Set Faces On Stun

Ok folks, here are some pictures with paint. I’ve included a few before shots to bring everything in to perspective. This is also an interactive blog entry because I’m looking for some feedback, but first, lets look at some pictures. You might want to put a towel down on the keyboard or just grab your drool bucket before you start viewing.

Before



After



Now for the questions. The color swatch below is the color I’m considering for the roller shades for the windows. Eventually I would like to do something a little more elaborate with the window treatments (And no, I’m not celebrating Gay Pride this weekend just because I’m a man that uses the term Window Treatments - Not that there’s anything the wrong with that. Everybody’s personal sexual preference is there own business.), but right now I’m hemorrhaging cash, so I’m going with a simple roller shade from Smith-Noble. The question is, would that color go well with the walls (See, a Gay man might know the answer to this question), or should I go with a darker or lighter color?



Also, would the cabinets look odd if they were painted the same color as the rest of the trim, or should I play off the green of the walls. I like the simpler approach, but that’s just me, and I accept the fact that I’m a bit odd in these areas, and don’t always make the best choices.

Now let me switch into Corporate Shill Mode for a moment…processing…processing…processing….

The little bucket below I picked up a few days ago. It is so useful for painting I wanted to share it with you. It is called The Handy Paint Pail and it really is handy. I painted with oil based paint for about 5 hours today and didn’t have to wash my hands afterwards. There are disposable liners. It is comfortable to hold – even for 5 hours, and there is a little magnet at the top that the metal part of the paint brush sticks to. This is by far the best $10.00 I have spent in a long time.



Also, If you’ve never been to the Smith-Noble web site to order blinds or drapes you should try it. It is very well designed considering they are dealing with things as complex as blinds and drapes (lots of options). The web site is easy to follow, well laid out, and fast.


Now switching out of Corporate Shill Mode…processing…processing…processing….


Ughh! I need a shower.

I Think I’m Going To Be Sick

I started painting the trim in the kitchen and it is looking so nice I’m becoming physically ill. I think I’ve become so accustomed to living in this feculent hell-hole (Is that too strong a term?) that my body is rejecting anything nice. It is kind of like a man who has almost starved to death will become sick if he eats too much too fast.

Hopefully I can get this finished up tomorrow. I need to start cleaning the house for the BIG GUEST on Monday. It is all very exciting. I’ll be sure to post All The News That’s Fit To Blog on Monday after the BIG GUEST leaves.

Until then…

Bitch & Moan…And For What?

I know I like to listen to myself complain endlessly about my problems. So naturally, I assume everyone on else wants to listen as well. The constant drone of a nasally, whining voice going on and on about how things aren’t working right. Who wouldn’t love that? Case in point: My plaster work.

For weeks I’ve done nothing but complain about my skills as a plaster, the mess, how it is taking so long. And then, of course, there was yesterday’s issue with that one area of the room that I am no longer mentioning by name. You know what I’m talking about.

Well, anyway, here’s the kicker. After I went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how much everything sucks, and what a pain in the ass it all is, it really doesn’t look that bad. In fact, I’m quite pleased. (Except for that one area. Shhhh!). I got the first coat of paint on and it looks good. The dark green does a good job of hiding some of the, shall we say, less than perfect areas of the room. What really came out better than I expected were the areas that I rebuilt from scratch. You can hardly tell where the two doors used to be.

Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t perfect walls. I’m aware of that. This is only the second room I’ve plastered at it was a tough one (There I go again). I knew going in that it would not be perfect, and I except that. On the plus side, it only cost me $120.00 in plaster and about $20.00 in sand paper and I learned some lessons about plastering. Ideally, there would have been improvement over my first plaster job and the kitchen would have turned out better than the bathroom. The bathroom turned out shockingly well for a first attempt – or even a 10th attempt. Perhaps that was part of the problem. I did so well with the bathroom, I got cocky with the kitchen, and when things started going bad I panicked. We’ll call that a working theory.

Anyway, the paint’s on the walls and I’ve got about a half gallon left to touch up some areas tomorrow. I’ve very pleased with the paint. The color is fantastic (pictures soon) and the coverage is great. Tomorrow I’ll start on the trim. Wish me luck.



PS In other news I got a call-back from the job interview I went to on Tuesday. The message was on my machine. I think they are going to offer me the job and I think I’m going to decline. I’m just not ready for full-time work. Besides, if I went back to work full-time, who would stay home and care for the house.

Doh! Doh!

Ran in to a little problem with the ceiling. As you may or may not recall, this kitchen was split in to different rooms and areas. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, a closet, a Murphy Bed alcove (for lack of a better term), and a small area was opened to the back porch. The “bathroom” and “closet” ceilings will not hold on to the skim-coat plaster. I thought I had solved this issue but apparently I had not. Lakewood 2-Flat mentioned a product called “plaster weld”, but when I asked for it down at the local hardware store I was met with blank stares from Jethro & Betty Lou behind the counter. Someone else mentioned shellac on the bare plaster, and if one more person mentions joint compound I’m going to explode. If plaster won’t stick to plaster then why on earth does someone think that joint compound is going to magically adhere to the plaster?

What happened was this: As I rolled the primer on to the plaster the skim-coat basically peels off with the roller leaving behind a stream of very thin plaster flakes. Not all of it comes off, but enough that it is unacceptable. I had a few small areas on the walls in those two “rooms” where this happened as well, but nothing like the ceiling. The areas on the walls are not really an issue. One spot will be behind the cabinets on either side of the sink and the other will be behind a 9 foot tall hutch. I scraped off the chips and re-primed. These small portions of the ceiling have to be re-done.

I’ve decided I’m not going to re-plaster. I’m just too far along in the process to start that again. Besides, for the “closet” area this will be the third time. There is no guarantee a forth time will be the charm. It seems this is a prep issue. Working on the ceiling is awkward and I guess I wasn’t as thorough when I scraped, sanded, and cleaned. I also noticed that it holds on to the plaster in areas where the plaster is thicker. Along the edges where the ceiling meets the walls the skim-coat plaster is thicker (due to my poor skills) and in that area it is fine. The rest of it has to go, though. I scrapped it all off. This accounts for about 20% of the room.

What I’m going to be left with is different textures on different areas of the ceiling and numerous little plaster flakes in some areas. The skim-coat plaster is smooth while the original lime and sand plaster has a coarse texture to it. Actually “coarse” is not the right word. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, but suffice it to say it is different. What I’ve decided to do now, is just to prime and paint the whole room as I had planned. Down the road I can put up a tin ceiling to cover it up. A tin ceiling was part of the plan originally. I got a quote of $972.00 for the materials delivered to my door, but decided it was not in the budget. I have other things I need to do while the weather is good, so this will be a nice rainy weekend project this winter.

Now the problem is, what do I tell people about the ceiling. I’m having that group of people over in late August. This is a group of old-house owners and they are all going to be very curious about the progress. They are all pleasant and nice people, but some seem to have forgotten that there Mother once told them, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say nothing at all”. I will be getting the question, “What is the deal with the ceiling?”. I’m working on a few responses.

1) “Don’t you just love it. I saw them do this on HGTV and I just had to have it. It is called {French term for Chipped Plaster}. It is all the rage over in Europe right now.”

2) “I wanted to preserver the history of the house. I think it is important for the historical context to keep a “living record” of the changes and modifications the house has gone through. The ceiling will be my living record" (a tear in my eye and a deep, introspective sigh)

3) I look them in to the eye with a wild expression on my face and yell, “Oh, so are you going to point out all my mistakes, now”. I then grab them by the arm and pull them from room to room demanding that they point out any of my mistakes in these room. “What about that electrical outlet? Is THAT too crooked for you Your Majesty? My father always pointed out my mistakes. Are you my father now!?!” I trail off in gentle sobbing and then collapse on the floor and begin to sob uncontrollably, occasionally looking up and demanding that everybody leave my house AT ONCE!!!


I’m kind of leaning towards number 3. What do you guys think?

Doh!

The previous owners of my house subscribed to the age old adage that everything can be fixed with plywood. So instead of fixing the leaky porch roof over the small alcove off the kitchen they put plywood over the damaged plaster inside the house where the leak was, and never fixed the leak on the outside.

This a common leak for a lot of houses. It is where a first story roof meets a second story wall. About two years ago I removed the plywood and all the plaster came with it, along with mold and dirt, and who knows what. The plywood didn’t stop the water put it did divert it in to the wall. Yea! So the wall was ruined too. Anyway, the first time we got rain I had a puddle in the kitchen. Actually, it wasn’t the kitchen at that time. The house came with 4 kitchens and I was using one of the rental kitchens in the house.

As soon as I got some dry weather I went up on the porch and fashioned some flashing. You can see it in the photo below. That second story wall with the shingles is now my bedroom. It was one of the rental kitchens. You can see the small square vent on the wall. That is what is called a “California Cooler”. They were popular in the Teens & 20s around here. When ever you see them on a 19th century house, like mine, the cooler is a later addition.



The way a California Cooler works is that you have louvered vent on the inside of one of the kitchen cabinets. This vent lets cool air in to the cabinet from the outside. The shelves in the cabinet are thin wooden slats or wire mesh so the air can circulate. They used it to store dairy and other semi-perishable things in the days before the refrigerator was a common household item. The weather here is remarkable on the coast in that it stays cool all year round. Temps in the 50s are the norm for over-night lows in the summer, and the days never get over 75. High 60s and low 70s are common for daytime temps. In fact, I’ve been wearing long johns for the last few days while painting in the kitchen. I’m down to a plank sub floor and the cool air comes up through the cracks in the floor. It is a little cool while sitting on the floor painting the bead board. But I digress. Back to the leak.

