The Cross House

I have written about the bat which has taken up residence outside the Cross House. Well, I just found a video online. And you have to watch this! Enjoy!        

      This stained-glass panel is the final one restored by Hoefer Stained Glass (thanks Scott and Eric!) as part of the 2015 Heritage Trust Fund grant. About 2/3 of the 42 stained glass windows in the Cross House were restored by Hoefer as part of the grant. The final 1/3 will be restored as…

I have done a series of posts about…the bat. The bat has been elusive, nay, shy about being photographed. But today I was able to capture a glamour shot. Wanna see? Scroll way down…                                     I am highly…

I have done several posts about a bat being in my way. I even had a nightmare about the bat in my way. HOW was I going to restore the left curved corner with a damn bat in residence? Then a miracle happened. The very day I needed to begin on the left curved corner…the…

  The restored curved stained-glass is also now back in place. Per square-inch, the two curved corners have been THE most time-consuming on the entire house, and THE most draining. I feel victorious that they are now mostly done. The two left-side brackets are in good shape. The two on the right still need work,…

        The clock works (and chimes!) and has a year guarantee. Today, I set the clock in place, set the time, and hours later it had kept perfect time. I thrilled when it chimed! The price for this luscious treasure? $95. I know! $95! This seems absurd! Who knew that such treasures…

Today, I went to big city Wichita to visit my friend Carl, and stop by several antique stores. Carl owns an extraordinary 1908 house similar to the Cross House in terms of scale and WOW factor. I last visited Carl last year, and well before my knowledge of picture rail was vastly ramped up via…

  Above the curved windows are: Pairs of wood brackets needing attention. Curved stamped-tin panels needing attention. But these are hard to access because they are tucked behind the wood brackets. Triangles of bead-board ceiling also tucked behind the wood brackets and also needing attention. These are really hard to reach and are CAKED with…

  HOW was I to paint that area? I fretted about this and worried about this and even had a nightmare about this (envisioning thousands of bats swarming upon me). YIKES! Ever since discovering the bat I have carefully peeked numerous times into its, ah, chamber of daytime rest, and there it was. Every damn…

      I felt quite victorious! Tomorrow I will finish everything at the current scafolldong level and then — whoee!!!!!!!! — I will be able to move down a level!        

                      There is great pleasure in making the Cross House pretty again. But, even more satisfying, is making the house crispy again. This effort, to me, makes an enormous difference in how the house is perceived. What had been, well, cruddy for many decades is…

        WHAT was stuffed into the corner? It looked like a piece of steel wool. I imagined that it had been stuffed into the corner to stop an air leak. So I reached toward it to pluck it out. But…EEK!…it moved a bit. EEK! Instinctively, I pulled my hand back with alacrity….

            I never realized till today that triple windows abound on the house. In addition to what is listed above, the main facade has triple windows on the second floor, triple windows in the dormer, and triple windows on the south gable (now altered).