OTHER COOL THINGS is the blog page where I go off topic. In other words, this is a page where I ramble about a wide variety of subjects which have nothing to do with the Cross House restoration or Emporia.
OTHER COOL THINGS is where I might suggest a great new restaurant. Or a movie I enjoyed, or book. Or a favored blog.
OTHER COOL THINGS may — fasten your seat belt — open discussions about dangerous subjects such politics or religion.
OTHER COOL THINGS will, in short, be a page where I ramble about anything which captures my special attention. Like, perhaps, a nice moment I had with my favorite cat Gilda.
I love comments, so please do not hesitate to toss your two cents in, even if you disagree with me.
My blog posts are below. Enjoy!
Gilda. My favorite ever cat.
Fred Flintstone at the Cross House
One day I pulled up the 1970s vinyl flooring in the Cross House kitchen. Under was 1950s flooring. I pulled that up. Under was a thin layer of Masonite-type boards. I laboriously pulled all that up. Under was…wow. Wild! Weird! ABOVE: The very first layer of linoleum in the kitchen of the Cross House,…
Continue ReadingRefinishing The Wood Trim. PART 3.
Two posts previously I was freakin’ out man. Now I am chillin’, man. This was my concern two posts previously: ABOVE: I had started to refinish the trim and ended up with wood WAY lighter than I had intended. So, yea, FREAK OUT! After some most excellent advice from readers and friends, I did this:…
Continue ReadingRefinishing The Wood Trim. PART 2
I have a wood mystery. Take a look at the image below: NOTE: when I took the image I had not finished stripping off the old finish. It now looks much neater. Look at the gouges. They mystify me. If I were to toss out a guess I would say that my trim…
Continue ReadingRefinishing The Wood Trim. HELP!!!!!
This post is a cry for help. You see, I started to refinish the trim in the living room of the Cross House. I have done this many many many times previously over the decades and have never encountered what I did the other day. All my woodwork has an alligatored finish. And it has…
Continue ReadingFLASH NEWS! Wallpaper UPDATE!
OK! I am freakin’ out, man! FREAKIN’ OUT! Recently, I did a post on the wallpaper discoveries at the Cross House. In particular, I found scraps of the original 1895 wall paper, wall frieze, and ceiling paper in the two-story stair-hall. Were these scraps, I wondered, enough to recreate all three papers? I mean, how…
Continue ReadingThe Three Great Lighting Companies
In the first half of the twentieth-century there were three great lighting companies: E. F. Caldwell Lion Electric Lightolier CALDWELL Caldwell was by far the best. The company made truly exquisite lighting and they were the #1 choice for architects across the country. Indeed, when McKim, Mead & White redesigned the White House in…
Continue ReadingDamn. Houses I Lust After (but cannot buy).
I am really mad. And frustrated. You see, I want to buy a lot of houses and restore them. Tragically, I cannot. My lust notwithstanding, a lack of endless finances precludes my snapping up every house attracting my special attention. I really hate when reality conflicts with desire. DAMN! So, this post is the best…
Continue ReadingFavorite Houses: 628 Cottonwood
A year ago I never heard of architect Charles W. Squires. Today I am — OK, I admit it! — a little obsessed with the man. I long for a time-travel app on my iPhone so I can go back to, say, 1925, and walk up to the Squires home at 613 Exchange, knock on the door,…
Continue ReadingA Weird Time/Space Continuum
The movie Willard came out in 1971. I was fourteen, and saw it four times. It’s a movie about….rats. But the main story is not what drew me in. It was the house. A big, old, fabulous house, featured prominently. I felt intoxicated at all the scenes showing the house, and even though I understood…
Continue ReadingHints of a Proper What Was
ABOVE: The living room of the Cross House, December, 2014. I always thought it odd that none of the rooms in the Cross House had a picture rail. Wasn’t this de rigueur for houses of the period? I mean, punching a nail in plaster walls to hang a picture was simply not done! One respected laboriously…
Continue ReadingHistory as revealed by Wallpaper. Part 2.
Today I had a real thrill. There are two radiators in the living room. It seemed like a good idea if they were temporarily removed so we could: Scrape off the old wallpaper behind them Repair the plaster as required. Repaint or re-wallpaper. Refinish the floors under. And so it was done. Behind the radiators…
Continue ReadingHistory as revealed by Wallpaper. Part 1.
When completed in 1894, the Cross House was elegantly finished, and fully wallpapered (including the ceilings). When the house was converted into a motel in 1950, I was told that all the wallpaper was removed (along with, it seems, all the original lighting), and the walls and ceilings re-papered. When the previous owner purchased the house…
Continue ReadingPeacocks in the House!
THE TIME: 1973. MY AGE: A pup of sixteen. THE PLACE: A wallpaper store in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. THE SCENE: My mom and I had made numerous trips to the store, and there was one paper we yearned for. It was by Van Luit and featured peacock feathers. We looooooooooved the paper but it…
Continue ReadingMy Love Affair With…Downspouts?
To everybody BUT me, the above is not a thing of great beauty or worthy of adoration. But I could not be more excited! This is one of my new downspouts!!!!!!! And look! WATER is coming out of it! WATER!!!!!!! You see, the Cross House has not had downspouts for a very very very long…
Continue ReadingCan I Get An Award For The Most-Ever Cracked Plaster Walls?
When one is working on on old house, one expects cracked plaster. No big deal. You repair the damage and go on. This weekend I scraped the wallpaper off the walls in the living room. This had been done throughout the whole house in the 1950s, so I was dealing with post-WWII paper. Which had…
Continue ReadingFaded Houses: 727 Market
One of my favorite things is coming across an archival image of an old house. I immediately think: Is the house still around? Then I go on the hunt. When I find the house my excitement is great. Occasionally, there is a near match between the archival image in my hand, and the actual house…
Continue ReadingWhew! 2014, What A Year!
It was a year ago that I — damn fool that I am — decided to purchase the historic Cross House. All 8900 square feet. Yes, you read that right. And all 8900 square feet needed work. In my first post I articulated the reasoning behind the decision. If such a decision CAN be reasoned. I closed…
Continue ReadingA Message From The Past
The interior of the Cross House was fully wallpapered when it was built. All this was pulled off in the 1950s, down to bare, never-painted plaster, and fully papered again. Poo. I wish I still had 120-years of paper on my walls — layers and layers of time. Today I was scraping the post-1950 papers from…
Continue ReadingLost Emporia: 811 Constitution
Since WWII American cities have been reshaped. Before WWII, cities were laid out based on patterns going back to ancient times. In short, cities were places conducive to walking. All this changed in the 20th-century, and vastly changed after WWII when cities became conducive to automobiles. If you look at aerial images of pretty much…
Continue ReadingA Most Extraordinary Restoration
Wow. In Brooklyn, New York, is the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank, built in 1875. For decades this majestic pile was grimy and overlooked. In 2014 it reopened, as an events space, after a extraordinary restoration. The building now sparkles inside and out and it has been burnished to perfection. There is a gallery of…
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