All seemed fine with my flashing. For almost 2 years I’ve had no water in the kitchen – until I plastered. We got rain on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It really came down hard on Saturday, all day and night. On Sunday I noticed a small wet spot on the plaster. You can see it in the picture below, in the upper, right-hand corner. That is just below the flashing the first photo. The plaster is still very firm, and it didn’t seem to have suffered any real damage, but it was a disappointment to see it. This means another trip up on the porch roof tomorrow. One of two things has happened. Either the flashing never really worked completely, and a little water has always gotten in, but only enough to dampen the framing, or this is a new problem. Not sure which it is, but at least I discovered it before I painted.



Speaking of painting, I’m in the middle of it right now. I got the walls and all the trim primed. All that is left to do is to primer the ceiling. I took a little break to post to the old blog and shove some grub in my gut before I finish up. I also had to do some laundry because I have a job interview tomorrow. I’m not sure if that is a good thing yet, but I had to dig out something nice to wear, and I rarely wear anything nice, so I had to wash it. It is not a suit and tie, don’t worry. I own one suit and the last time I wore it was when my Mom remarried. I told her then, the next time I wear it will be at a funeral and it will probably be mine. She didn’t think that was funny.

The interview is in a different profession than I normally work. I’m looking for something different. What ever I put down in my blog profile was a lie. That was all part of my master plan to thwart the international gang of identity thieves that hound me at every turn. Right now I work for a small, local manufacturer doing sales and IT work. It is only part-time work, that is why I’m able to do so much work on the house and actually get things done on “a school night”. The new job is for a small telecom company. It is an entry level position but I need a change. I guess the fact that they are giving me an interview is a good sign. I mean, they didn’t just laugh and throw away my resume. Not sure it I’m ready for full-time work, though. Some how I’ve managed not to work full-time for more than 15 years now. We’ll see what happens. Don’t wish me luck.

The Artist Formerly Known As Grex

When I was about 18 or 19 I got a job as a busboy at what was at the time the largest restaurant in the country. There were 14 or 15 dining rooms and they could seat about 600 people at any one time. During the busy summer months they had over 100 wait staff, 30 busboys, 20 or so dishwashers, and the same number of cooks on the schedule at any given time. The place served breakfast, lunch, and diner and it was a freakin’ mad house. It had been in business since the 20s or 30s. The woman who ran the kitchen looked like a Marine Drill Sergeant and had worked there for more than 40 years. It was the only job she ever had in her whole life.

Anyway, I worked there for 2 or 3 years as a busboy. As a busboy I made frequent trips back to the dishwashing room. The dishwashing room was as big as most restaurants. It was run by conveyor belts, shrouded in steam, and occupied my Mexicans. One evening I was there unloading a load of dishes when suddenly out of the steam I saw one of the dishwashers waving his arm at me and he shouted, “Grrrex Morgaaan!”. He shouted it very enthusiastically, trilling the “r” in “Grex” for a long time and extending out the last syllable in “Morgan". I had no idea what the hell he was talking about so I just sort of waved back and headed back out to the dining room.

For the next several weeks, every time this guy saw me he would yell, “Grrrex Morgaaaan!”. It was very odd. A couple of my buddies heard about this and thought it was cool. They all started calling me Grex. So for the next few years I was Grex to 4 or 5 of my closest friends. A few years went by, and we drifted apart, and the name Grex sort of fell by the wayside along with weird hair cuts and bad fashion choices. I haven’t used the name Grex in years.

Last year I was the victim of identity theft. Somehow, someone got a hold of a credit card number of mine and started charging things around the world. I got home from work and there was a message on my machine from the Citibank fraud division. I was getting very nervous listening to the message on the machine. I called them back and they were very helpful. Apparently, the modus operandi of these people is to get a credit card number and make a few small purchases over-seas to make sure the number is valid. In my case they ordered something from Indonesia. If the number is good they will quickly make a few large purchases at brick-and-mortar establishments here in the States before the card is shut down. Citibank is aware of this practice so the small purchase in Indonesia followed by a large purchase at an auto parts store in Phoenix set off a red flag in their computer system. They discontinued the card number and called me.

All went well at my end. I didn’t have to pay for anything and they issued a new card. However, it made me very aware of how I treat my personal information. One area I started to think about was all of the crap I write on-line about me and my misadventures of restoring an old Victorian. When I started the blog a few months ago I decided I needed a new on-line persona that would leave my true identity seeming like an enigma, inside a mystery, wrapped in a riddle. I decided to resurrect my alter ego “Grex”.

All was well except for one thing. I don’t feel like a “Grex”. Grex was a gangly, awkward 19 year old. Now I’ve matured into a gangly, awkward 43 year old. Grex just isn’t me anymore. So I’ve decided to go back to my real name. How much can someone get from a first name, right? So, if any of you are still reading this, from this day forward, you can all me G-Diddy. No I’m only kidding, my name is Greg. A real mystery, uh? Bet you didn’t see that one coming. I was hoping to thwart the master-minds of an international identity theft ring by changing the last letter of my first name from “g” to “x”. It was a fiendishly clever idea, I’ll admit, but as I said, I’m just not a Grex. It doesn't feel right. So, back to the boring life of Greg, and Greg is going to go paint the kitchen now.


PS Just incase you’re wondering, my last name is not Morgan, and to this day I have no idea where that dishwasher came up with the name Grex Morgan. It is one of life’s little mysteries.

Sticker Shock

I guess I should expect it. It is easy not to think about every cost associated with fixing up a room. I just didn’t think the paint would be that much. I went with the Sherwin Williams Majolica Green in Latex Satin for the walls, and Honied White in Oil Semi-Glass for the trim. I got the Pro Classic Enamel which is normally around $41.00 a gallon but it was on sale for $31.00 a gallon, so it could have been worse. I’m terrible at cleaning and taking care of paint brushes so it seems like I have to buy new ones every time I paint, and this was no exception.

Here is what I ended up buying

3 gallons of primer (I can return un-opened gallons),
2 gallons of each color of paint
2 trim brushes
1 bundle of 3 roller covers
4 Tack Cloths
1 bundle of 5 tray liners
1 bundle of latex gloves

Out the door: $249.17

As you may recall from earlier blog entries I have been thinking about paint for the past few weeks. For some reason I had this number in my head of $150.00. I’m not sure exactly where I came up with the number, but when ever I thought about paint I figured $150.00. I wonder if I should revise the numbers in my head for window treatments and the kitchen faucet (last 2 big things I need to buy).

All that is left is to physically paint the room. I got a call from the person milling the flooring material on Friday and he said it could be here as early as Wednesday. I’m thinking Friday, if I’m lucky, so that gives me a good 5 or 6 days to get the room painted. The goal is to be finished by Wednesday. I had wanted to paint after I had the floor in and sanded, but I’m not going to sit around and do nothing for a week, so painting it is.

Stripping Pictures

SEX! Ok, now that I’ve got your attention…

That probably doesn’t work that well anymore to get peoples attention in our society. We are so bombarded by sexual images in advertising that it has all just become a blur. But, everyone tells me this is the greatest country on Earth, so it must be all good. Anyway, this is about paint stripping, as if you didn’t already know.

Kristin, over at 1902 Victorian gave herself the stripper name of Tina Tingles. I thought that was hilarious. Over the past three years I have become a paint stripping machine, but I’m not sure I’m ready for a stripper name. I toyed with the idea of Pistol Pete. It sort of keeps with the whole heat gun thing. I just don’t know, though. I start to picture myself in leather chaps with 2 heat guns in holsters and it just, well, kind of makes me queasy. Anyway, cute names aren’t really my thing anyway.

So, let’s forget all that and get back to the real reason for this post – SEX, I mean stripping – PAINT STRIPPING!!! That’s what I mean. Below, are two pictures of my favorite spot in the kitchen. Pre-stripped and post-stripped. The room was originally faux grained so getting back to absolute bare wood was not really an option, or the intention. I just needed to get rid of the layers of paint and the drips and runs so I could get a nice smooth paint job.

The 2 corner blocks are crammed in to the corner and they coped (sp?) them together. It is interesting when you look at it up close to see that on the bottom the one on the left is in front, but at the top the one on the right is in front. They are sort of keyed together. As a novice wood worker, I find this very impressive. It is really done well. The person who did this really knew what they were doing. I wonder if they got it right the first try, or if they had a few screw ups.

I’ve completely stripped 3 rooms of paint now. First I did the bathroom, then the dining room, and now the kitchen. All three rooms had copious amounts of woodwork. Now that I think about it, those three rooms have the most woodwork of any other rooms in the house. I guess the worst is behind me. The first 2 rooms I took back to bare wood and stained and shellacked.

If I can finish sanding today I can start painting tomorrow. So why am I here typing and not sanding?

Home Depot Score!

These big box stores really do have everything, and at such great prices. There I was standing at the check-out line and I started to browse the discount table. Underneath a 6 piece screwdriver set there was a dumb waiter style door complete with Victorian trim and antique Eastlake brass hardware! The entire thing is made of old-growth redwood!! The best part – it was only $19.99!!! It must have been a return item because it looks like someone tried to paint it, but I should be able to clean that up.

Before and Almost After

A quick recap for those of you that don't keep up:

• House built in 1895.


• Cut up into apartments ca. 1920.


• Kitchen was the one room really butchered.


• Big hole in the wall was a Murphy bed.

My goal: Put it all back together. I left All The Kings Horses and All The Kings Men in my other pants so I'm doing it myself.

