The Cross House

Golly. There has been a lot to take in since my last post about the kitchen. Here are the updates so far:   SINK The quote for a new soapstone sink, including crating and shipping, would be a scary $3,300. Devyn suggested that I could make my own. And I thought: Hey! Why not? Which…

This is a very long post. You might need to schedule a read when you have some time. And wine.   This past week, I had conversations with two readers who are also friends. Each was mad. At me! They accused me of just making up “the historical narrative” I frequently write about, and then…

The other morning my phone woke me. I had a text message. It was from Kenny. There was an attached image. He found something. Something friggin’ GORGEOUS. Did I want it? For $75? My lust was both great and immediate. Scroll way down…                        …

I received a quote for the custom-made soapstone sink. Including the crate ($275) and freight shipping ($475) the total would be $3,315. So…ouch. The idea of spending so much money on a sink seems ludicrous. The sink in my current house is a circa-1950 double basin with drainboards to each side, all one piece, and…

In a time long, long ago I presented my kitchen plans. When I purchased the Cross House in 2014 I had no idea of what an 1890s kitchen would have looked like. But, I learned. And had great fun while doing so. In 1894, kitchens were an “island” type, meaning they had no fitted cabinets…

My bathroom will be in the original servant’s room in the SE corner of the second-flloor. The room may have been converted into a studio apartment in 1929. Note the word may. I do know that it became a community kitchen for people living in the house during, at least, the 1960s through to the…

    Of note is that, rather than tear up the 1894 maple flooring and taking it to the dump, I decided to leave it in place. The new flooring will be laid atop it. This means that, perhaps 80-years from now, somebody might discover the 1894 flooring and have the wherewithal to somehow restore…

        I will be recreating the annunciator system in the house, and reinstating its attendant call buttons in their original locations. I find this all…a lot of fun.    

  You can see in the image how the door had been made wider. This was true for the other side as well. Vertical extensions had been nailed on. But why? As the post reveals, I learned that the door was originally the door between the dressing room and closet. When these two small rooms…

    New sub-flooring will soon go in. Then new oak finished flooring will go in. Then the original 3-steps will be reinstalled. And nobody will, quite likely, ever again look into the joist cavity to ascertain tidiness. But…I will know. And you will, too.   I think this kind of effort, somehow, makes a…

In 2018, I did two posts (here and here) about Blair discovering that the Cross House had an annunciator system originally. There was no question that I would reinstate this. No question! So, for the last two years I have been searching for an annunciator box. And…drum roll, please…I may have found one.      …

                  All the non-original gas pipes were added, I suspect, so gas heaters could supplement the radiator system. This would have been necessary as, over time, radiators cracked, radiator pipes burst, and so on. Rather than address each such issue, new gas lines were added and, presumably,…

        Currently, The Other Justin is repairing all the oak flooring on the second level. But, before it can be varnished, all the trim on the second floor needs to be refinished. The process uses denatured alcohol and, no matter how careful I am with taping, I just know some of it…

                                  And this caused soooooooo much vexation over the years. How could it not fit? How could it not fit? How could it not fit?       So, I will cut down the 1929 angled rail to fit…

                    The ceiling of the blanket closet also has the striated finish. The closet and room ceilings do not. The new shower will take up 83-inches of the west wall (5-foot wide shower, 18-inch-wide seat, and 5-inch wall to the north), starting in the corner. So,…

On my MOVE IN TO DO LIST, is installing a shower in the servant’s room on the second floor, SE corner. I already have a huge 5-foot x 5-foot shower pan. I quiver at the thought of so large a shower. The shower will cover over much of the west wall in the room, so…

Yesterday I did a post about the non-original flooring of the Cross House. When new, the house had plain pine flooring on its first and second levels, as wall-to-wall carpet was installed. At some point, very simple oak flooring was laid down, and this remains today. Was the oak installed ruing the 1929 apartment conversion,…