The Cross House

Recently, I did a post about removing the old alligatored finish on the pair of beveled-glass inner entry doors of the Cross House. Under all the old, dark shellacked finish was a gorgeous and much lighter finish. Experience has shown me that the revealed finish was likely the original finish. Today, I surprised myself with a…

    There are many stories like these. Too many. It is for this reason that I do not allow a heat gun to be used on the Cross House. Never. Ever. EVER. And everybody working on the house knows this, too. It is the #1 RULE. Break it and you are fired. Sooooo fired!…

Recently I did a post about “discovering” the fabulous hardware of the Cross House. Although I had been aware of the hardware, and knew that it was incredible, I did not really understand just how incredible it was until recently. However, from Day One, I was highly aware that the first floor of the house…

          One of the things I most like about old house is the quality and beauty of everything, and this makes a huge difference in generating the gumption to get off my butt and restore the bits and pieces of an old house. Conversely, spending any time restoring a 1980s hollow-core…

When I purchased the Cross House in March of 2014, I had a vague idea of doing a blog. Then in short order I was startled by the level of interest in the house, and realized that creating a blog needed to be pushed to the top of the To Do list. So, RestoringRoss went online…

Recently I did a post about the mystery of the porch lights for the Cross House. In short, what is there now is not what was there originally. Oh, the horror! The horror! To correct this egregious historical injustice, I knew I had to remove the lighting sconces to each side of the front doors….

As this is officially Obsessed With Hardware Week, things way way way on the bottom of the endless To Do list at the Cross House have been pulled up to page one. And on page one are skeletons!!!!!! In the butler’s pantry were a bunch of keys hanging, many of them classic skeleton keys. But…

It will not surprise anybody to learn that I am obsessed with the Cross House. But there are…sub-obsessions, too. This means that while I am obsessed with the house overall, I am continually overtaken with smaller obsessions. Thus, one week I might be fixated with, ah, stained-glass windows. Another week might be porch columns. Or perhaps…

In a previous post I introduced the luscious Yale & Towne hardware of the Cross House, my response to an inquiry by Bo Sullivan. While I have always been aware that the house was blessed with luscious hardware, until doing the post I did not quite realize just how luscious fabulous delicious the hardware was. So,…

Yesterday, I did a post about the hardware of the Cross House, with co-writer Bo Sullivan. Bo identified the maker of all my hardware, and noted the the interior door knob sets featured an anthemion design. What, you might ask, is an anthemion? Anthemion, design consisting of a number of radiating petals, developed by the ancient Greeks from the…

          Well, I have never given the lost screen doors much thought. Until today. Because today I discovered that the doors might still exist. This leaves me breathless. I am crossing my fingers that the lead pans out. Please cross your fingers too!    

Recently, somebody told me they thought I was getting really overwhelmed with the enormity of restoring the Cross House, and that I was being battered by too many discoveries about structural issues. I was struck dumb by this. For, it is not accurate. Later, I thought: If one person thinks this, perhaps others do? Then…

In the past few months I discovered that the Cross House was lighted by gas/electric combination fixtures throughout. This means that the 1894 house may have been the first in Emporia, or one of the first, to have electric lighting. This is all way cool. But, what lighted the front porch?     The stained…

The other day Bo Sullivan asked me about the hardware in the Cross House. I was excited about the inquiry, for the hardware is a sight to behold!       Bo commented: It looks like all your hardware is by Yale & Towne.   The very nice entry hardware pattern is known as “Kelp”…

Recently, I did a post about bringing back the long-lost triple set of cross-hatched windows to the dormer on the main facade. The sashes have been missing for almost twenty years. On such a huge house, these missing sashes are a minute thing. But, as Bo Sulivan told me, not having the windows in place…

Guess what I did yesterday? I am both thrilled and enormously relieved about it. Finally, after ten months, I was able to make the last payment of the huge huge huge bill to restore and reconfigure the radiator system in the Cross House. Besides being able to remove a major item off the To Do…

Two years ago today I took possession of the Cross House. This seems both a brief time, and forever. In the VERY long projected timeline to restore the house, two years is a blink of an eye. In terms of my life, the last two years have seemed very very very long. In a good…

      So, this is the plan. The other day though, Bo Sullivan commented. As faithful readers of this blog will know, Bo is a God to me. He is incredibly knowledgeable about period design and period lighting and period wallpaper and, golly, just all things period. I suspect that if I wanted to have…

My favorite blog is Old House Dreams, which was created by Kelly. To me, Kelly is a Goddess. She created Old House Dreams from nothing, and built the site into one which now receives a million page views a months. Zounds! This is truly incredible. Old House Dreams (OHD) is the most fabulous place to…