Big Hole

Hole Filled

Plater, Door Casing, and Wainscot Cap On

The door casing in the picture was the casing I Lucy-ed out on yesterday. To the left you can see the dumb waiter style door from my postings a few months ago ( - sigh - ). Next I'm going to build the sill and trim that out. After that I have just one small window that needs trim and then I can slather the whole room with a greasy coat of primer in perpetration for the big paint job. I still need a floor and I need to build cabinets, along with several dozen other things I can't think of right now. I'm supposed to have a party at my house in late August. Can I make it? Inquiring minds want to know.

Waaaaaa!

Remember how Lucy used to cry in the old “I Love Lucy” shows. Ricky would come home from the club and Lucy and Ethel would be caught in some hair-brained scheme and Ricky would say, “Lucy! You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!” Then Lucy would look into the camera with her mouth wide open and go, “Waaaaaaa!” That was me today. I’m Lucy.

Here’s what happened. It all started about 80 years ago. When my house was converted in to apartments they took two of the grand openings between the parlors and reduced them to single door openings. When they did this they took the existing casing and sawed it down to fit the new, smaller opening. Now fast forward 80 years. I opened the space back up but I needed new casing to fit the wider opening. So, off to the mill I went and at great expense had new casing custom milled. The old, shorter casing was fine and the plan has always been to use it in other areas of the house. I forgot about the fact that this old, smaller casing, which has been stored in the attic, is drenched in layers and layers of paint. I need to install some of it in the kitchen and that means MORE PAINT STRIPPING!!!!. I have to do 2 plinth blocks, a header, and 2 sides. The corner blocks are new reproductions so they are fine.

Here’s how it went in my head as I walked down from the attic.

Ricky: “Lucy! You’ve got some strippin’ to do!”

Lucy: “Waaaaaa! But Ricky I don’t want to.

Ricky: “Damn it, Lucy! You start strippin’ dat paint right now or I’m gonna’ beat the hell out of you!”

Lucy: “No Ricky, don’t hit me again. I’ll do it, I swear. Waaaaaaa!”

(I don’t remember I Love Lucy being so violent, but this is the 21st Century)

Bony Fingers

Sand your fingers to the bone
What do you get
What do you get
Bony Fingers
Bony Fingers

And smooth casing ready for paint

Some Things Never Change

Maybe it’s better to say some things never change that much. The top piece of trim is original to 1895. The bottom piece I bought off the shelf at Ace Hardware a few weeks ago. They look very similar but the new piece is ¼ inch narrower that the old piece, and not quite as beefy. This trim is going in the kitchen to hide the gap between the bead board and plaster.


Back in the 20s when they partitioned the kitchen there was not enough of the fluted trim to cover all the new walls. When they built the new walls they used bead board but went with a flat 1X3 instead of the fluted casing. The was, of course, the popular style at the time. The same fluted trim was used in 3 rooms and the back stairwell to bridge the gap between wainscoting and plaster. I was missing short runs in all 3 rooms. Originally the plan was to have new trim milled. That gets expensive for short runs, though. If they have to grind a knife you’re looking at around $200 just for knives and set-up. I only need 20 or 30 feet, so it is tough to justify it. Now the plan is to use the store bought stuff for the kitchen, because it will be painted, and use the kitchen-salvaged 1895 redwood trim for in-fill in the other two rooms where I missing short runs. The wood in those rooms is shellacked.

It is interesting to note that the 1920s bead board, while identical to the 1895 bead board in the profile, was also ¼ narrower than the 1895 bead board. This was actually what I used to determine what was a later wall and what was original. Now that I have the kitchen opened back up to it’s original size, it looks obvious that this is the way it should be. When I first bought the house, though, it was a real mystery. All of the walls (1895 & 1920s) had layers of wallpaper and then plywood on to of that. One of the walls incorporated an 1890s cabinet in to it. After careful observation I found a point where the bead board was going in the wrong direction (bead on the left and not on the right). I couldn’t figure out why they would do this. I then noticed that the 2 pieces on either side of this seam where not quite the same size. The 1895 bead board is ¼ wider than the 1920s stuff.

This actually worked out very well. I had to remove some bead board here and there to run new wires and plumbing. I also had to in-fill some areas where they had added doors in the 20s. Let’s say that the 1895 stuff is 3 ¾ inches wide and the 1920s stuff is 3 ½ inches wide. By mixing the 2 together I could accurately fill large gaps in the continues run of bead board around the room. For instance, let’s say I have a door way that I needed to close back up and this doorway needs 32.5 inches of bead board. By taking 6 old pieces and 3 new pieces I would have 33 inches of bead board – too wide. So I swap out 2 old pieces and I now have 4 old and 5 new pieces, giving me 32.5 inches of bead board to accurately fill the gap. It worked out very well

Back to the store bought casing: A ¼ inch does not sound like much of a difference but it could be a problem. Another thing different about the 1895 bead board and the 1920s bead board is the height. The 1920s stuff is exactly 36 inches. I suspect it was a stock item in the 20s and was cut at the mill to 36 inch lengths. The 1895 stuff varies in height and some of it is on the short side. It looks like they sawed it on site from longer lengths and they did not need to be accurate because they knew the cap would cover the ends so long as they were a minimum of 34 inches. The 1895 fluted cap was wide enough to cover the gap but the modern store bought stuff might be a little short in a few places. I might have to get creative with caulk and putty.

I’ve decided to put the cap up before I paint incase there are any problems. All I have to do now is sand everything in the room once more with 100 grit and I can start applying the fluted wainscot cap.

Gonna Fly Now

Ba na daaaa, ba na da na daaaaa
Ba na daaaa, ba na da na daaaaa
Ba na da da na da na daaa daaa….daaaaa

(Close up of me jogging in place on my front porch. My arms up over my head with a heat gun in one hand and a scraper in the other. Celebrating that I finished scarping paint in the kitchen)

(Music picks up in the background as the image moves up and back to pick up the whole house)
(Now the chorus comes in as I pump the air with my fists)

Trying hard now
it's so hard now
trying hard now

Getting strong now
won't be long now
getting strong now

Gonna fly now
flying high now
gonna fly, fly, fly...

(Eat your heart out Sylvester Stalone)

The Ritual

I have an afternoon ritual that I go through everyday when I get home from work. It starts with feeding the piglets. My two cats are on a bit of a diet so they seem like they are on the verge of starvation when I get home. Then I plop down on the couch and do a bit of surfing. I have three or four sites I go to on a regular basis. I spend about 20 to 40 minutes on-line, depending on how much I write.

First I go to The Old House Web Forum. There are always interesting discussions with a nice group of mostly like-minded people. It is fun to answer peoples questions. I especially like the old house mystery questions. People find something odd from a by-gone era and can’t figure out what it is. Sometimes It is not always apparent to anyone at first what it might be. Of course, I always have plenty of questions myself to ask.

Next I sometimes go to The Old House Journal Forum. I used to go there more often, but I don’t like the lay-out of the forum very well. It is not user friendly. There is A LOT of clicking and waiting to go around to the different areas of the forum. There are always interesting things going on there, so it is still fun from time to time.

Next I head here to see what’s new on the House Blogs. There are a few that I read on a regular basis. I tend to read blogs that are either well written or are pertinent to what I am doing at my house. It is interesting that I can read something that I’m not really interested in if it is well written and or cleverly written. Also, if it is something I have been through in the past, or plan on doing in the future I will read it.

Next I check my email. I download the email headers only because I get a lot of Spam. Fifty emails is about normal. Some days it is over 100. I’m lucky if 4 of those are legitimate emails. I’m always on the lookout for the emails that start with [Petch House]. This, of course, means that someone left a comment on my blog. A blog comment means my life is now complete. All is right with the world. I’m not blogging to the Dead Letter Office in cyberspace. My existence in this world now has meaning. Ok, that is a bit much, but comments are nice.

Finally, I head to Ebay if I’m looking for something specific or am currently bidding on something. I couldn’t imagine trying to do what I’m doing with my house without Ebay. Especially living so far out on the boonies as I do. The selection is incredible and prices are usually very good. On Saturday I just won an auction on an 1890s, 4 piece cast iron fireplace surround and cover unit. The 2 were missing on the fireplaces in my house. I bought one on Ebay about 9 months ago and have been looking for a similar one for the other fireplace. I want them to look like they were bought at the same time. Getting 2 matching ones was out of the question, but 2 similar ones will be nice. Below is the one I bought 9 months ago. The tiles and mantle are original to the house.




This one is in the dining room. It is a pretty intense scene. Maybe Civil War inspired. There is a broken canon on the ground and the horse has been wounded. I didn't really realize what the scene was when I bought it. At first I wasn't sure I liked it, but the more time I spend with it the more I like it. It is a very powerful scene. Most people don't realize what they are looking at. The one I bought on Saturday is a little more ornate, but has the same bottom grate and same size cover. The image on the cover is some type of harp - maybe a lyre - with flowers and ribbons. That one will go in the back parlor and it will be very fitting because I have 2 large antique Cambridge Tile Works tiles for the hearth that have French Horns them. I had thought about putting a piano in that room someday so it should all tie together nicely as The Music Room.

My Plinths Are Floating

It kind of looks like all the walls in the kitchen are floating about an inch off the floor. When I removed my old floor I could just chisel it to the edges and then put up quarter round trim to hide and gap. The problem was the plinth blocks. It would look stupid to have quarter round in front of the plinth blocks. Besides they have a little detail to them so the quarter round wouldn't really work any way. The solution was to chisel and saw the old floor out from under the plinth blocks. True, I could have removed them, but there are 10 of them and they have been there for 110 years. The chances of getting them all off in one piece is slim to nil. So chisel and saw I did. I went ahead and took it out from under all the bead board so it now looks like the walls are floating above the floor.

