The Cross House

So, as y’all know I have been slowing moving ahead with the Octagon Suite. Hopefully, hopefully, the suite can be safely available to guests in the latter part of 2021. Hopefully. After spending 385 years thinking of only shingles, it has been great fun to think about pretty things for the Octagon Suite. For several…

  The doors though were in very poor condition, and for two years I just simply stored them in the basement. Then, I had Dr. Doug take them away to  restore. The doors have a solid wood inner core. This proved fine. There is a thin outer veneer front/back. This proved mostly OK on the…

      In addition, I am wary of any antique wood tables. I looked but everything I found was either $$$$, too solid, or not a complement to the oak bedroom set. I want the set to stand out AS a matching set. Any additional wood antiques in the room will likely dilute this…

  I wanted the paper for the Long Bedroom, which will be mine. But, it was discontinued like five minutes before I went to order it. Drat! Drat! Two rolls were found on eBay, so I purchased them. My thought was that I could at least do a wall in my bathroom. About a year…

When the Cross House was built 126-years ago it had 43 stained-glass windows. This is incredible. Amazing. I do not think I have ever been in a Victorian-era house with so many stained-glass windows. Even more amazing is that that over this 126-year period, with so many many many changes to the house, including being…

With my computer landline still being offline, it has been hit or miss if I can post anything by using my smartphone as a hotspot. For most of the day this has not worked but it seems to be working now! So (drum roll, please), I present this post!     And tomorrow? Monday? Two…

So, because my landline is down, I thought I was on hiatus until Tuesday, when the AT&T repair person arrives. Then I thought: Could I use my iPhone as a hotspot to “power” the desktop iMac? I can! Hence, this post!        

My internet is down. Till Tuesday! So, no new posts till then. I am doing this one on my iPhone! Happy holidays everybody!

Remember everything I wrote in my previous post? Forget all of it. My plans for the bedding were based on the bedding I have used for forty years. But…I have never had a bed from the 1890s. And such beds have footboards.       Rhonda also pointed out something I had not considered. There…

So, with the bed in place, the new mattress, and curtains, I have been pondering duvets covers. There will be a fabulous Hungarian goose down baffled-quilted duvet, of course, and this will need a cover. The priority is that whatever I select….           I have looked for green/red/blue chenille covers but…

Recently, I did a “sleepy update“, about the bed in the Octagon Bedroom. Old beds have a common problem: modern mattresses do not fit. However, it turns out that the bed I purchased in January DID accept a modern full size mattress, but not a modern box spring. So, I ordered a custom box spring…

With the south facade wrapped up for now, and with the new custom-sized bed arriving Tuesday (!!!!!!!!), today I cleaned out the Octagon Bedroom and adjacent Sewing room. The rooms have been my work station for most of the year and were filled with wood scaffolding, shingles, tools, and general debris. Quite the mess! Now,…

When I post a new update, I like to include images which I think y’all will enjoy. Sometimes though, things are happening at the Cross House which are visually…dull. This does not mean to suggest that nothing is happening. Indeed, this week, while visually uninteresting, has actually been quite exciting. But, without exciting images I tend…

    In order to get the metal sill covers in place, the bottoms of the vertical trims need to be cut short. Because the bottoms were rotted, I did not reinstall them but replaced them with PVC (the white bits). I will only paint the vertical edges of the new sill. Any paint on…

In 2017, I did a post about making the Cross House crispy again. This is a goal vital to me. But, I have been so busy this year on the endless shingle shingle shingle fucking shingle work on the south facade that I…oh, the horror… unknowingly allowed the house to become (me, bursting out crying)…

I am prepared to order a period-correct custom-made soapstone sink for my 1894 kitchen. And a non-period faucet. But..I hesitate. I hesitate. It is all Walter’s fault. I have never met Walter, but I fell down the rabbit hole of his website. You see, Walter is a vintage plumbing obsessive. He restores and installs. A…

So, y’all now know that I have changed my plans for the kitchen of the Cross House. Rather than install a huge island with sink and appliances under, I am going to do a soapstone sink in what I believe is the original location: smack up against the huge south window. The sink will have…

For a while now, I have been rethinking my plan for the kitchen at the Cross House. When I purchased the house I had no idea of where the sink was in 1894. After some sleuthing, the evidence suggested that it was, however improbably, right in front of the huge south double window. I have…