A week ago I had no idea, none, that the 120-year-old porcelain geometric flooring in the Cross House, supplied by the American Encaustic Tiling Company, could be properly restored, and missing tiles recreated. No idea. My elation is considerable regarding this new-found knowledge. My anticipation is great…

FLASH UPDATE! In Part 1 of my Big Learning Curve, I discovered that it might actually be possible to fully restore the 1894 bathroom floor of the Cross House.     I just got off the phone with Bryan at Olde English Tiles in Arkansas, and with incredible news. The company can match my existing tiles!…

When the Cross House was built in 1894, it featured tile floors in three vestibules, two bathrooms, and also tiles around eight fireplaces. The previous owner of the house, Bob Rodak, found an invoice from the American Encaustic Tiling Company (AETCO). This was a way cool discovery. Amazingly, all this tile is still there in…

BACKGROUND The 2015 Kansas Heritage Fund grants have just been announced. The Cross House had applied (after six months of work on the application). Then there was 3-1/2 months of waiting for the results. The Heritage Grant program is funded by a small tax on every mortgage filed in the state. The monies collected are…

It did not seem possible that only 24-hours after posting a thread about mysterious notches, the notches would no longer be mysterious! You see, the exposed studs in the second-floor bathroom of the Cross House have three rows of horizontal notches. The notches are only about 1/8-inch deep. Why are they there? Obviously, they had…

What are they? What were they for? When did whatever they held get removed? Will the mystery ever be revealed??????????????????     In the 1920s the bathroom was converted into a kitchen. In 1950 the room was converted back into a bathroom (when the house was turned into a motel). At some point the room…

During the summer and fall, a lot of windows were removed from the Cross House to undergo restoration. The house, amazingly, retains all its original sashes. Of course, after 120-years some are not in great shape.       As the above image testifies to, with a great deal of faith (I just know these…

    I have another column adventure on the south side of the house, to be completed later in the year. The restoration of the long-missing porch railings? Underway! Next is the recreation of the missing lattice, as well as repairing the damaged porch flooring. I have not gotten used to all the west-facing columns…

I am trying to get the finial column on the west front porch painted. But not today! It is 23-degrees right now, but with 45-mile-an-hour winds! So it feels like 4-degrees! But…look at Tuesday…and the upcoming weekend! Kansas is like this. Just crazy!  

The Cross House has a whopping forty stained-glass windows. The conditions ranges from good, poor, to terrifying. Even the good windows will need to be taken apart to have all the lead caming replaced. Caming has a life-span of a century so the caming is already past its due date. I have a grant application…

          I really really really wanted the Great Sweep back and uninterrupted. So, today, we removed the 6×6 post (you can see it sitting on the porch floor, above). Lest we be thought of as damn fools, here is why we did what we did…   FOR THE STRUCTURAL GEEK Some…

NEWS FLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot be at the Cross House today. Poo. But Justin just sent me an image. Whoee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!