the house looked rather monolithic. I chose to go with a lighter palette when I painted it. I don't know what to do, yet, about the painted brick and foundation. The FO's handiwork. He said the brick "was dirty" so he painted it.

The oval window leads to my "secret room" above the stairs. It is in the overhang from the oval window to the closet in the master bedroom (with the double windows). If I knocked out the side wall in the closet I would be in it. Entrance now is gained through the attic and down a ladder, but I am going to take out a bookcase in the morning room (in the front corner) and gain entrance that way. Then the oval window will actually be in a room. I'll make the whole thing a closet. There was a closet where the bookcase is now, but when the third owners turned the upstairs into an apartment for some reason they put a bookcase in the closet entrance. Since the secret room is about 18 inches above the second floor level, my new closet will have a step up to it. There are at least 4 unused spaces in this house, owing to the overhangs and roof pitch, and I plan to use another one under the attic stairs for a built-in dresser in the bathroom.

Skunks

2006-12-16T01:24:00.000-05:00

While I was putting the trash out Thursday night (Friday morning!) at 3:00 am I saw something run through my front gate and across the street. It was low to the ground, kept its tail straight out, and wasn't a cat. It went into the neighbor's yard and seemed to be joined by a white plastic bag. When I put the other bag on the curb they were getting into my neighbor's trash. This is what I saw:

And this is the "plastic bag"

The whiter skunk was bouncing all over the place and looked like a plastic bag caught by the wind in the morning darkness. Now I live in western Michigan, 7 blocks from downtown Grand Rapids, and these skunks are indiginous to Mexico and Honduras! Granted, there is a large Hispanic population here and these may be escaped family pets, but isn't it strange that there is one rare one. It doesn't look like any skunk I have ever seen. It is mostly black and the tip of its tail is white--just like the picture. The whiter one also has the fluffiest, biggest tail I have ever seen on an animal! It stands straight up and is like a balloon--much fuller than the one in the picture--hence looking like a plastic bag.

The hooded skunk ranges from southern Texas, Arizona and New Mexico southward through Mexico, to Costa Rica. They inhabit scrub and dry grassland areas.

The hooded skunk is similar in overall appearance to the related striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis). Their fur is slightly longer and softer than the striped skunk. The hooded skunk has two basic color morphs. In the more common one, which gives the species its common name, the back is entirely white, with a white tail and white cap on its head, and its underside, face and legs are black. In the second color pattern, the animal is entirely black with two narrow stripes, one on each side, that do not connect to one another. The underside of the tail may be mostly white. Like the striped skunk, the hooded skunk has a white stripe on the top of its nose, which is present in both color forms. Though they are about the same average length, males can weigh almost twice as much as the females. Females range in weight from 400 - 700 g, while males weigh 800-900 g.

Cute little buggers. They eat my cat food. So do possums and coons. My outside cats just sit there and watch them. I think they are also the ones responsible for digging up all the dead squirrels and birds I bury and making off with the carcasses.

Construction News

2006-12-14T21:51:00.001-05:00

This notice appeared in The Grand Rapids Democrat, Muskegon Edition on Sunday Morning, May 22, 1892. The drawing is pretty accurate except for the little hood over the two windows on the North side. This wall is flat except for the oriel window in the attic. This is also the only picture I have of how the front porch looked.

Why the name?

2006-12-13T01:30:00.001-05:00

Charles Andres Hauser was born 2 February 1855 in Lyons, Clinton County, Michigan. His parents were Hubertus Hauser and Maria Anna Bohr who emigrated from Baden-Wurttemburg and Westphalia in the 1840's and met and married in Detroit, Cass County, Michigan in 1852. They had 14 children, of whom nine lived to adulthood. Hubertus was a brickmason and his sons all followed him in the trades. Their house was a few blocks from where my house stands, across from St Mary's Catholic Church, which he helped build. When Charles got married to a woman who inherited a house from her mother things started happening for him. He started his own company as a general contractor and started building office buildings downtown. (The company today is known as Owen-Ames-Kimball, but it was Hauser-Owen-Ames at this time.)As his reputation grew he wanted a bigger, grander house so bought some more land until his lot was 150' by 100' and hired an architect and put his men to work in 1892, when I hear there was a depression. The result was what you see in the picture to the left.

