I’m Pooped!

I really got a lot done today. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. The house is a lot less feculent and should look nice for the BIG GUEST tomorrow. Also, I entered a contest to get my house painted. Considering the house has not been painted in 80 years or so it would be great if I won. When I pulled off the asbestos siding I found a circa 1920s paint job underneath and it is just falling off the house.

The contest is going on at the local Ace Hardware store. I’m not sure if it is really contest so much as a give-away. You take down a picture of your house and write a paragraph saying why you should get a free paint job, and I guess they just pick one somehow. They are going to be using Ben Moore paint, so I guess that’s good. It said something like $5,000.00, which isn’t enough for a good paint job, but what the hell, $5,000.00 towards a good paint job is not bad. Wish me luck.

I got just about everything done on yesterday's list except the thing-a-ma-jig for the stove vent. I’m going to have to wait until the stove is in the room. I was missing one double-switch plate cover so I ordered that from House of Antique Hardware. I also ordered a GFCI plate in the same style. I’m going to be running coax and phone in to the same box in the kitchen and the interface uses a GFCI type cover.

I also hung the lights and they look pretty cool. They did not screw around with these things 100 years ago. The sockets are all made of heavy porcelain and they are put together with tiny, tiny screws that look like they were made by a watch maker. One of the chandeliers has Thomas Edison patents on the inside of the sockets. There are 2 chandeliers like the one in the picture below, and the flush mount fixture is off to one side in a small alcove (not the alcove that leads to the backdoor).

The flush mount came with the milk-glass acorn shade, and the one chandelier came with 2 antique milk-glass shades (should have photographed with the lights off). The other chandelier (not shown) had no shades so I ordered two very similar milk-glass shades from Rejuvenation this morning. The 2 chandeliers are not identical but they are a very close match. The one shown has little brass leaves on the arms that can’t really be seen in the photo. All 3 have great patina.

I’m going to go do a little touch-up painting and call it a day. I’m pooped!