There are just three more battered original columns to restore!      

    There are two such windows. One was restored last year, but this matching window has taken forever. But, it now has new glass, the glazing is done, as is the priming and painting. Next, will be the laborious and careful scraping required to created laser-sharp edges where paint meets glass. This is easy…

        I also still need to get the column straight. It leans to the right. And I’m, ahh, really unhappy with a right lean.  

  The original columns look TERRIBLE. There are black from age, and the capitals look totally corroded. The pristine new columns offer a stark contrast. A scary contrast. Yet, through the wonder of elbow grease…        

In 2015, I had the built-in gutters of the Cross relined with some space-age white goop. And, presto, the gutters stopped leaking! As time however would soon prove, my excitement was…premature. For, while the gutters did indeed no longer leak, several areas of gutter simply allowed water to cascade over their edges. And this caused…

In an episode of Friends, the obsessively compulsive Monica is discovered to be hiding a secret: a messy closet. I often think of this episode. For, I work hard at keeping the Cross House neat and tidy. I regularly vacuum top-to-bottom. As mentioned recently, I keep the lawn mowed and edged, and the windows clean….

              There are three things which, I think, announce that a house is loved: A crisply cut/edged lawn. Flowers on the front porch. Clean windows.      

      I am soooooooooo excited about this. Bringing back the many lost columns to the main porch is something I’ve yearned for, yearned for since 1999, well before I purchased the house. And now, now, all the lost columns are in place. They are back. They are really there. Really! So much damage…

I always love visiting Scott. I bring him stained-glass windows in disturbing, depressing, and worrisome condition, and he magically transforms them. Today, I dropped of three stained-glass windows from the round bedroom. And I picked up a finished window.               There are 43 stained-glass windows in the house, which…

  When I purchased the house in 2014 it had but a single downspout. All others had been inexplicably removed, causing extraordinary damage over the years. I rushed to install spouts, and this one was cobbled together out of what I could find. The spouts aren’t normal, of course, but round. This used be common….

            So, it seems obvious that if the extant three steps are all curvy, that maybe the missing one was, too? But I don’t think so. There’s the 1999 image of a straight run. And the steps might be original. They were rotted enough to be.     Thus, my…

      Today was a “feels like” temperature of 101 degrees with the heat and humidity. Ross not happy about this. Installing #4 was in full sun. Ross not happy about this, and he was soaked. After much bonking pounding and swearing, the capital and column would NOT align. This would be easy with…

          It is a THRILL seeing the two stone piers stand, again, alone as originally intended. And to see columns again? SQUEE!!!!!!!! Columns! Only the hand-carved capitals of the columns are original. All else is new, exactly replicating the originals.   A BACKGROUND STORY When I first saw the Cross House…

Today, I drove the 90 minutes to Dr. Doug’s huge 1904 house to deliver more period-correct lighting. He and I have been bartering. He gets lights. I get woodwork. Doug is soon to start on the lattice for my front porch! After hanging a sweet 3-arm fixture in the white bedroom, I stood back and…