He must have spent all his money on the outside, because the inside is nothing to write home about. The one nice thing he bought was a 4' by 6' stained glass window that was pawned (stolen) in the '60's. There are two carved mantels, but no overmantels. And one sliding door. I don't know what kind of lighting he put in as that has disappeared too. Only the kitchen and dining room have hardwood floors: the rest were carpeted or probably early linoleum in the servants' part of the house. I understand there was an iron fence around the property, but it isn't there in the 1929 photo I have. I have dug the supports for the posts out of my garden--some of you will know what I'm talking about!

I got the house listed on the Grand Rapids Historical Landmarks Roster in 1996. I'm number 66, the Charles A Hauser House.

Cement and Bricks

2006-12-11T23:06:00.001-05:00

Update: I switched to IE and inexplicably am now able to post pictures. I had done it successfully from Firefox initially. Don't want to use IE, but am now forced to. It is sooooooo slow.

Since I've been at this restoration for 12 years now I thought I'd document some of the earlier projects. The first one will be the back porch, sidewalk, and patio project. This is going to go slow as I have to scan in lots and lots of progress photos as I go, one at a time.

OK, back, after several hours! First I'll show what the house looked like when we bought it in August of 1994.

Isn't that a lovely fence?

Anyway, this shows the Hauser Haus in all its bright white and red glory as we first saw it. I still haven't figured out a cost-effective, easy, accepted way to remove the red, white, and gray paint from the brick and foundation. The second picture is of the back of the house showing the waist-high weeds where the patio should be and various sized storm windows and doors closing in the back porch.

The next photos show the thin, cracked sidewalk that wrapped around the house from the front to the back. I started prying it up and digging it out and replacing it with five pound red paving bricks from the city dumpsite. When I got up to the corner of the house it was time to rent the jackhammer to remove the rest.

Near the back, where Numa the cat is standing, we had excavated a brick walk from the steps to the driveway. Good try, folks, but you used soft interior bricks. I had to dig them out.
The following pictures show the cement steps that were built up to a door cut into the front parlor stairwell to make access to the upstairs apartment, the cement from the sidewalk to the foundation of the house, and the back cement steps. The cement had to go because the basement flooded regularly spring and fall because the water was directed right into the foundation by the cement. I'll post later about the other side of the house.

An arty shot of the back steps.

I moved my entire garden from my former yard--that's some of it there.

We rented a jackhammer and compressor and a dumpster on a Memorial Day weekend and started removing cement.

He was good for the heavy lifting.

Yeah, like I really used this thing. I had trouble even holding it up!

He showed some real ingenuity in rigging up a way to jackhammer sideways!

When we broke into the sarcophagus that was the side stairs we found perfect desert conditions inside for preserving whatever was in there.

You can see what our bricks and foundation are supposed to look like--not painted with latex.

The owners at the time (probably the Marzolfs in 1959) painted and papered and remodeled the entire inside and created a separate upstairs apartment, and put some interesting things inside the stairs along with the black dust and sand. It was like an archaelogical dig. I've always wanted to be an archaelogist and save everything I dig up out in the yard. I have jars of marbles, doll parts, army men, metal toys, jewelry, coins, glass objects, metal objects, etc, all lined up on my windowsills in the kitchen. I know you are dying to know what I found inside this tomb, so here goes. I only have one picture of some of the haul.

Two 1" glass towel bars
Several glass shades (only one was unbroken)
Metal letters for stencilling that slide together to make words
Vegetable tin cans with paper labels
A wooden trim piece (from where??)

