Today, I arrived at the Cross House. It’s 90 degrees with very high humidity. It feels like an oven outside. But…the lawn needs mowing. I work hard at keeping the lawn mowed and edged because it conveys to the community that the house is being cared for. It is loved. Yes, the outside looks much,…

        The column looks SO out-of-place! It’s all pretty and pristine against sooooooo much decay! I am beyond excited. EXCITED!!!!!!!! In January, 2015, when I was able to return all the missing columns to the west face of the main porch, it would not have seemed possible that getting the south face…

    The #4 column is not shown, nor are all the bases. These are in the kitchen of the Cross House, while all the above are in the living room of the carriage house. I keep darting back/forth with a wet paint brush!    

                                          I call this the big sweep because the cornice sweeps around the corner. As will the railing and lattice. The latter two will be in by the end of the year! And what a…

    This single corner has been overwhelming. And I have never said that about any project on the Cross House. The work began in October! Eight friggin’ months ago! EIGHT MONTHS! While the work has not been continuous for all those months due to cold weather or rain, it has nonetheless been eight months…

      The twin single stone plinths are, once again, revealed, and as they were intended to be. They will have lattice between them, and a railing. It’s hard to believe that by the end of the year all this should look fabulous! Hard. To. Believe. And when it is all done…I will reveal…

One would think that, five years into the Cross House, I would no longer be surprised to discover anything about the house. Well…Mick just proved this assumption wrong. Just twenty minutes ago I did a new post, and Mick asked a question.     Mick asked: “I have to wonder… the two single piers so…

Recently, I did a post about the interior of the carriage house. When i purchased the house in 2014, the entry had a wide, trimmed opening into the living room. To each side of the opening were low walls, clearly 1970s plywood, topped with two petite wood columns, and a pair of oak brackets in…

        Removing these few stones proved much harder than I anticipated. I will need to call in Justin and his magical jackhammer. Stay tuned!  

When I purchased the Cross House in 2014, about half of the twenty main porch columns were missing. One of my first goals was to restore all twelve columns to the west face of the L-shaped porch.       The missing columns had been lying in the backyard for many years, slowly moldering away….

My neighbor, Eric, a fellow Squires home owner, climbed out on the scaffolding with me for a visit. I pointed out my current worry: the huge galvanized cornice no longer met the end wall due to settling. I was filling this gap with sheet metal, attached with self-tapping screws. “Oh, no. You should use rivets,”…

  Beverly, for her birthday, booked the full tour! She drove up from Texas and, after she stepped into the entry hall…she cried. And cried! Sandy smiled at me, and I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. “Oh, Ross! I’m soooooo sorry! I’ve read every blog post! And to suddenly be IN the Cross House…

    I am beyond sick of this corner! I have never felt this way about any other aspect of the project to date. What began as a simple project (infill some missing shingles) ballooned into a total redo: framing, sheathing, cornice repair, two window frames rebuilt, and only then the tedious work of custom-cutting…

It came to my attention, belatedly, that my blog was having issues. None of these would have been apparent to a reader, save one. It seems that people who had signed on to automatically receive new posts were no longer getting such notices. This included me as well! This is being worked on. In the…