The Cross House

        Of course, this begs the question? Should I recreate these, too?        

    The large center finial is for the turret of the Cross House. It has just been restored. The finial on the left is marked “barn”. The barn, I think, was the one-story north wing of the two-story carriage house. It had a large ventilator on top, and I suspect that is where the…

      I had some small concerns about the finial, but realized that it would first be a good idea to put the finial atop the tower. Justin bravely offered to inch along the built-in gutters with the finial in hand, and plop it in place. I stood on the street, bravely, taking images….

  It’s bloody hot. And I am painting the exterior of a huge old wooden house. In the summer of 2014 I was painting the west facade. Much of what I did bubbled, and this drove me INSANE sanding each bubble down to bare wood and repainting. And doing it again. And again. And again….

        I like them though. I wonder if WF Norman has some in stock? I will need but five. Or, will I be messing with the time/space continuum by ordering something in 2016, drawn in 1894, but never installed? Might this alter reality as we know it? I mean, what if I…

              If WF Norman agrees to modify the finial, the results will not be what was on drawing #3, nor drawing #12, nor as shown in the 1932 image. As in keeping with the evolving history of the octagon finial, the 2016 version will be yet another iteration. There…

Do you love blueprints? If so, click here. Enjoy!    

The Mouse family owned the Cross House from 1929 to 1960. The granddaughters of Scott Mouse, Sr. have been frequent guests since I purchased the house in 2014, and I always enjoy spending time with Lindy and Merryl. A few weeks ago, Merryl sent me a MOST tantalizing email. She had a framed copy of…

I have done a number of posts about the finial to the turret of the Cross House. For 122-years it was a dramatic punctuation mark atop the pointy roof. For 122-years it endured rain and sleet and storms and heat and hail and birds pooping on it. And after 122-years, it needed some attention. So,…

    This got me to thinking. The original floor was ABOVE the oak/pine flooring, but was removed at some point. And I now think that the original porch flooring was the pine. This was roughly removed, it appears, and bits and pieces of it fell down to the ceiling below. Most of it though…

A week ago, I had no plans to remove the non-original flooring on the second-floor porch. Then because I needed to do some other work on the house, on thing led to another, and I was surprised that the porch floor suddenly became A Current Project. All old house owners know of this phenomenon. A…

      To me, cleaning up a mess is powerful. I cannot prove the following, but nonetheless deeply believe in what I write. These thoughts are difficult to put into words, and right now I wish I were a poet. When the mess above was cleaned up, somehow, somehow, this changed the energy of…

Yesterday, Tamara asked: I’m dying to know exactly what does the inside of a telephone closet look like? Is the original telephone extant? Does it contain a simple bench to sit upon whilst making that all important call? That particular feature is one of the least mentioned in all of your posts and my curiosity…

Last February I did a post about the miraculous resurrection of the triple arched stained-glass windows on the second-floor landing. If you did not read that post, you really really really need to. I will have a glass of wine in the meantime… … … … OK! Cool, right? So, while the stained-glass was restored,…

  At some point, either likely 1929 or 1950, the east window facing the porch was transformed into a door when the porch was enclosed. The porch floor (as I just discovered) was about 6-inches ABOVE the sewing room floor. This floor was removed, and a new floor installed continuous with the sewing room (as seen…

I previously did a post on the second-floor porch of the Cross House. It’s a really interesting post, and you might want to detour and read it. At some point the porch was enclosed, but the previous owner of the house, Bob Rodak, removed these alterations, and infilled the huge, original arched openings with solid sheets…

        …no water drained out of its downspout, either (over to the left; not pictured). We we all baffled by this, but much sleuthing by Justin revealed that a 1-1/2-inch sag was the problem. The sag was where a very TALL wood column had been, a very rotted tall column. This was…

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