Punching An Actual List

I’m not much of a “List Guy” normally. I know that I’m going to do a project and I just work on it in a more organic nature, rather than putting pencil to paper and making up a list. On smaller projects it is obvious what needs to be done first, and I just do it. The kitchen was a little more involved, so I made an actual List of Priorities in the order they should be done. This was a first for me.

It worked well to get the scope of the job down. It was such a big job that it seemed overwhelming and I was having trouble getting started. There was so much to do I really didn’t know where to start. The List help prioritize things, but to be honest I never really looked at The List after I made it. Obviuosly, The List System still has some flaws. I looked at The List last night for the first time since I made it. It is a Word Doc and the creation date was December 11, 2004. Almost 6 months ago!

The List below is as I wrote it in December. There are many things not on The List that were already done before I made The List. When I re-wired and re-plumbed I ran wiring and plumbing in the kitchen so those things were done (some ended up changing). When I first bought the house I was soooo broke I spent the first year doing things that only took the sweat of my brow and very little money, like stripping wallpaper and flooring, and removing partitions, so that was all done.

In many ways it helped that I didn’t have any money at first. I was able to live with the house for a while and those things that needed to be done sort of revealed themselves rather than me deciding right off the bat what I thought needed to be done.

Money was very tight when I first bought the place. When the inspection report came in during escrow it said the house needed $40,000 worth of work!! That was just to bring it up to snuff. That had nothing to do with cosmetic stuff. The report didn’t even have major stuff like roof, foundation, electrical, plumbing, or HVAC. The roof was only 6 years old and structurally the house is solid as a rock. Electrical and plumbing sucked but they were functional. There was just sooooo much neglect. The big-ticket items on the report were the two porches had problems and the 2 story addition was, well, it was basically rotted and falling off the house. I didn’t want a couple of slack-jawed yokels with a Sawzall to come in and bang out $40,000 worth of work during a 60 day escrow. Besides, the plan was and always has been to remove the addition anyway.

Instead of putting 20% down and having all the work done before escrow closed I did everything but hawk my back teeth to come up with a 50% down payment to buy the house “as-is”. That big wad of cash, along with my stellar credit rating (825 – Thank you very much) was enough make the nice bank lady happy enough to spot me the rest of the cash to get the place.

Anyway, back to The List. As I said, The List System still has some flaws. I suppose if I’m going to make The List I should at least print out The List and review it more than once every 6 months. That will be something to work on in the future. Those items on The List that have an “X” by them have been finished, and those that have a “/” are partially completed. That is 6 months worth of work.


X Get trim milled
X Rebuild dumb waiter door
X Rebuild Dining room wall
X Frame 2 Stained Glass Windows
X Enclose Porch
X Install Window
X Move backdoor
X Enclose Parlor wall
X Reroute lighting wires and install new light
X Open vent and line chimney
/ Repair and paint and ceiling, walls, & bead board
Build cabinets for sink and DW
X Install gas line for stove
/ Remove old floor and install new floor
Repair salvage cabinets

Day Off…Sort Of…Not Really

I woke up this morning feeling like someone had worked me over with a rubber hose. I was just out of it. Pulling up that floor is really tough, and it was the end of a tough week. I decided I would take the day off from working on the house and it almost worked. I did go down to Sherwin Williams and pick up paint chips to look at. I’m still having trouble deciding on colors for the kitchen. I posted a question in the Old House Web Forum, so maybe I’ll get some more insight from the good folks over there.

I took a nice long walk around town and took care of some business. I’m still trying to track down the origin of the architectural term “arrowsmith” (sp?). There are dozens, if not hundreds of these stylized floral carvings on the frieze around the top of my house. They are about a foot in diameter and are butted together one after the other all the way around the house. There are 3 or 4 other houses in town that have them as well. Someone told me they were called arrowsmiths but I’ve never been able to confirm it and I want to use the term in the paperwork for the National Register of Historic Places.

I finally found the local origin of the term. It comes form a man named Eric Hollenbeck. He is a local master carpenter and runs the Blue Ox Mill. I’ve done business with him on many occasions. I called down to his mill but he wasn’t in so I spoke with his wife. She told me Eric heard the term from an architect “Back East”. The plot thickens. Eric is going to be getting back to me next week on this.

After lunch I flopped on the couch and contemplated a little nap. Just as I started to doze off I heard something calling to me. It was faint at first and then it got louder and louder. It was the kitchen floor. Calling to me. Pleading with me to come in the kitchen and do some more work. I could not resist the siren song of the floor. I put on my work close and pulled up some more floor. So much for my day off.

Totally Floored

I started pulling up the old floor today and it is fighting me every inch of the way. I’m going to be able to use all of the other 1895 floors in the house but the kitchen was just too far gone. This was the room that took the brunt of the apartment cut-up 80 or 90 years ago. About 15 square feet of the finish floor is completely missing and there are about a dozen holes from water and waste pipes.

I had already pulled up the layers of linoleum and vinyl and what I was left with was pretty much beat to hell. So many nails. At some point an over zealous floor installer with a pneumatic nail gun went hog wild with the nails. In some places they were laid every 2 inches in every direction. To make matters worse, back in the 20s about a third of the kitchen became a bathroom. The nails rusted and will not come out.

The one surprising thing is that I will actually be able to salvage some of the wood. No doubt a testament to old-growth redwood. All floors in the house are 1X6 T&G redwood flooring. I’m hoping I can salvage enough to repair a few damaged boards in the dining room and butler’s pantry. For now it all comes up and goes in to the garage on top of all the other salvage wood. Just keep piling it up.

That 70s Color

Before I stripped off the last of it, I thought I would get a shot of this lovely orange paint that was on the wainscoting in the kitchen. I felt like I was back in 1975 just looking at it. In fact, I think I was getting a contact buzz as I was stripping it. Hmmm, that could have been from those healthful lead paint fumes. Either way, it is gone and I have that inflated sense of self esteem that one normally only gets from alcohol or hand guns! I have 2 windows left to strip and I can put a coat of primer on the whole room. Then all the little flaws will be more visible and my self esteem will be back where it’s supposed to be.

Don't Light A Match!

I spent the morning under the house for what I hope will be the last time for a long time. A few months back I decided to move the stove but never moved the gas line. I think I was putting it off until the last minute just in case my mind changed again. Push officially came to shove this morning because I want to get the last of the bead board up and finish paint stripping. So, gas line moved. No leaks. Bead board up.

My neighbor Gary has been a plumber in this town for 25 years or so. He is indispensable when it comes to this sort of thing. Last year when I replaced all the other gas lines in the house I went to ask him if he new a good plumber to do the work. He convinced me to do it myself. He came over and toured the house. He showed me how to measure properly and how much to deduct for fittings. He advised me on pipe size. He then told me to draw out a diagram with measurements and he would review it. I did that and took it over to him. He went over everything and then got on the phone and called the plumbing supply house he deals with and called in the order. I picked everything up the next day. All of the pipe was cut and threaded to my exact measurements and well below retail. Gary loaned me some tools and then gave me a quick lesson on pipe fitting. When it came time to run new copper and fix drains he is always happy to give advise. He tells me he won’t do any of the work, but if I need anything else, all I have to do is ask.

Well, today I got the pipe moved but I was missing one fitting so I trotted across the street to Gary’s. We go out in his garage and he has every conceivable pipe fitting you can imagine. It is better stocked than most hardware stores. All of it is leftovers for jobs he has done in the past. He has cast iron waste pipe, copper up to 6-inch, black pipe, galvanized, PVC, CPVC, and ABS. I mean everything. Sure enough, he pulls out a bucket of ¾ inch nipples and dumps them out. I tell him I need a 2 inch so he digs out 2 of each 1.5-inch, 2-inch, 2.5-inch, and 3-inch. He tells me to just bring back what I don’t use. When I had to replace a cast iron elbow he did the same thing. You go over and say you need a 45 degree elbow and you leave with 4 or 5 fittings at various angles. Just bring back what you don’t use.

I spent the weekend stripping paint on 4 entry ways. It went pretty smooth. I start with the heat gun and get most of the paint off. The woodwork is ornate Victorian so it is slow going. This room was originally faux grained in oak, and then over the years it was painted several times. The faux graining is alcohol based and may be tinted shellac but it does not come off quite as easily as plain shellac. I’m left with a good amount of residue. Normally I would switch to alcohol and then sand paper. However, I tried something different this time and it seems to work really well.

I take Jasco Semi-paste paint stripper and use it with steel wool like a soft scrub cleanser. The Jasco semi-paste is a thick, slime like substance that adheres well to vertical surfaces. I spread it on about 2 feet of casing then scrub with the steel wool. It gets most of the residue off and what is left is smooth enough that very little sanding needs to be done. I’ll probably just wait until I’m ready to paint and then go over it with 100 grit.

That’s enough for now, back to paint stripping.

I Need A 1993 Mazda Pick-up (4X4)

Anybody know were I can get a 1993 Mazda Pick-up (4X4). For some reason I just have an urge for a 1993 Mazda Pick-up (4X4). If anybody hears of a 1993 Mazda Pick-up (4X4) for sale be sure to let me know.

Kinetic Sculpture Race

I took a day off from slave duty to watch day 2 of 2005 Kinetic Sculpture Race. The race is a nearly 30 year annual event on the North Coast. It is a 3 day race that starts in Arcata, goes to Eureka, and ends in Ferndale. All sculptures are people powered and must be able to traverse sand, mud, water, and asphalt. These are pictures of day 2 of the race as they start to cross the Humboldt Bay for the water portion of the race. It is a hoot and a half.

