But why? Why remove the narrow door, make it wider, and install it in a location which already had a door? Or…maybe there never WAS a door to the bedroom???????? Hummm. This got me to thinking. And so I looked at the door stop trim around the ‘extended” door (a…

          A CAUTIONARY NOTE: I mentioned linseed oil. This is rubbed in with a paper towel. Then the towel is taken outside and burned. NEVER put an oil-soaked cloth (or cloth soaked with wood stain) in a trash can in the kitchen. The cloth will later ignite and BURN YOUR HOUSE…

  I started this blog two years ago. Plus one month. It seems I forgot my own anniversary! When I started the site I expected to have a few hundred people view the site every month. I mean, how much traffic would a blog about some old house in Emporia, Kansas, get? Now, twenty-five months later?…

                                                              THE BACKGROUND STORY: I was driving into Emporia to have an 11:30 lunch with David, who is a reader of this blog. Five minutes…

    As I have written previously, I never really noticed the “diamond brooch” before. I knew it was there, of course, but with SO much going on with the house, it just did not jump out at me. It does now. I stare at this architectural ensemble in wonder and appreciation. And joy overflows…

I have been doing a lot of posts about painting the exterior of the Cross House. On occasion, I have to remind myself why I am having my fifty-nine-year-old body climb up/down three stories to paint a massive 122-year-old house? This is insane, actually. But…but…there is no better way for me to acquaint myself with…

Every day, pretty much, something gets better about the Cross House. Yesterday, a window sash was restored. It contains a stained-glass panel, which was restored last month. But the sash itself needed to be restored. The side of the sash facing outside was stripped of its old paint, and then 0000 steel wool was used…