The Cross House

In my previous post I did a year-end update on the Cross House. This post is a year-end update on me. But why? Well, many readers have expressed interest in knowing the man behind the blog. I understand this, as I grow bored with blogs that endlessly detail a house restoration while never offering a…

2017. Wow. What a year. Wow. All the work regarding the 2015 Kansas Heritage Trust Fund Grant was completed! Then, in February, I was notified that the Cross House had been awarded a second full Heritage grant! As amazed as I was to receive the first grant, I was even more amazed to receive a…

When Bob Rodak owned the Cross House, from 1999 to 2014, he rewired it. Well, that is not really accurate. For, Bob super duper atomic rewired. I mean, if a normal rewiring job would have taken a mile of wire, Bob put in three miles of new wiring. This was because Bob wanted a high-tech old house. He…

        I also discovered something REALLY odd. See the door in the above image? See the black area, lower left? See the black on the adjacent trim? That is…eek…charred wood! GASP! But why would the wood be charred? Yes, I know, because of fire, but why a fire here? And when did…

  Next week, I will make the new wood sill, and paint that inside the heated basement workroom. Then I can install the sill, and the already restored window! Weather be dammed!    

  The sash is restored, and is sitting in the basement. I am hoping to paint the frame tomorrow. If not, I lose the weather for a while. Also, I have to recreate the rotted wood sill. I am SOOOOOOOOOO excited about this small project soon being completed!      

    The wall had problems from Day 1. It had no support under. It just rested on ceiling joists which, quite understandably, sagged over time. In 1929, things were made exponentially worse when the expansive stair opening was shrunk in half so two kitchens could be created.  But these new kitchens, and the new…

For the last six weeks I have been wandering from room to room doing small things. All these small thing appear to have a common theme: Putting the Cross House back together. And this feel really good. Nothing I have done is visually dramatic. There are no stunning Before/After images. But the house, I dunno,…

  I am trying to figure out what the “winter project” should be. This is when I hibernate inside the house during the cold months and finish a room. In 2016 this was the library. In 2017 this was the parlor. Now, I am divided between two spaces. Should I finish the stairhall/niche/foyer? Or the…

    When Bob and Debbi Rodak purchased the house in 1999, the house retained all its motel-era bathrooms. In the parlor, the pair of sliding doors which had originally opened into the library now opened into a blue and pink 1950 bathroom. Actually, only one sliding door opened. The other was nailed shut. Wanna…

        The niche is framed by a pair of oak columns with highly distinctive hand-carved capitals. The arch, which appears to be wood, is actually plaster painted to look like wood, and detailed with strips of Lincrusta. There is a triple window with highly expressive trim above. There is a east entrance…

    Bob, the previous owner, thinks he might have a box-of pulls. But he might not. And, for two years now, I have been after Bob to retrieve the missing 1894 screen doors. So, I am disinclined about spending too much time in this direction. My options thus are to try and find Austerlitz pulls…

  Originally, the second-floor bathroom was the only bathroom on the second floor. It was later turned into a kitchen, and then was gutted by the owner before me, Bob. The only original feature remaining was the tile floor. In 1894, the room had very high wood wainscoting, which I will absolutely recreate. Bob had…

    I would never install these in the 1894 Cross House as they are not period-correct. But I am glad to have saved them, and hope to find a good home for them. For, out there somewhere, somebody would kill for these. I know the feeling    

  It seemed like a miracle. Like fairies had blessed the house with an unexpected gift. You see, I was missing ONE original corner block, but I needed FOUR more to properly finish some alterations I made. So, to come across five corner blocks just astounded me. But my amazement was to be — sigh — dashed….

Today, while cleaning up the main floor bathroom, and then reinstalling all the trim which was removed over a decade ago, I made a startling, and wondrous, discovery. Scroll down…                                       And guess how many corner blocks…

  But this is not how the bathroom looked when I purchased the house in 2014. The previous owner, Bob, gutted it. And then, to repair termite damage, I gutted it some more. All the white quartz was removed and is now stored under the main stair. Bob had removed all the trim and stripped…

Yesterday, I did a post about collecting all the un-attached hardware in the Cross House. This afternoon, I went all through the house trying to ascertain where all the un-attached bits went. I had a lot of fun. There were a lot of SQUEE moments! There were some perplexing moments, too. And there was a…