For more pictures of today's race click Here.
For the Kinetic Sculpture Race home page click Here.

Coping With Old Woodwork

No, it’s not a 12-Step Group for people dealing with over-painted or battered woodwork in their house. This is just a neat shot from the kitchen of a good cope joint. The shorter one is to the door under the stairs. The person who did this was either very good at their work or they were good at hiding their mistakes. I will be stripping and repainting, of course.

As Bad As It Gets

The current level of destruction in my house is unprecedented in the 3 years I’ve been working on it. It needed to be documented so here it is (pictures below). When you feel that your house is out of control you can come here and view this blog entry and feel that much better about yourself.

What I am dealing with now is the culmination of two major projects. The debris from one has collided with the debris from the other like two binary stars that could no longer over come the gravitational forces that kept them apart. Virtually every single room in a 3000 sq ft house and 3 garages has been affected by it. In some ways, it is the amount of space I have and not the lack of it that has caused it to get so bad. If I always have room to put something someplace, I can put it there and worry about it another time.

It started about 8 months ago. I dismantled a 1920s 2 story addition to my house. Up until that point the kitchen and bath I was using were in the addition. Once it came down I had to bring the original kitchen and bath on-line. The house has been in a permanent state of chaos ever since.

I salvaged as much as I could from the addition. All interior and exterior wood was beautiful old-growth redwood. I can’t bring myself to throw away any but the absolute worst of it. Two garages are filled with lumber. A third, which is my shop, is crammed with trim. Doors and windows ended up all over the place, along with doors in the house I removed for various reasons. The attic has piles of bead board and casing, a few toilets, boxes of kitchen stuff, and more lumber. One of the upstairs bedrooms that I used as a staging area when I dismantled the top floor still has some lumber in it.

The new casing that I had milled from the salvage lumber is piled in the upstairs hall, and more is in the front parlor. Also in the hallway is about 30 feet of really cool 1X6 crown molding that came off the exterior of the addition. The claw foot tub, toilet, and sink from the downstairs addition bathroom is piled up in the butler’s pantry. There is also more doors and flooring material in there. The scullery has cabinet fronts and draws for the soon-to-be kitchen cabinets, along with more assorted trim pieces and I think another door.

The dining room has cabinets from my soon-to-be kitchen, dishwasher, refrigerator, part of a sideboard I traded for a claw foot tub that came out of the upstairs bathroom of the addition. There is also some new trim for the kitchen and assorted other pieces that came out of the addition. The front parlor has a stove, dining room table, reproduced corner blocks and plinth blocks (milled from addition salvage lumber), the top half of the sideboard, and another cabinet for the kitchen. The back parlor has another stove (there will be 2 in the kitchen) and another cabinet that will be going above an apron sink in the butler’s pantry. The apron sink is in the kitchen I’m working on, and the reason it is there right now is because it is too damn heavy to move and I have no place to put it.

The house has fancy cut octagon shingles on the second floor. I had to cut a bunch of redwood shingles to reside part of the exterior after I moved the addition and I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the scraps. I have about 800 pieces of 6X6 redwood blocks, and about 1600 small redwood triangles. The garages were full so they still sit in boxes in the foyer looking for a home. Also, the foyer is a little table that I will probably be getting rid of but I haven’t yet so there it sits. Oh, and there are 3 strange brass chandeliers that my neighbor was going to throw away so naturally I took them. They are on the floor just inside the door where I put them 2 months ago. There is also a new fir door that came off the back porch when I rebuilt the alcove. It will be leaving but it hasn’t yet.

That is pretty much the whole house except for 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom is my one finished room and my pride and joy so nothing gets put in there. The bedroom I use is also off limits. The other bedroom remains a guest room but things have begun to creep in. I'm keeping and 1890s parlor set that belonged to my Great, Great Grandmother in there.

As soon as I can get the kitchen done and the butler’s pantry squared away it should be much better. I can then sort of stand back and decided what I need and don’t need for all of the doors windows, trim, and lumber. I’m hesitant to get rid of anything at this point because you really never know what you’ll need. It is a bit over-whelming at times, but I just need to stay focused and keep working on the kitchen. However, it will get worse before it gets better. The new wood flooring for the kitchen is supposed to arrive some time soon. I need to pull up the existing 1X6 redwood flooring that is in there. It is in rough shape but there is a lot of good lumber in there. I have to find a home for 325 sq ft of new flooring and 325 sq ft of old flooring. It is going to be interesting.

These pictures don’t do it justice. It is much worse in real life.

Dining Room

Butler's Pantry

Scullery

Kitchen

Front Parlot

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Foyer

Shop

Dusted!

Dust, dust everywhere but not a drop to drink. No, wait, that’s not it. How do I dust thee. Let me count the ways. Hmmm, closer. Eat my dust! There, that’s the one. Yes, eat my dust. Everyone come over here right now and eat my dust. That is the only way I’m going to get it out of the house.

I have got more dust in this house than I can shake a stick at. Because of the thick haze in the air I keep trying to clean my glasses thinking they are just incredibly dirty. My CDs are skipping and the DVD/CD burner on my laptop just stopped working. It is very dusty in here. Did I make my point as to just how dusty it is? I tell ya folks, it’s soooo dusty in here (HOW DUSTY IS IT?)… Hi-Yo

Ok, that’s enough.

The dust is from all the plaster sanding in the kitchen. It has been really windy here the past two days so I can’t open the doors or windows to let it out. The wind is coming in from the west and that is the side of the house the kitchen is on. I tried sealing the entryways in to other rooms with plastic but it can’t hold everything back. I then made the mistake of going out the back door. The wind shot through the door with such force that it ripped part of the plastic off the door going in to the dining room. Billows of white powder poured in to the rest of the house.

The good thing is, I did finish the sanding today. I’m going to go back over a few small places here and there with fresh plaster tomorrow. For all intent and purpose, though, I am done! It still looks funny because I skim coated over existing walls and new work. Also, this room was partitioned into three rooms about 90 years ago, so I was working with many different wall surfaces try to get them back to a uniformed appearance. Until I get a coat of primer on I really won’t be sure how well I did. Right now they are still walls only a homeowner could love.

It's Color Time

I’ve actually started thinking about colors for the kitchen and I need help. I really hate picking colors. It is one of those “finish” issues I wrote of before. It is just so final. Once I paint I’m going to have to live with it for a while. Below is my first idea.

The room is 285 sq ft. It is on the north side of the house and the windows are all under a porch so it does not get a lot of light streaming through the windows. The ceilings are 10.5-feet high. The floor will be wood. There will be only one built in counter with cabinets above. These rest will be free standing cabinets, so there will be a lot of wall visible. The trim color will be used a lot because there is 36 inch bead board around the whole room. Not sure if I quite got that trim color right. It is supposed be a sort of light cream color. The cabinets will also be painted. I’m thinking a dark green, similar to the accent green. There will probably be an 18-inch wallpaper boarder around the room. The main source for lighting will be 2, 2-light antique brass fixtures that hand hang 2 or 3 feet into the room.

Be honest, will it look like crap? Any other suggestions for a color pallet? Really be honest. I need help.

For What It’s Worth II

Got all the skim coating done. Next time I’m starting with the ceiling. I normally do that when I paint, so I’m not sure what I was thinking. I have new little blobs of plaster on the walls here and there that must have been flicked off the trowel when I was doing the ceiling. Not the end of the world.

This is the second room I’ve done plaster on. The first time I think I got it on too thick and this time it may be too thin in places. I started to sand today and with 120 grit I get back to original plaster awfully quick in places. The plaster underneath is solid but the texture is different. Not sure how it will show. I will probably go back over some places.

The places that failed on the first try seem to be holding now, but thanks to Steve at Lakewood 2-Flat for the suggestion of plaster weld. I’m going to look for that. I have plenty of plaster in this house that needs work.

I had to quit sanding today because it was so windy today. Normally I can get positive air flow going and with the back door open all the dust gets sucked out. As it is, I now have another thin coating of white dust over the entire first floor of the house. Yea!

On a high note, I was looking at primer today and a few cans said I should wait 90 days before painting new plaster. Now, if anyone asks why I’m taking so long with the plaster I can say, with an air of superiority, “Well, you have to take this long. I mean, come on, who’s going to paint plaster within 90 days of finishing. What is this armature night?”

Plans Go Asunder

I had planned to use the neighbor's scaffolding to work on the ceiling but he had to go to LA for who knows how long so I’m back to the trusty ladder. I own 4 ladders. There is the 32 foot monster ladder that is invaluable when you own a tall Victorian. I spent weeks up on that baby 2 years ago when I removed the asbestos siding a rebuilt trim a window sills. I have an articulated 16 foot ladder. It has 4, 4-foot sections that lock in to place at different angles. It can be a 4-foot, 8-foot, 12-foot, or 16-foot ladder. You can also make an 8-foot section of scaffolding that is 4 feet high, but it is not very stable and kind of dangerous to work on. The aluminum ladders are great, but the rungs are relatively narrow, and they can be tough on the feet if you are on them for long periods of time.

The other 2 ladders are wooden ladders and came with the house. They were left by the POs or a previous PO (PPO?). These are the ones I use most of the time. They are really inside-use ladders and rarely go outside. I’m not sure how old they are but they saw a lot of use well before I got them 3 years ago. One is a 6-foot ladder and the other is a 4-foot ladder.

