The Cross House

WARNING: Do not read this post I implore you. Why? Because, if you read this post, you will not like me anymore. Why? Because…I am going to do a bad thing. Sigh, please scroll down…IF YOU MUST!                             NOTE: 1 ) Most…

Like many parts of America, bitter cold weather is gripping Kansas. Tonight will be -13 degrees. Eek. For a week now I have been preoccupied with assuring that my yard kitties will be safe. They have a heated winter cat house, and a heated water bowl outside. And, numerous stray cats have managed to find…

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a hard day. I had gone to bed around 2AM, when the outside temperature was a terrifying -13 degrees. Would my power go off? Would my pipes then freeze? Would the kitties be OK in their heated winter cat house with no heat? I fell right asleep. It was 72-degrees inside. At…

  Originally, the first-and second-floors were covered with wall-to-wall carpeting. On the second floor, it appears that oak was laid down in 1929, when apartments were created on the second floor, and numerous bathrooms and kitchen were installed. During the ensuing decades there was a lot of damage and all this needs to be repaired….

When buying the Cross House in 2014, a huge huge huge concern was how to heat it. The house is scary massive: four floors totaling almost 9,000 square feet. Terrifying! In 2014, wind blew freely through the house, and snowdrifts inside were common. Even though the previous owner, Bob, installed $$$$ new boilers for the…

    See the closet, lower right? Adjacent, was a small dressing room. A door is shown to the dressing room but this was never installed. Rather, a portiere was. There was a door between the dressing room and closet though. In 1929, the closet and dressing room were combined into a bathroom. Read here…

During the last few days I have made significant and fascinating discoveries in the former servant’s room in the SE corner of the second floor of the Cross House. This post details one discovery.   The room was originally a servant’s room accessible via a door off the servant’s hall. To the immediate west was…

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,…

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…

                    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,…

                                  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…

        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…