I have been restoring vintage lights since I was a teenager in the mid-1970s. An Interstate highway was being rammed through the city where I lived, and I ran (steps ahead of the bulldozers, and with my shag haircut flying) from one incredible building to another, and from one incredible house to another, and salvaged everything I could.
My poor, bewildered parents. Their garage was soon chock-a-block with what I thought were treasures beyond compare. But which they thought was just useless flotsam. I did though once overhear my mom say: “Well, at least he’s not out doing drugs.”
However, when all their boring lights were systematically replaced with the most stunning lights they had ever seen – and all for free, rewired, and restored – they soon had second thoughts about the flotsam. (I paid for new parts by mowing lawns!)
Fast forward many decades.
One day I realized I had a pile of old lights rusting away in my basement. I hauled a few out, restored them (bringing back many old memories), and listed them on eBay.
At the time I had no idea, not a clue, that I had just radically changed my life.
Within months my life was unrecognizable, and I was working full time restoring vintage lighting and selling the fixtures across America.
My new e-commerce website is now online. Whoee! Please feel free to shop and purchase here:
My blog post are below.
Curious about Possibilities
My online store.
Continue ReadingLiving with Anxiety
I have been lying to all of you. Well, not lying really, but…holding back the full truth. In a previous post I exalted about the Cross House being awarded a $90,000 Kansas Heritage Grant. Whoee! WHOEE! But…but…in the fine print of the grant, page 476, subsection Q, line 48, there was a clause. The clause…
Continue ReadingA Reunion!
My online store.
Continue ReadingPredicting the Future
In a room with curtains drawn, and candles lighted, I sit before a crystal ball. And I see things. I see wondrous things. I see things which will amaze people… BUT FIRST, THE PAST In 1894, The Cross House was built in the best neighborhood in Emporia. The neighborhood was very close to downtown,…
Continue ReadingNot…Predicting The Future
Today I received a long letter from Peter, introducing himself. Peter is young, and admits to a terrible affliction: he is besotted with big old houses. In reply, I extended my sympathies. At the end of his letter, Peter asked several questions. It occurred to me that perhaps others have the same questions, so it…
Continue ReadingRecreating Loveliness
Normally, I never buy a vintage light unless it retains all its original components. I am a bit of a nut about having things be original. OK, I am a full-blown nut in this regard. A few weeks ago I came across an old fixture: My online store.
Continue ReadingTHE most amazing house restoration. WOW!
Kelly, who is the originator (and Goddess) of my favorite blog, Old House Dreams, alerted me to another blog. “I think you will enjoy it,” she wrote. The simple name of the blog, The Danville Experience, in no way prepares one for the astounding, extraordinary, awe-inspiring, breathtaking work undertaken by a young couple. The blog,…
Continue ReadingBrian and Bailey! MY HEROS!
Brian and Bailey are a young couple. And I mean young. It scares me to realize that I am old enough to be a grandfather to them. These cute young kids are moving to Emporia to attend ESU. Brian wanted to buy a house to live in during his college years. And not just any…
Continue ReadingA Requiem for a Lost Twin
It makes me sad when something beautiful is lost. It makes me even sadder when something beautiful is lost…because of a casual effort. It makes me even sadder, still, when something beautiful is lost which managed to survive, until being treated casually, for almost eighty years. Hence, this terrible story of loss. You see, I found…
Continue ReadingThwarted…AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is now obvious that GOD is conspiring against me. Well, maybe not me (I hope!) but against curtains for the library of the Cross House. In my two previous posts, I detailed the great adventure in finding curtains. In the first post, all was lost. In the second post, all was saved. Whoee!!!!!!! But…
Continue ReadingKELLY SAVES THE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In my previous post I lamented, lamented, the great trial I was undergoing. Thwarted by curtains! Oh the horror! The horror! So, Kelly, who runs my very favorite blog, read my post, and then contacted me. She had been doing a store-by-store search for the curtains I could not obtain! While I could only find…
Continue ReadingThwarted by…Curtains!
I am working to complete the library in the Cross House, and have been holding back images to do a dramatic Before/After reveal. (Or perhaps I have been kidnapped by aliens and they made me write the above.) I am dedicated to meticulously restoring the house, and look forward to its being returned as close…
Continue ReadingThe Importance of Presentation
Sometime, when I see a vintage light fixture listed for sale online, I am struck by how badly the fixture has been, well, presented. My online store.
Continue ReadingR. I. P. 1017 Mechanic, Emporia, KS
Yesterday, I did a post about the demolition of five historic houses for…a parking lot. 1017 Mechanic was one of the five, and I previously included it in a post about porches. What captured my special attention about 1017 was its surviving original porch. While the house had been mussed with a bit (1950s siding,…
Continue ReadingR.I.P. 1009 Mechanic Street, Emporia, KS
The five house were leveled by the city of Emporia for…a parking lot. I feel like I am in a 1970s time-warp. While the main commercial street is a block to the west, Mechanic is (or rather was) a residential street in this area. Funny, but I have always easily found…
Continue ReadingDanger, Will Robinson! Danger!
I am very afraid. I keep walking, ever more nervously, into the library of the Cross House, and to my shock an inexplicable and obviously surreal event — one no doubt of an extraterrestrial nature — is manifesting itself. Oh, the horror! While I am no scientist, it seems (I am almost afraid to put this in…
Continue ReadingMore Small Moves
I have been busy of late in the library, and will have a LONG post…soon. In the meantime, I have this small post, about a small move. The Cross House has four entry doors, one in each direction of the compass. The south entry was the principal family entrance, and it opens onto the porte-cochère. I…
Continue ReadingA Moment with Moderne
While I am always buying vintage lighting to restore, some fixtures capture my special attention, like anything with a Moderne styling. Moderne is an aesthetic which developed after the Art Deco period. This aesthetic was relatively short-lived, and reached the height of its popularity in the late 1930s. Emerald City, in the movie Wizard of Oz,…
Continue ReadingOoooh! Poor baby!
Sometimes I buy a vintage light just because I feel sorry for it. Like this fixture. It is from the 1920s. It had been rewired not long ago. Badly. Very badly. If anybody had tried to use the fixture it would have instantly shorted out. Scary. There were also new white plastic candle covers. A…
Continue ReadingSome 1940s Glamour
Because I restore vintage lighting for a living, I naturally come across a lot of vintage lighting. And I pass on a lot of vintage lighting. I buy when something captures my special attention, such as fixtures which I have not seen previously (whoee!), or fixtures which look sad and abandoned, but which could be…
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