The 6-footer is my favorite. I put 1 foot on the forth rung and the other foot on the cross brace on the opposite side while I straddle the ladder. This puts me at the perfect height to work on the ceiling. The rungs are wide and flat so it is comfortable to work on for long periods. The 4-foot ladder is good to use in the same way upstairs where the ceilings are only 9.5-feet high. For all of the bad things the POs did, leaving these 2 ladders almost makes up for it – almost.

They also left a lot of brooms, which is surprisingly handy. I think I have 6 or 7 brooms in the house. Brooms are one of the few things I don’t spend hours looking for. There always seems to be one within arms reach. Maybe I should buy 6 or 7 hammers, tape measures, screwdrivers, etc. I could have a complete set of tools on all 3 floors of the house and a set for the garage. Now that would be livin’ large old-house style. Boo-Ya!

Two Steps Forward One Step Back

Had to clean up a lot today in order to start on the ceiling. Just too much crap in the way. My neighbor OWNS 3 sections of scaffolding with castors, so I’m going to borrow one section to do the ceiling.

There was a small section of wall and ceiling that were concealed behind a partition for 80+ years. The wall had a section of 18 inch wallpaper boarder from 1895 at the top (pretty cool) and the rest of the wall and ceiling were painted. I guess there was a lot of dirt and grime on it, but the area of the wall that I had skim coated didn’t take. This morning it looked like the bed of a dry lake. The plaster was just falling off. It was a section about 3X5 feet so not the end of the world.

The rest of the walls had 17 layers of wallpaper (wallpaper must have been pretty inexpensive) and after all the scraping and sanding I was left with a pretty clean surface on the rest of the walls. I kind of kick myself for not cleaning that small section before skim coating. Live and learn, right.

I scrapped it and then sanded with 60 grit. I then washed it with TSP and sanded again. I skim coated today so I’m hoping it holds this time. It could have been worse. I didn’t skim coat the ceiling yet. I went ahead and sanded and cleaned that as well. Not fun.

I don’t know if there are any Jeopardy fans out there but the last finalist for the Ultimate Jeopardy Champion just won their 2 part semi-final match. It will be Brad, Jerome, and Ken Jennings in a 3 day match for $2,000,000.00 to pick the Ultimate Jeopardy Champion. The match starts Monday. These people are freakishly smart.

It Just Doesn’t Make Sense

There is a man that works at the local college that teaches classes in Historic Preservation. There is a curriculum there that you can get a 2 year degree in preservation. This person also writes a column in the monthly insert called Restore & Preserve in the local paper. He is also a member of the Historic Preservation Committee. Because of all of the work I’m doing on my house I am familiar with his name and read his column every month. Until a few weeks ago I had never met him.

In his column he often writes that if anyone has any questions please feel free to call him or send him an email. He says he loves to talk about old buildings and is happy to help. Yada, yada, yada. Just after I bought my house there was something that confused me about the layout of the house. It wasn’t anything too technical about construction or structural rehab, but more a question about historical context. I won’t go in to it here, but it was about the kitchen. Anyway, I wrote him an email and weeks went by with no response. A couple of months later the issue arose again and I had just read his column so I called him this time. He seemed hurried on the phone and said he really didn’t have time to talk and he took my number and said he would call back. He never did. I was a little perturbed, but nothing major, and I kind of forgot about.

The first time I actually met him was a few weeks ago at the Historic Preservation Committee meeting when I was listing my house on the local register. I had written a lot about my house and he had more than a few questions for me at the meeting. He asked more questions by far than any one of the 6 committee members. I am an armature at this and he corrected some of the things I wrote. It is was fine with me because I knew some of it was inaccurate and I enjoy learning. Anyway, after the meeting I wanted to follow up with him on some of the things he brought up. I am planning on using this information when trying to list my house on the National Register and I wanted to get it right. I sent another email.

Remembering the last time I tried to contact him, I was very specific in this email. I asked 3 questions and I asked them in a way that he could almost answer all three with one word responses. Several weeks have gone by with no response. Last night I went to a gathering of old house enthusiast at a friends house and he was there. He came up to me and said that he got my email and that we should get together and talk. I felt like saying, “Just answer the stupid email”, but I didn’t. I arrived late and there were a lot of people there and I never really got a chance to talk with him before dinner and the presentation.

He was there giving a presentation on The Secretary of the Interior’s Guide To Historic Preservation. At the end of the presentation he said that he loves to talk with people about there projects and encouraged every one to call him or email him with questions. He even suggested people could swing by his house if they wanted to. I wasn’t sure what to think.

Then today, I ran in to him at the market down the street. A very odd coincidence. We were in line at the check-out together. He was at the cashier and I was 2 people back. I reached over and tapped him on the shoulder with my baguette and we started to talk. He was dealing with the cashier so I didn’t get in to anything too deep. We chatted briefly and as he was walking out he turned and said, “Um, oh, let’s see, I have your email address. I’ll get in touch with you and we can get together.”

I’m not sure what to think. Does he expect me to ask him for a professional evaluation of my house? That is not really what I’m interested in and I never hinted at it. I doubt he connects me with that 10 second phone call 3 years ago. I just asked three little questions in my recent email. One question was just the proper spelling of an architectural term he brought up at the Preservation Meeting that I can not find in any books. Why would you repeatedly encourage people to call you and email you and then never return their calls or emails. It just doesn’t make sense. It is very irritating.

For What It’s Worth….

Well, I finished the walls today. Tomorrow I will start on the ceiling and then I will have to go over the whole thing again and sand and smooth areas that do not meet my highest of high standards. I am my own worst critic. At my last house I cut one of the steps on one of the stringers for the stairs wrong. It was off by just a hair and I didn’t notice until I trimmed it out. I don’t think anyone noticed but it bugged me for the next 3 years until I sold that house.

Tonight I have a little R&R planned. There is a group of old house owners that get together once a month for a pot luck. Every month it is at a different group members house. I don’t go to every meeting but it’s fun. Tonight we are meeting at the home of a couple that runs an antique store in Old Town. They live in a really nice 1910 house. I guess it would be called a 4 Square. It is a large and imposing home. They've been working on it for about 10 years and are doing a very nice period restoration. They had a Christmas party last December and were showing off their brand new Carrara Marble counter tops in the kitchen. Very nice.

I kind of feel like the odd man out at these things. They are all a bit older then me and more socially conservative. Also, most of them have owned their homes a lot longer and so are so much farther along then me. I do get to go into some great homes, though, and they are all fixed up really nice. Most every one in the group is doing period restorations as opposed to remodels. Some of these places are over-the-top. The area is dominated by grand Victorians and so most of the houses are late 19th century.

Last month we met at a 5000 sq ft 1901 house. I think it would be termed Free Classic, but I’m not really sure. It has a huge Onion Dome turret on the corner. The foyer is huge and is dominated by these massive redwood Corinthian columns and a great open stairwell also made of redwood. It is just spectacular. The meetings start with drinks and mingling, and then a pot-luck dinner. After that the owners give a little presentation about the house or recent projects. Then there is a brief meeting. Right now many of them are working to help restore a 1901 (?) fire house in the city so that dominates the meeting portion. Finally we get a tour of the home. Going up in the onion dome is pretty cool.

I’ll be having the meeting at my house in August. I wonder if the kitchen will be done by then?

It’s a State of Mind

I think it was 2 years ago this summer that I pulled 5300 pounds of asbestos/cement siding off my house. It was months of work on a ladder with a pry bar. Getting the actual siding off wasn’t even the worse part. After I got all that crap off the house I had zillions of nails I had to pull. They used a thin ring-shanked nail and if you didn’t pull it out slowly and straight you could leave a lot more than a tiny hole in the siding.

I thought I would never finish. It just went on and on. After a few months of this I realized I had another 4 to 6 weeks or so of work ahead of me so I started to kind of psych my self up for it. If someone made a comment about the weather I would reply with something like, “Oh yes, this is beautiful nail pulling weather”. It could have been 40 degrees with the rain coming in sideways and it was still perfect nail pulling weather. When a co-worker would ask me if I had plans for the weekend, I would answer with something like, “Well, I plan to get up early Saturday and get in a couple good hours of nail pulling in before breakfast. You know, there is really nothing like nail pulling first thing in the morning. It just gets the blood flowing”. All weekend activities I mentioned after that would either be actual nail pulling or some how nail pulling related. I got a lot of strange looks.

I’ve started to think that way about the plaster in the kitchen. It just seems to be taking forever. I think part of that is because I really don’t like it. It is just such an imperfect art form. Sheet rock isn't any better. Give me a piece of wood any day of the week. I can measure it and cut it and then re-measure to make sure it is what I want. Plaster doesn’t work like that. There will always be imperfections. It is very frustrating to work with.

But I must get it done. Yesterday I ordered the flooring. I have to get these walls done before the flooring arrives. So now I need to psych myself up. I must get in to this work no matter how much I dislike it. So, you know what I’m thinking now would be absolutely perfect. I think if I can get in one solid hour of plaster work before dinner that would be great. Nothing tops off a perfect day like a little plaster work. Fine wine, beautiful woman, plaster, and good music. These are the things that make life worth living. There is a light rain falling right now, but you know, this is perfect plastering weather. It really doesn't get any better than this.

Lusting For Lustron

Until a few months ago I had never heard of a Lustron Home. Apparently about the same time Levittown was springing up like so many weeds there was a man in Ohio who had a revolutionary idea about building homes. I don’t know all the details exactly, but they were called Lustron Homes. Several thousand were built and are still scattered about the mid-west.

