The Cross House

  THE BACKGROUND I love learning new stuff. I really love learning new stuff. It should be noted though that I am a picky learner. So, if somebody says: YOU SHOULD LEARN THIS, I will, most likely, be an unenthusiastic learner (and who does not react as such?). However, if something captures my special attention,…

So, continuing the Great Wood Refinishing Drama! I think (hope) the drama is now over. I think. I hope. Today I finished one section:     I used denatured alcohol to “liquify” the original shellac on all the door trim. You can see the result at the top, horizontal piece of trim. Then I used…

One day I pulled up the 1970s vinyl flooring in the Cross House kitchen. Under was 1950s flooring. I pulled that up. Under was a thin layer of Masonite-type boards. I laboriously pulled all that up. Under was…wow. Wild! Weird!   ABOVE: The very first layer of linoleum in the kitchen of the Cross House,…

Two posts previously I was freakin’ out man. Now I am chillin’, man. This was my concern two posts previously: ABOVE: I had started to refinish the trim and ended up with wood WAY lighter than I had intended. So, yea, FREAK OUT! After some most excellent advice from readers and friends, I did this:…

I have a wood mystery. Take a look at the image below:     NOTE: when I took the image I had not finished stripping off the old finish. It now looks much neater. Look at the gouges. They mystify me. If I were to toss out a guess I would say that my trim…

This post is a cry for help. You see, I started to refinish the trim in the living room of the Cross House. I have done this many many many times previously over the decades and have never encountered what I did the other day. All my woodwork has an alligatored finish. And it has…

OK! I am freakin’ out, man! FREAKIN’ OUT! Recently, I did a post on the wallpaper discoveries at the Cross House. In particular, I found scraps of the original 1895 wall paper, wall frieze, and ceiling paper in the two-story stair-hall. Were these scraps, I wondered, enough to recreate all three papers? I mean, how…

The movie Willard came out in 1971. I was fourteen, and saw it four times. It’s a movie about….rats. But the main story is not what drew me in. It was the house. A big, old, fabulous house, featured prominently. I felt intoxicated at all the scenes showing the house, and even though I understood…

ABOVE: The living room of the Cross House, December, 2014. I always thought it odd that none of the rooms in the Cross House had a picture rail. Wasn’t this de rigueur for houses of the period? I mean, punching a nail in plaster walls to hang a picture was simply not done! One respected laboriously…

Today I had a real thrill. There are two radiators in the living room. It seemed like a good idea if they were temporarily removed so we could: Scrape off the old wallpaper behind them Repair the plaster as required. Repaint or re-wallpaper. Refinish the floors under. And so it was done. Behind the radiators…

When completed in 1894, the Cross House was elegantly finished, and fully wallpapered (including the ceilings). When the house was converted into a motel in 1950, I was told that all the wallpaper was removed (along with, it seems, all the original lighting), and the walls and ceilings re-papered. When the previous owner purchased the house…

THE TIME: 1973. MY AGE: A pup of sixteen. THE PLACE: A wallpaper store in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. THE SCENE: My mom and I had made numerous trips to the store, and there was one paper we yearned for. It was by Van Luit and featured peacock feathers. We looooooooooved the paper but it…

To everybody BUT me, the above is not a thing of great beauty or worthy of adoration. But I could not be more excited! This is one of my new downspouts!!!!!!! And look! WATER is coming out of it! WATER!!!!!!! You see, the Cross House has not had downspouts for a very very very long…

When one is working on on old house, one expects cracked plaster. No big deal. You repair the damage and go on. This weekend I scraped the wallpaper off the walls in the living room. This had been done throughout the whole house in the 1950s, so I was dealing with post-WWII paper. Which had…

It was a year ago that I — damn fool that I am — decided to purchase the historic Cross House. All 8900 square feet. Yes, you read that right. And all 8900 square feet needed work. In my first post I articulated the reasoning behind the decision. If such a decision CAN be reasoned. I closed…

The interior of the Cross House was fully wallpapered when it was built. All this was pulled off in the 1950s, down to bare, never-painted plaster, and fully papered again. Poo. I wish I still had 120-years of paper on my walls — layers and layers of time. Today I was scraping the post-1950 papers from…

          Most of the west facade has now been repainted in the original colors. An 1895 image guided me as to WHAT colors went WHERE (along with paint scrapes), and also confirmed that the distinctive huge curved cornices were originally painted all one color, including the dramatic stamped tin swirls. The…

When the Cross House was built in 1894 it was state of the art. Today, it would be like having a home built wholly wireless and with LEED green certification. In 1894 this meant: 1) Both gas and electric lighting. The former was a proven technology; the latter was new and unproven. Hence, being modern…

THE PAST When I was a wee one in the 1960s, my parents would take us kids (there were four) to visit Aunt Mabel, who was sweet, generous with a kind word, never lectured, and always gave each of us kids a whole dollar (back when a dollar could actually buy something). Aunt Mabel was also…

I love scaffolding. I admit it. Some people love ladders. Some people love boom lifts. I love scaffolding. You see, ladders are all about up/down and up/down and up/down. A day of this at my age is tough. You can also only work a small area at a time before having to move the ladder….