The Cross House sits on a highly visible corner, and all four facades can be fully seen depending on what direction one is walking/driving. The east facade is, technically, the rear of the house but it is fully exposed to anybody driving west along Highway 50, about 25-feet away from the house. Yep, close. Scary…

2016. 2016. 2016. Has there ever been such a year? The year grabbed me, snatched away countless hours of my time, and, in the end, spit on me. In my previous post I detailed much of the work done on the Cross House in 2016. And a great much did happen. A great much also…

2016. 2016. 2016. Has there ever been such a year? 2016 is the year that the Heritage Trust Grant work commenced! This involved relining the miles of built-in gutters, installing new shingles on all the secondary roofs, restoring about 2/3 of the 42 stained-glass windows, and replacing rotted sills, rotted water-table trim, rotted sheathing, and…

Many many years ago I lived in St. Petersburg, Florida. And one of my most vivid, cherished memories is of Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus. Every year, about ten days before Christmas, Mr. and Mrs. Claus would sit in their respective rocking chairs, atop the roof of their porch, and wave at passing cars. Every…

This year I took two road trips to the fabulous WF Norman Company in Missouri. Norman is almost as old as the Cross House, and the company restored its tower finial, recreated the lost finial on the octagon tower, and created a finial for the carriage house turret. As awed and fascinated as I was by…

          In short, in a couple of square feet there is a LOT of wondrous detailing going on. Sadly, none of this exuberance has been noticed for decades, the results of unflattering and poor paint jobs. But, as was shown dramatically with the Before/After images of the Diamond Brooch on the…

When the Cross House was built in 1894 it had wall-to-wall carpeting on the first- and second-floors, 22-inch-wide strips hand-sewn together. The very acme of luxury. However, I will forever curse this decision. For, under the carpet was just cheap random-width pine. In 1929, I surmise, plain oak floors were laid on the second floor,…

As part of the 2015 Heritage Trust grant, about 2/3 of the 42 stained-glass windows in the Cross House are being restored. The last set to be done as part of the grant are the five in the dining room. There is one VERY long one in the middle, two curved ones, and two flat…

Riley asked what my plans were for the Cross House post-me. I have actually given this a lot of thought. In my lifetime I have seen houses beautifully restored in the 1970s, and then demolished three decades later because they were in such poor condition. I have also seen houses in perfect condition, and architectural…

Yesterday I did a post about my plans for the kitchen of the 1894 Cross House. These plans were created after three years of thinking and pondering and fretting and research. Informing all my ideas were two conflicting thoughts: Create a period-correct kitchen. Create a comfortable, convenient kitchen. The problem? I had no idea how…

In my previous post I presented plans for the kitchen of the 1894 Cross House. Several readers wanted to know why I was not going to install a big ol’ sink against the south wall. To answer this question a bit of sleuthing is required.     The kitchen abounds with space and doors and…

After three years of endlessly thinking about the new kitchen for the Cross House, I have at last created a plan. Will I build the plan? Only time will tell. I have endlessly pondered these possibilities: Create a dazzling modernist kitchen. Create an authentic 1894 period-correct kitchen. Create a period kitchen from the 1920s or…

I am hoping to get the radiators turned on next month. In order to do so I need to get a couple hooked up still. Like the one in the servant’s hall (eventual breakfast room). This radiator could not be installed because the floor was torn up in 2014 because of termite damage, and I…