Evidently this is the time all the wall sconces were removed and plastered over and everything "modernized" in the bathrooms. I collect glass towel bars, so these will be used in my remodeling. I just wish they had thrown in the holders!

In the middle of this pic you can see the buried footing for the original back stairs. I dug it out. It was a chunk of water course worked granite just like what is on the house.

In the pictures you will see some large waste pipes against the foundation and under the sidewalk. I believe these carried rainwater to a cistern somewhere out in the yard. I followed the pipe from the front of the house all the way to the back door, but didn't want to dig up the grass to find where it went. The one by the back door was at the bottom of the downspout which went throught the overhang from the roof and just ends 4 feet into the yard. I excavated a pit at the end of it and filled it with rocks and covered it back up because I have a garden over it. It works pretty well getting rid of water from my back porch downspout. The one in the front can't be used because I don't pipe the runoff down through the house beside the chimney where the old downspout is, but have it further to the front of the house. Some stupid roofer long ago destroyed the catch boxes for these downspouts on the roof, so I'll never know if they worked better than the half-rounds I installed. You would not believe the amount of water and the speed of it pouring off my steep roofs! It overflows the gutters even when they are clean. I don't know what else to do besides some kind of diverters in the valleys, but haven't seen such a thing before.

The last pictures show the restoration of the back steps from cement back to wood. I inset the first step at the top back into the porch floor, which the existing joists seemed to indicate, and this brings most of the steps back under the overhang, which helps in the rain and winter ice buildup. We created a nest for our outside cats with straw bales under the porch with entry under the open steps. I diverted the downspout to go under the steps and out the other side to take advantage of the waste pipe. Otherwise, it would have drained right on the patio and made a giant lake.

Out of order, but the interim back steps.

Finished!

The last photos show the making of the cement patio. I used a Walkmaker that had rectangle and square random shapes and used a 60# bag of Quikrete. One for each square. I don't even know how many bags I hauled home from Home Depot. And, no, my husband did not help me at all with this project. He maybe unloaded the truck once or twice--that's it. I found I really like cement work and used the leftovers to patch missing chunks of foundation and driveway sidewalk.

Oh, and halfway through the brick laying the city decided to close off its dump site to private parties and I had to go to a gravel yard and BUY the rest of my bricks--over 300 of them at 30 cents each! I had to climb a mountain of rubble, dig out bricks, toss them down, climb down, load them into the truck, take them out of the truck and pile them up, use a cold chisel to knock the remaining cement off of them to clean them up, then haul them to the sidewalk project. These things weigh about 5 # each. That's only one in each hand for someone that doesn't have gorilla hands and arms.

My best friend, Numa, who died this March at age 17.

And a final shot.

There's still the other back stairs! Bwahahahahahaha.

The Backstory

2006-12-11T06:09:00.001-05:00

I bought my house in August of 1994. A week later I got married for the first time at age 41. Things went well for a while, new hubby seemed interested in working on the house, we got the roof on, the furnace in, the suspended ceilings and shag carpenting out, and stripped the front door. I had been "into" restoration for a long time--ever since the early '70's when The Old House Journal came out and I was volunteering at a historic house in my hometown, restoring the original stencilling. I also was an avid reader of home improvement books and restoration how-tos, so had a good idea what I wanted and what would and wouldn't work. I also knew about the Secretary's Standards...

Long story short--twelve years later, hubby gone, house still not done. We did manage to get it listed as an Historic District in our city, and last month I got a Most Improved House award from the neighborhood association. I had the outside second and third floors painted again this spring and built new bulkhead doors.
Halfway through this project my table saw motor died and I had to buy a new table saw. Buying a replacement motor was as much as the cheapest Craftsman model, so I got a new saw with the retractable legs and a sawdust bag. Two problems. One--the sawdust doesn't go in the bag much, and Two--the saw is too wide for me to maneuver into the house alone, so it has to winter in the garage. I don't like that idea, but putting it in the basement would be just as damp. This was my Christmas present to myself this year.

