What Frank and Esther did over five decades ago was necessary to allow the house to work for them. What is nice is that the change was made in a manner which proved reversible. And so many owners of the house have made changes — sooooooooo many changes! —…

    What astounds me is that, during the 1950 conversion, the easy thing would have been to push the doors into their pockets, build a new infill wall, with a new door into the parlor bathroom. Instead, they nailed the left pocket door closed and built a wall against it, carefully infilling with plaster…

    I knocked down the 1950s plaster wall to the right side of the paneled section, and the section came down fairly easily. A piece of the bottom broke off but it will be easy to glue back on. As expected, the section is 18-inches above the floor, which is the standard height of…

                                                            Such a bench makes a lot of sense. The paneled piece, if placed vertically again, would be 18-inches above the floor. And 18-inches is the…

I have three announcements: I have called off Scotland Yard. I am brilliant. I am an idiot.     My first thought was that it was the lost door to the basement. But I measured and it was the wrong size. So, for days now I have been racking my brain trying to figure out…

  1: Cross House. Note garage behind, now gone. 2: Fabulous 1880s house, comparable to Cross House, demolished by city about 15 years ago for a parking lot even though it was in good shape. Sigh. 3: Gone. 4: Gone. Replaced with a 1980s banal building. 5: Gone. 6: A&W drive-in restaurant. Cool. Gone though….

The Cross House was altered in 1929 when the second floor was converted into apartments. In 1950, it was further altered when it was converted into a hotel. There have been dozens and dozens of small alterations in the ensuing decades. Yet, all this notwithstanding, the house is remarkably as it was when first built….

I have called in Scotland Yard. For, something is amiss at the Cross House. Today, I realized that the single library door leading to the south hall did not have the proper doorknob. This, after I just posted that I no longer needed any more door hardware!                …

        I continue to be amazed that owners of the house, over the decades, maintained a pattern of squirreling away fallen bits/removed bits of the house. As I reinstate a bit I think: When did somebody store this? 1940s? 1950s? 1990s? And who stored it away? Scout Mouse, Jr? Frank Toms? Harry…

    Today was almost 60-degrees. In January. While seemingly ideal, it was also terrifyingly windy. The plan for today was to paint and shingle the part above the one window. But wood shingles and wind do not mix. No matter how careful one is being, the wind will win and many shingles will fly…

2019 is my sixth year of owning the Cross House. In August of this year I did a post detailing much of the work completed during these years. While, golly, a lot has been done there is a vast amount still to do. I do not even have a shower in the house yet! The…

  UNEXPECTED #1         UNEXPECTED #2 I noticed a small box sitting on the porch of the Cross House. As I don’t have my mail delivered to the house I was curious about the box. From Jackie! From Canada! Going inside, I opened the box…and was quite surprised!        …