The thing that made Lustron homes unique was the materials used and the construction method. Every last piece of the home was made up of enameled steel panels. All exterior and interior surfaces were enameled steel. The homes came with many built-ins like book cases, hutches, bathroom vanities and they were all made of enameled steel. The roof “shingles”, gutters, walls, doors, ceiling - inside and out – everything was made of enameled steel. They were all made in a giant factory and shipped out by truck and rail. It was a revolutionary idea.

There was some story behind the whole thing, and as I said, I don’t know all the details. Apparently the man behind the idea got a lot of tax breaks and maybe some federal funding to start up the manufacturing plant. It had to do with the big housing shortage just after WWII. There was a scandal and things went arye (with the Federal Government involved – I don’t believe it). Anyway, the whole idea went the way of the buggy whip.

So, you may be asking, why am I bring up Lustron Homes at this point? Why do I lust after a Lustron Home all of the sudden? Why do I seem to be enamored with enameled steel? Well I'll tell you.

It's because they didn’t use plaster or sheetrock on the inside!!!

I’ve come to the conclusion that it is impossible to get a smooth wall the first time out. In fact, at this point, I’m sure there is either magic or witchcraft involved. Either that or it is a secret Communist plot to drive me insane. Yes, that’s it, it’s the Communists. It’s not over people. Start digging your bomb shelters now, before it’s to late!!!

Little Done & A Momentous Event

Well, I didn’t quite get as much done as I had hoped. I would say I am a little more than half way around the room. I still have the ceiling to do as well. I am never satisfied with my plastering abilities. I’ll get it, and it will eventually look good, but it will take a little more work than I would like.

All I’m doing is skim-coating. I had a lot of areas of old plaster, other areas that had small patches, and then other areas that needed to be completely rebuilt. Two odd things I noticed. First, when I apply the finish plaster over the old plaster it lets off a strong ammonia smell. Not sure why that is. Second, when skim-coating the old plaster I have a working time of a half hour or more. When I skim-coat the new plaster I have a working time of less than 5 minutes.

That new plaster must still be drying, even after 2 weeks. I apply the skim-coat to it and in less than 2 minutes the stuff has the consistency of stiff clay in. In some ways it is easier to work with because you are less likely to leave trowel marks. However, you have very little time to get it right.

On high note I did something today that has been more than 2 years in the making. I put up 2 of the new corner blocks in the kitchen. The idiots who sheet rocked a few rooms back in the 70s sawed off the tops of several of the fancy corner blocks. I had to get them reproduced, which was quite expensive. I wanted to use the salvage old-growth redwood from the 2 story addition I removed. I couldn’t remove the addition until I rewired and re-plumbed the main house because the kitchen and bath I was using was in the addition. It was very gratifying to finally get some of those up. It is sort of like having to chop down trees, so you can mill lumber, so you can build a boat, so you can go fishing, and now I am finally eating the first fish.

The one on the left is original. The one in middle is a cut-off one. The one on the right is new. They are 8.5-inches high. 6.25-inches wide. 1.5-inces thick.

I’m Back In The Saddle Again…

It was one week ago today that I did any work on the kitchen. I had been working on it on an almost daily basis for more than 2 months, so one week off wasn’t all that bad. Still, it felt odd. I usually don’t take time off like that unless I’m on my death-bed or something. I get kind of obsessed about things. Although not as obsessed as Lakewood2-Flat’s dogs. That is just freaky. :-)

The week off was not a complete waste. I worked on the paper work to list my house on the National Registry of Historic Places. I typed and typed and edited and edited and retyped and retyped. I spent a few hours at the library looking up architectural terms. You can’t just say you have a dormer or a porch on your house you have to say exactly what kind, and there are a lot to chose from. The favorite term I found was “pent roof enclosing gable” to describe three of the four gables on the house.

There are 2 parts to the write-up on the house. There is the “Narrative Description “ and the “Narrative Statement of Significance”. Each ended up being a little over 5 pages of single-spaced, 10 pt. text. I’m going to need to get someone to edit and proof read it. I’m notorious for making odd little mistakes in my writing. I will do things like write “Of coarse” instead of “Of course”. Spell checkers don't catch those kinds of mistakes.

Next I will need to take some pictures. They require black and white photos. I will need to snap pictures of important interior elements, along with photos of the exterior elevations. I will also need to get photos of the other houses in the area that I referenced in the write-up. All photos and paperwork has to be on archival quality paper. Finally I will write the bibliography. Not sure why but I’m really dreading that.

Every thing is sent in duplicate to the State Office of Historic Preservation. They do all the vetting before it is sent to the Parks Service. I’ve been told to expect that the state office will send back the information to make some requested changes or for additional information. If the state office thinks the house is worthy to list they will send it to National office. The web site for the National office says they list 99.9% of the properties the state sends them. They also say they make a decision with-in 45 days from the time they get the paper work. Not sure how long the state takes. I’m hoping to get everything sent off in 2 weeks or so.

In Search of a Location

The location of my house to be specific. Well, I know where my house is. In fact, I’m sitting in it right now, but I need the coordinates. They are asking for the Northing and Easting of my house. They being the State Office of Historic Preservation (SHPO). All week long I’ve been working on the paper work to add my house to the National Register of Historic Places. I’m not exactly sure why I’m doing it, but I am. It is kind of like rolling down hill. I just sort of go where it takes me, and this time it's taking me in this direction.

I was able to use TerraServer to find the Longitude & Latitude, and I used an on-line tool to convert that to UTM Coordinate. The trouble is I’m not sure if either of these values are the Northing and Easting values the good people down at the SHPO want. I posted a message on a cartographers board and one at The Old House Web for good measure. Hopefully I will find someone who will know what the heck these people want.

In case anyone’s in the neighborhood and wants to stop by I’m at Longitude –124.1587 & Latitude 40.79998

An Architectural Arms Race

I know that I live in a small town that is pretty isolated. I’m sure there are cities that have Historic Districts that are larger than my entire city. Still, for what it is, there is some pretty amazing architecture here. It seems like there was an Architectural Arms Race going on in this town from about 1885 to about 1930. The town literally did not exist in 1855, but just 30 years later they were building houses that are still considered today to be some of the finest examples of Victorian homes in the Country. The next town over did such a fine job the main street has been recreated in Logo form in the Lego Land amusement park in So. Ca.

It seems like everyone was trying to out do everyone else. And it didn’t stop with the Victorians. There is block after block of fine Craftsman homes, bungalows, and bungaloids in every imaginable shape and size. Unfortunately some time shortly after WWII the SALT & SALT2 treaties were signed – I’m not talking about Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties but the Stunning Architecture Limitation Treaties – and the arms race ended. After that it was little house on the hillside. Little houses made of ticky-tack.

We’ve lost a lot over the years but a lot still remains. I bought my current home (1895 Vic) about 3 years ago. A few months later I bought my first digital camera. Some family came to visits that summer so I played tourist in my own town and snapped a few pictures. I was in full Victorian mode at the time because of my new house so there aren’t any Craftsman or Bungalows here, sorry. I am a big fan of the genre, and I almost bought a 1922 Craftsman myself once.

I posted all these pictures on my site over a year ago and seeing those great homes yesterday on another blog (I forget which one) made me think about them. Some of the pictures were taken early in the morning while I was walking to work so the lighting is bad. This is a small sampling of the fine homes in this city. All of these homes are with-in about a 10 minute walk of my house. Another interesting note about them is that they are all built entirely out of redwood. They’re fun to look at. Sometimes I have trouble wrapping my late 20th Century brain around the ideas behind late 19th Century architecture. What the heck were they thinking?

Click the thumbnails to see larger pictures
Eureka
Ferndale

Subconscious Procrastination?

I’ve stalled on the kitchen. Some are good reasons and some are not. This pattern is not uncommon for me, but it still bothers me when I don’t work on a project for 3 or 4 days in a row. I had the issue with the neighbor and cat, and the intestinal thing over the weekend. That really took me out of project mode. There has also been a new project at work. Nothing major, but it does tend to occupy more of my time.

Also, in the past 2 days I’ve had one tenant move out and I inked the deal with the new tenant. Boy, let me tell you, it really pays to be picky and to treat people with respect. This is the second tenant in a row I’ve had in that apartment that cleaned it so well when they left I had to do nothing. Yesterday I went in with the new tenant to show her a few things. I hadn’t even been in there yet myself since the old tenants left on Sunday. On the way upstairs I told her that if there was anything she wanted done like the carpets or the oven cleaned or windows washed to just let me know. We walked around the apartment together and both were amazed at how spotless the place was. I returned the deposit to the old tenants today and almost threw in an extra $50.00.

All that aside, the other reason I haven’t done any work on the kitchen is because I'm starting to do finish work. It is, you know, so final. It is what everyone sees. I hate to screw it up. Subconsciously I think I feel that if I never start it I will never screw it up, so I keep putting it off. I have to start sometime, though. This week I’m going to have some extra work at my real job so I can’t really do anything (is that just an excuse?) but I’m determined to start skim coating this weekend, I promise… unless something comes up… which it could… you never know… I might get sick… I do feel a little something in the back of my throat…

Slower Than A Dead Slug

There’s no trick question here. This time I’m talking about myself. I’ve spent the whole weekend geeking out on the computer and watching the boob tube. My cat has spent the past week sleeping on a box left over from a recent EBay acquisition. It is the new sleep spot. I check for a pulse every other day to make sure he’s still alive. It has been very slow around here lately.



I also seem to have some lower intestinal thang. I will spare you the details but I think it has something to with my steady diet of frozen dinners and take out food because I HAVE NO KITCHEN!! If that weren’t bad enough I had a little run-in with one of the tenants yesterday. I’m not big on confrontation so it sort of put me a bad mood.

