The Cross House

WARNING: A RANT: There is something which quite vexes me! Kitchens. On the fabulous Old House Dreams, for example, a house will be shown from, say, 1905, but with a 1950s kitchen. And people will comment: Oh! I would need to tear out that kitchen and install a period-correct one. I read (and hear) this…

Most of my time spent on the Cross House involves painting the exterior. If somebody had told me before I purchased the house that I would be doing this I do not think I would have pursued the house. My painting the exterior was a decision developed in incremental steps. I tried finding a painter;…

A water table is an architectural feature designed to shed water. So, when water drips down exterior walls, a water table at the bottom will “kick” the water away from the foundation. The Cross House has a highly visible and distinctive water table made from two pieces of wood. These two pieces also protect the…

      I can have picture rail milled for me. There is a knife charge (around $250) but otherwise the cost would not be high. In most rooms I will need something like basswood, and with oak in the entry hall. It seems critical to recreate this important architectural feature, and if you know…

While I continue my trauma-induced obsessive cleaning frenzy of the Cross House, I ventured into the basement. This level is pretty much spotless. I regularly vacuum every square inch, and even wipe down the tops of my four beloved pulse boilers. But…but…one room has remained largely untouched since I purchased the house: Aladdin’s Cave. This…

When I purchased the Cross House there was a 1970s vinyl floor in the kitchen. I pulled that up only to discover a 1950s linoleum floor. I pulled that up to discover…an astonishing 1930s floor. It looked like something Fred Flintstone would have in his kitchen. This 1930s linoleum was totally fabulous, and while in…

              In short? The attic is a mess. As it is not a priority item I have ignored it even though I occasionally can hear it calling out to me: Clean me! Cleeeeeeeeeeeeen me! Cruelly, I have ignored these plaintive pleas. I do however have a plan: Heat/cool the attic,…

Yesterday I did a post about discovering that the 1894 wallpaper in the UPPER stair-hall was also used in the LOWER hall. But the latter had a green background while the former had a silver background. This was a really cool discovery Then Bo asked: Was there also a frieze on the first floor? Ahhhh,…

It was thrill in late 2014 to discover the 1894 wallpaper in the two-story stair hall, and I did a post summing up what I had learned. The paper was discovered in the upper stair-hall, or second floor. I assumed that the same paper had also been installed on the first floor of the stair-hall…

When the Cross House was converted into a motel in 1950 the basement was transformed into motel rooms. Really. Alternations included replacing wood windows with five steel casement windows. These are not obvious from the outside, as two are under porches, and two are behind limestone “lattice”. The fifth steel window, under the library, is…

My briefest post ever! I have a new page. Click here to meet the Cross House up close. This new page will be updated with links as they are created. Enjoy!      

The Cross House has five levels: Basement. First floor. Second floor. Third floor. Attic. The first three levels are heated by radiators and have a 2-zone central AC system (and one zone can also heat the first two levels if the radiator system fails for any reason). The third floor has forced-air heating/cooling. The third…

The Cross House has 4,738 windows. OK. Maybe not that many. But there are a lot. I get scared when I try and count how many, so my solution is to never finish counting. Wind freely blows into the house because the sashes are so loose in the frames. I could laboriously install bronze weather-stripping…

I know that I am still traumatized by the events of last Tuesday because I am in Full-Blown Obsessive Cleaning Mode. An intervention might soon be required. When something really bad happens over there, I find that if I can make things better over here, like by, say, antiseptically cleaning my toilets bowls, I will…

  Servant’s stair. This goes to all four floors, and is the stair I mostly use. I think of it as the default staircase. Stair to exterior. Original laundry room. Dumbwaiter. Now lost but I will recreate it. Laundry chute. This is only extant on the second floor. Everything below was removed. I will recreate…

  I was determined to repaint the house in the original colors. And I thought I had. But this year I belatedly discovered that while I got the trim color right, I ended up selecting the second wall color, because I assumed that the VERY pale color under was primer! So, while the colors I…

I have not posted anything in five days. This is the longest stretch of time with no new posts since I started this blog 2-1/2-years ago. For, the events of the week have totally stunned, overwhelmed, depressed, and powerfully angered me. So, I mostly just shut down. Today though I knew that I could not…