A Breathless Cat Fence Update! YIKES!
I’m all excited. And a little freaked out. For, the first part of the famous Cat Fence has been installed! ZOUNDS!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!! EGAD!!!!!!!! SQUEE!!!!!!!! So why, you might be asking, am I a little freaked out? Because the finished look is not, ahh, quite what I anticipated. I ordered a bronze-like metal. What arrived…
Continue Reading2018. The Year-End Update. THE ROSS.
Each year, I do a HOUSE update and a ROSS update. While the HOUSE update is highly popular, the ROSS update attracts three times the views. Which is a strong indicator that y’all are interested in the man behind the blog. This is also an indicator that readers are also interested in…ah…my political views as…
Continue ReadingA Breathless Cat Fence Update! YEAR-END UPDATE!
Since my last update, donations to Fence The Cats have continued to come in! Rachel: Greetings from the SF Bay area! As a fellow animal rescuer (of foster dogs) I applaud your efforts with the acts. I’m also a lover of old homes but will never actually own one (or a new home, for that matter)…
Continue Reading2018. The Year-End Update. THE HOUSE.
Much of the work above happened via my patented Baby…
Continue ReadingVisitors!!!!!!!!
The couple are staying the night at the Gufler Mansion in Emporia, and dining tonight at my suggestion, Radius. So, everybody, a big hug for Christina and Dusty!
Continue ReadingPainting a Historic House
The 1886 Haas-Lilienthal House is a historic house museum in San Fransisco. It is quite the stunner and for many years looked like this: Wanna see? Scroll way down. In 2018, a multi-million dollar restoration was completed. The original colors were ascertained and the results are both startling and unexpected. …
Continue ReadingHappy Holidays 2018!
A big hug and happy holidays to all of you!
Continue ReadingWhat IS This? REVEALED!
Brad mentioned that they had the original drawings. This information made me salivate, and I looked at Brad with pleading eyes and said: “Please, sir, can I see the drawings? Please? Please?” And then two hours vanished in a flash as Susan and Brad and I, like kids let loose in a candy store,…
Continue ReadingAnother Detroit Resurrection: The Metropolitan Building
I was born in Detroit. This was an article I wrote in 2003, and published in The Town Paper: The Detroit that I knew, in the mid-1960s, still looks the same in my mind, as I have not seen it since 1970. Downtown was an hour drive from the suburban development where I lived:…
Continue ReadingBefore. After.
There is a FABULOUS 1880s house in Wichita. It had been restored in the 1980s. And then declined. And declined. And declined. This is not, sadly, an uncommon story with old houses. By 2018, the house looked terrible, and was listed for sale, cheap. So cheap that my friend, Carl, worried that it would be…
Continue ReadingAn Extraordinary Discovery!
Today, I received an email. The email made me…gasp! Gasp! The email today was from Staci. Staci and her husband, Rick, own Coffelt Signs in Emporia. Recently, Coffelt recreated the neon sign to the 1900 Theater in Strong City, something I have been dreaming about for two decades. Well, in her email,…
Continue ReadingBefore. After.
My online vintage lighting store. I hesitated. They were SO grim! Then I thought: The poor dears! I must SAVE them! This kind of thought gets me into a lot of trouble. Why, I even purchased a huge old house to SAVE it. Sigh. Well, wanna see the After? Scroll way down…. …
Continue ReadingWhat IS This?
The chute has three metal bars preventing any larger object from falling into the chute. The petite door was held by two incredibly powerful spring hinges. One could not just open the door and leave it, as it would instantly snap shut. No, one had to bend down, open the door, HOLD…
Continue ReadingChrome Beauties!
My online vintage lighting store. My online vintage lighting store.
Continue ReadingCAN THIS HOUSE BE SAVED? 402 E Jefferson St, Mount Pulaski, IL
The incomparable Kelly, of Old House Dreams, regularly features houses for less than the price of a new car. Such houses are, obviously, not in mint condition. Or normally in an ideal neighborhood. But almost all such houses are, to me, well worth it as they could be beauties once again. Magnificent and remarkable and…
Continue ReadingRepairing Plaster Walls
I had planned on simply filling all the smaller holes with sheetrock, and then sheetrocking over the entire ceiling. This is what I have done for decades. But…but…this is the first old house I have ever restored which had radiators. And what, you might ask, do radiators have to to with plaster? Why,…
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