They’re nice people and mean well. They are a 20-something couple I’ve rented to for nearly 3 years. Shortly after they moved in they got a kitten. Apparently, a few months ago their little cat decided to start peeing on a bedspread or something. Now, this cat has lived 99.9% of it’s life in their apartment. Last year they made an attempt at getting it acclimated to outdoor life but it didn’t go well. Last weekend the woman decided the cat would now be an outdoor cat. I talked to the man about it and he said it was supposed to be punishment for the pee thing.

This young cat is totally freaked about suddenly being outside 24/7. It spends most of its time under the platform for the garbage cans. There is maybe a 6 inch clearance under there. The woman keeps food and water on the front porch of the apartments but the cat is so freaked out I doubt it is eating much.

I didn’t say anything for the first week because I figured they would take it back inside soon, but on Wednesday I was woken up about 5:00 AM by the cat because it was meowing under their window. It had rained all night and the poor cat was soaking wet and wanted in. It rained on Thursday and on Friday as well. The cat had been living under the garbage cans for more than a week now and it wasn’t doing any better. I talked with the woman in the afternoon on Friday and told her that the cat needs a home. Toss it outside during the day but it needs go inside sometimes. It wasn’t well suited to this new life she had decided for it.

Friday evening I went to throw out some garbage. There was the cat soaking wet cowering under the garbage cans again. I went inside and called them. I got the man and said the cat needs to go inside. It can’t live under the garbage cans and I don’t want the food on the porch all the time because it invites more strays. He took the cat in and the next day the woman came to my door and said, “We are both adults and you have no right telling us how to discipline our cat.” We went back and forth for a bit and I basically said this is my property and if I think you are mistreating your cat it becomes my business.

The discussion was surprisingly heated. I was really in no mood for it. This is not the country side where a cat can live in the barn, nor is this a cat that that has been outside for more than an hour or so. You just don’t toss it outside in the rain. She said she would take the cat back in but that we would just have to agree to disagree as to whether she was mistreating her pet. I never agreed to anything. Take care of your stupid pet or don’t have one.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

While not house related, this is something worth sharing I think. Who knows what the fastest animal on the planet is? If you said the cheetah you would be wrong. There is an animal that weighs less than 3 pounds and has been clocked at over 200 MPH! I guess it is kind of a trick question because the animal is a bird and so those are flying speeds. The bird in question is the Peregrine Falcon.

The reason I’m writing about this is because of an article in the paper today about a peregrine nest on the 33 floor on the PG&E building in San Francisco's financial district. The peregrine falcon almost became extinct in the 70s because of the pesticide DDT. It caused the egg shells to become thin and break before the chick could mature. There are 3 chicks and the image is updated every few seconds. The web cam has been active for about 2 months now.

FALCON FACTS

* The peregrine is the fastest animal on the planet. Scientists estimate the speed of a diving peregrine to be more than 200 mph.
* Peregrines eat birds that they catch in the air.
* Peregrines nest on tall city structures that are similar to the sheer cliffs they prefer in nature.
* The peregrine is one of only a handful of birds that nest on every continent and major land mass except Antarctica.
* The peregrine population declined to zero known nesting pairs east of the Mississippi, and just two known nesting pairs in California by 1970.
* Today, there are an estimated 235 peregrine falcon nesting pairs in California.


I guess in a way this is house related. I mean, a nest is a house of sorts, and besides, I have nothing else to write about today.

Sometimes It Just Works Out

Once I get an idea in my head it can be hard to shake it. That was the case with the flooring in the kitchen. The sort of traditional floors in my area were fir, and it just so happens I like the look of fir, so it would work out well if I put it in. I went to all of the floor places in town and they seemed to have everything but fir, and I do mean everything. Finally I found it at one lumber yard 2 towns over.

One of the flooring places I went to had a huge selection of flooring. They had just returned from a flooring convention and had bought some odd lots off the floor and were selling them at incredible prices. I started crunching numbers and these floors were looking really good. The only problem was they were all engineered or pre-finished floors. Now, there is nothing wrong with engineered or pre-finished flooring. They are supposed to be very good and very long lasting. The trouble was the grooves. I was going for a very traditional look and the grooves just wouldn’t cut it for the look I wanted.

I went to The Old House Web and posted a question on-line to get some clarity on the subject. I wanted to talk to people who had put in floors like this and I also brought up my desire for fir floors. I was told repeatedly that new fir floors will not be the same as the old fir floors I’ve seen in other old houses. The second generation fir is just not as hard and durable as the old growth stuff. Then someone posted a message about an EBay seller selling some fir flooring. I went to check it out.

It turned out this guy bought thousands of feet of 3X12 (3 inches wide, 12 inches thick, and as long as a house) fir joists salvaged from an old sawmill in Alaska. The joists are over 100 years old and hard as a rock. He mills them in to 1X6 T&G fir flooring and he is only about 300 miles away. It took a few months to work things out. When you deal with mill owners and others that don’t normally handle the retail end you have to be patient. With them it is about craftsmanship and not service. They don’t always get back to you right away. You just have to sort of let things play out. Anyway, he called me today and we agreed on a price and logistics. It will be milled to order and shipped to my front door for less a square foot than anything I found locally besides the cut rate engineered flooring. Sometimes it just works out.

Stage Two Complete!

After taking a few days off I finally finished stage 2 plastering in the kitchen. I’ll let the whole mess dry for a day or two and then I will need to sand around the edges a bit before I can skim coat. Maybe Sunday I can start to do a small wall.

Here’s another hint for would-be plasters: When doing the ceiling don’t spread plaster directly over your head with your mouth open. That is, unless you like the fresh, wholesome taste of plaster. It is chalk full of yummy goodness. Choosy Mom's chose plaster. It's squeezably soft! My doctor said, "Plaster"!

Name That Style

Below are pictures of a 1926 building built in my backyard. The first floor is 6 garages and the second floor is 2 1-bedroom apartments. I’ve been working on the paperwork to list my house (1895 Vic) on the Natl. Reg. Of Hist. Places. I thought I would include this building with it. They are both on the same lot, and I think they are both worthy of listing. Whether the Feds think so remains to be seen.

The problem is, I’m having trouble naming the style. I spent the day at the library pouring over books and couldn’t really nail it down. I can sort of describe the building in architectural terms but I’m wondering if there is a particular style that it belongs to.

Any guesses?

The top story is wood shingles and the bottom is 1X8 shiplap. Over the front 2 garages (4 more on the right side) there is a small porch roof?? gable roof?? with projectring wood beams. The roof is a parapet roof.

In The Dirt On My Belly

Because I’ve decided to get rid of the sink that means I had to cut the pipes and get them out of the wall. This means it was another trip under the house. I am intimate with the crawl space under the house. I have been there many, many times. It used to be a real nightmare. There were so many pipes for all the different apartments you literally could not go from one side of the house to the other. When I was buying the place some inspectors just wouldn’t go under or said the report was incomplete because some areas were inaccessible. And all of the trash and debris was incredible.

I spent months under there last year cutting out miles of old pipes, cable wires, phone lines, and hauling out bags full of debris. I then mounted lights down the center that shine on both sides and put two electrical outlets under there. When I re-plumbed and rewired I secured all the wires and pipes up against the joists. I can now flip a switch and crawl around in a relatively clean and well lit space. Now if I can just do something about the cat poop.

The Kitchen Sink

Stage 2 of the plaster is almost complete. I’ve run in to a small problem. Well, actually, a large and heavy problem. It’s the kitchen sink. Over a year ago I bought a circa 1900 kitchen sink. It is one of the big cast iron monsters with the drain board and backsplash. I think it is sometimes called an apron sink. It is 4.5-feet long and weighs several hundred pounds. Right now it is the kitchen sink but I’m going to be getting rid of it.

The kitchen is 285 sq ft and a very odd shaped room. This kitchen has never had modern counters and cabinets installed. I was really working with a blank slate and so I went through many revisions of the design. The sink was going to be the center piece in versions 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 15, 22, 23, & 28. It did not make the final cut, however, in version 36. I decided to hang on to as long as I could because it is nice to have running water in the kitchen but now it is in the way of the plastering. I can’t finish the ceiling or a small part of the wall without moving it. The sink is way to heavy to just move it around when its in the way so I’m going to sell it and just get rid of it once and for all. Sniff

I went down to a local antique/salvage place I’ve dealt with many times (Side Note: The owner is the woman whose daughter I didn’t rent to. We talked about that when I was in there. Her daughter is 18 and so is the boyfriend so the mom understands why I didn’t rent to them. She doesn’t hold it against me. I made some suggestions for talking with potential landlords and the mom got right on the phone and told the daughter. I hope it helps.). The owner said she give me $150 in store credit. I think it’s worth more. I walked down the street to another antique store that sometimes deals in this sort of thing. I had talked with the owner about the sink before but she said it is too big for her shop. She said it is worth $250 - $300 retail. I’ve decided to put an ad in the paper and try and sell it that way. That means it will be in the way for several more days at least.

I think that will work out, though. I need to get the area cleaned up and sort of recoup form stage 1 & 2 of the plastering. Getting the plaster from hawk to trowel is not an exact science and a good amount does end up on the floor. Here is a hint for you: cardboard and not plastic makes a good drop cloth for this sort of thing. With plastic, the plaster lands on the plastic and you step in the plaster and now the whole mess is stuck to your shoe. The plastic becomes almost useless almost immediately. Below is a picture of the mess so far and a diagram of the blank slate kitchen.