I also purchased three of these old factory lights from an antique store and polished and lacquered and rewired them and had an electrician put them up on the garage and back of the house for me. Normally I do all of this myself, but this time I wanted someone else to do it for a change because he could do it faster and I wanted to start building a relationship with this electrician because I have lots of more difficult things coming up I will need help on. Also, he moonlights when he does this and isn't a stickler for "code" which is important when restoring an old house for those of you who have run into trades who won't install old pushbutton switches or insist on other modern materials.

Here's a "before" shot of the garage. (I designed and mostly built the doors.)

This garage was built about 40 years ago from lumber taken from the old two storey barn that was on this site, but to the right and turned 90 degrees from the present garage. I wish it was still there! Here is what I put on the remaining cement pad of the old barn.

That's an old cement sink sitting in front of a porcelain toilet with Lamb's Ears in it. I haven't quite figured what to do with the sink yet. It would make a nice water garden, but I don't have any outside electricity for a pump.

Epiphany

2006-12-11T01:04:00.000-05:00

Today I had an epiphany. If I wanted to be able to share all the sorrows, joys, triumphs, dirt, discoveries, and disasters of owning and restoring an old house when no one I know seems to be interested, I'd need to blog about it. Hopefully what I write won't be inane drivel and will contain at least some modicum of usefulness to the outside world. That said, on to the restoration!

I also decided today to spend at least an hour a day stripping old paint off woodwork in some part of the house. I have this neat scraping tool I found in a junk store a few years ago that I find I can't live without. It holds 2" blades of beveled steel at an angle and makes paint just fly when you use it right. I have found that it works best on harder woods like oak, but you still have to be careful of gouging. With this and some dental pics and another tool similar to it that has some interchangeable shaped blades I can strip with relatively no mess but flying paint chips. I suppose I'm also putting lead paint into the air but I don't have any windowsill chewers around and the cats and I won't live forever so I don't care.

Today I stripped quite a bit from some doorways in the kitchen. It was interesting to see what colors these had been painted over the 114 years of love and abuse this kitchen has had. On top of the wood was a thin coat of gray paint. I have found that almost the whole house had the woodwork painted gray at this level. There were other levels of cobalt blue (probably from the '20's), off-white, yellow, chartreuse (ewwww) and white.

Every inch of woodwork in this house had been painted except the pocket door, which would have been if the previous owner had known it was under that strip of molding on the archway. This door is a real beauty. Oak on the parlor side, something else on the dining room side. I need to find some pictures of woodgrains to figure out what this is. A few years ago I really went after this door with Murphy's Oil Soap and got down into the cracks and crevices and now it really gleams. Since it exists, it gives me the problem of what finish to put on the rest of the woodwork in the room when it is finally all stripped. I've never done real varnish before--never even done the alcohol test.

Since the people who painted all this woodwork never bothered (thank Heaven!) to prepare the surfaces before they painted, sometimes I can "lift" paint off with a razor-bladed stripping tool. Once a break in the surface is made or found, carefully working outward and breaking the surface bond of the thick latex paint goes pretty fast. Of course, you have to like the look of leopard-spotted doors all over the house! I really hate to use stripper because it usually chases paint down into cracks I'll never get it out of. Taking all the woodwork off and sending it out to be professionally stripped is totally out of the question with my budget.

The guy who I bought the house from was not a handyman. He had a hole-saw and a staple gun, however, and there are staples and holes all over the house. He liked to put up Christmas lights, so drilled holes through window frames and stapled lights up. He also stapled plastic over the windows. To get power to the dining room, which has not one outlet on any wall, he drilled holes into the basement and ran extension cords from outlets down there. He also liked phones in every room, so stapled phone wire along all baseboards and up and around all door openings. It will be a major fishing operation when I get around to putting phone lines in the few strategic places where I want them. In the meantime I have them draped all over the upstairs where I have taken down walls and doors that were put up in the 1950's to make an upstairs apartment.