The scale of the paper design surprised me. I had thought it MUCH larger. You can see how well it complements the stained-glass.     I am ridiculously excited about the wall paper. It will hang 20-inches below the ceiling, and a picture rail will separate it from the frieze above. The room…

2020? A friggin’ roller-coaster of a year. Geez. Geez. I purchased the Cross House in 2014, and each year has proved distinctive. The year 2017 was the most enjoyable, something wholly not anticipated. I, as with so many, was just crushed by November, 2016, and I dreaded 2017. Dreaded! HOW would I get through the…

  Your guesses: A piano from IKEA with instructions in Swedish Wild guess: a window Kitchen sink Curved glass for the tower window I will guess something that is really needed….a box of money It’s…it’s a man – I see him! How about the marble slabs for under the sink or toilet It’s your custom…

  I only needed four rolls! This should not have surprised me as there is really only one wall in the room, the temporary wall. Otherwise, the room largely consists of a 5-foot-wide pocket door, a mantel/overmantel, and three windows. Ross excited!    

    There’s a lot of information about this in a previous post. When I purchased the Cross House in 2014, a lot of the water table trim was missing. In order to replicate this, “knifes” had to be custom cut at great expense. When the work was completed, the knifes were given to me,…

The Cross House has three towering brick chimneys, leaping out from the roof. But only the north chimney is visible below the roof.     An issue with the chimney, a huge issue, is that it sunk 2-1/2-inches over the last 126-years. This also dragged down the gutter, meaning that rather than water from the roof…

I have been thinking about 2020 all its intense shocks. And then I thought about Mary. I did a post on her passing in April. Ever since, when writing a post, I often think of Mary, and feel sadness that her humor, intelligence, and zest are now missing from the comments. I feel sadness that…

When the Cross House was built in 1894, it was common for higher-end homes to have a patterned wall paper, a 20-inch high patterned frieze, and a patterned ceiling paper. In the two-story stair hall, fragments of all three papers are extant. In some other rooms, wall paper fragments have also been found. It was…

  And, what a year it has been. Geez. I wish all of you a joyous holiday season, and a healthy holiday season! Much love to all of you! Ross  

In 2017, the fabulous Bo visited the Cross House and one of our many adventures was finding a wealth of wall papers behind a huge radiator. We manfully dragged the stupendously heavy radiator away from the wall, its weigh no match for two men fueled with…historical curiously. Could anything withstand such a force? I think…

So, as y’all know I have been slowing moving ahead with the Octagon Suite. Hopefully, hopefully, the suite can be safely available to guests in the latter part of 2021. Hopefully. After spending 385 years thinking of only shingles, it has been great fun to think about pretty things for the Octagon Suite. For several…

  The doors though were in very poor condition, and for two years I just simply stored them in the basement. Then, I had Dr. Doug take them away to  restore. The doors have a solid wood inner core. This proved fine. There is a thin outer veneer front/back. This proved mostly OK on the…