September-November 2018

This should be an entry containing a lot of progress, Pete lived in the house from September up until Thanksgiving. He was working a freelance prop job, 10 hour days for the entire time. Not much work got done, so there are more irrelevant ramblings here than usual to fill the space.

Old photo found of our house!!

Pete found this photo on You Tube. A local historian makes short videos about various neighborhoods in our city. A few years ago we attended a local historical society meeting. A woman we spoke to said she had seen a photo of our street with our house in it. This must be the photo she was referring to.

The end of the video credits several archives, two that I haven't rooted through yet.

This is the most recent Google maps screenshot, from 2017

Silent but Deadly
I'm pretty low maintenance; I don't mind getting dirty, I enjoy heavy labor, I'm OK with peeing in a bucket. However, there are some things that I can not tolerate, one of those things is being cold for extended periods

We weighed our options when we considered how we were going to bring temporary heat to our temporary bedroom. A wood burning stove would have been the easiest to install, but chopping wood and constantly feeding the stove is impractical considering all the work we already need to do.

The second option was a pellet stove. A pellet stove burns manufactured compressed wood pellets. No chopping, but constantly purchasing and feeding the stove seemed annoying as well.

The third option was a vent-less natural gas stove. A project to install, but no cutting holes in the house for a chimney and no dealing with gathering a fuel source. So we bought a gas fireplace online. Years ago I made fun of a friend who had a gas fireplace installed in his house. "This is cheating, you need to burn wood for this to be a real fireplace."  I told him. I now formally retract my statements an offer an official apology.

Needless to say I was concerned when we were blown off by two contractors who we were hoping would install the gas fireplace.

Heat (at least in the room where we were sleeping) was the last link in the chain to making the house livable. Pete is pretty tough when it comes to the cold.  He can stand about three days of sleeping in the unheated house before it upsets him. As a bachelor he liked to sleep with the window open in his bedroom when it snowed. "I like the snow on my face, it's refreshing" he told me. I found out this is common in Minnesota, where they referenced it on the radio show Prairie Home Companion.

I made it clear I would not be sleeping in the unheated house during my November visit. This threat was the motivator for him to install the gas fireplace himself.

After purchasing the fireplace we went to Lowes where a friendly salesman helped us get all the necessary parts and fittings.

We bought this hand held gas detector as well.

First Attempt at installation:

The gas manifold; its a scary and powerful spot in any structure. This manifold was installed by our plumber when the hot water heater was installed in April. Finagling with it was not in the original plan. 

The first step was removing the cap from one of the lines, then applying pipe dope.That's the white stuff on the fitting, used for sealing threaded fittings.

 The next step was to test the seal. Small leaks can be checked by spraying soapy water on them, if the soap bubbles up, gas is leaking out. Yay, science!

Pete then dragged the line through the crawlspace. There are moments where I really admire his determination; this was one of these moments.

This is kind of an exaggeration, the mess under the crawlspace has been cleaned out, but shimmying through there is no easy task.

Here's Pete with the new heater.  After all of this he realized we were missing a fitting.
Another night in the cold!

I've never experienced cold like this. We have several comforters and an electric blanket, so getting into bed was great!  It was getting out of bed in the morning that was painful agony.



Second Attempt at installation:
After buying the correct threaded part, Pete hooked up the line to the fireplace, then opened the valves.  Nothing. I suggested we unscrew it to see if there was gas in the line. Whoa, mother, that was an experience! Everyone is familiar with the odor added to natural gas, but hovering over an open gas line was like the devil farted right in my face.

The manual failed to mention the regulator, which is a part on the heater, controlled via a simple flat screw. Pete found it, turned it a smidge, and got it running.

 We've gone from homesteading to glamping with this heater. It was a beautiful moment.
Click below if you would like to share this beautiful moment with me.

Front Bedroom

Our friends son Simon and I finished pulling down the plaster on the front bedroom. We are getting close to having the entire house plaster free, with only the ceilings of the two bedrooms, the attic, and the parlor remaining. 

New cracks were visible, probably from the house getting raised five inches.




This is the layer behind the plaster, the wood that the clapboard is nailed to. I love the reddish color of this wood. Is it redwood?  It makes me want to cover the interior of the house with trendy Joanna Gaines ship lap, minus the white paint.

Another funny design quirk; brick wallpaper over the brick chimney. Although I know a few ladies who pull it off beautifully, this is the design equivalent of shaving off your eyebrows and drawing them back on.  

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She works hard for no money

 

Here's me  after about 30 minutes of pulling down plaster. In November. With no heat. I was surprised to see how sweaty I can get in those conditions.

I'm not a big selfie person, most of the time I cant stand to have my photo taken. But I felt this was worth documenting. And yes, the reflection of a cuter me in my goggles is intentional. 

Bottom Feeding 

Whats the most desperate thing you have ever eaten? For me I think it was this. We were running low on groceries so I made this-An all vegan sandwich on Indian naan bread with pickles and ranch salad dressing.  It looks so sad and anemic, not a culinary high point.

You can wash the blood out of your clothes after you get stabbed

We don't have a washer and dryer at our house, so we've been washing our clothes in a decent laundromat that's about a five minute drive away. I recently noticed a laundromat around the corner from us, so I decided to wash our clothes there. How bad could it be?

Public laundromats in our new town do not have attendants like in NYC, so there can be a real sense of unease and danger depending on how desolate they are. The first laundromat we explored, Elliot's Laundromat, was so derelict and scary we re-named it Elliot's Rape and Wash. 

The real close laundromat was clean but pretty annoyingly minimal. No place to sit, except for the toilet, in a bathroom with no door. 

"Wow, its like prison" I said to a woman also washing her clothes.

"No, prison is better than this, at least federal prison is." she replied

Flora and Fauna

I'm looking forward to fencing the entire yard in, but I will miss the deer. This crappy cell phone camera photo shows one of many visits from our hoofed friends. 

We found several of these woolly bear caterpillars, the wives tale is that the length of the brown band determines the severity of the coming winter.

There is a woolly bear festival that's been happening in a small town Northern Ohio for 45 years.

Here's a bunch of locals at the woolly bear race. Whoa.

This photo is from the Woolly Bear Festival Facebook page.

I also found these really tiny snails under a sheet of MDF. They were about 1/16 of an inch in diameter. Pete says they couldn't have been that small. I didn't measure them, but they were pretty itty bitty. 

She's a brick house

This cute house is for sale around the corner from us. She has the misfortune of being across the street to the railroad tracks and under a power line. If I won the lottery I would buy her, buy one of the ranch houses across the street from us, knock that down, and move the brick house in its place. She deserves a better location!

The asking price is $85,000

These are photos from the real estate website. She's in fantastic shape!

The Sterling Collection

A real wise ass gave the blood pressure cuff its formal name, the sphygmomanometer. Does anyone in the medical community actually use this word? Invented in Germany in 1881, this model is sporting American patents just over 100 years old. 

My blood pressure used to be perfect, then I went to an exam where the nurse made me anxious.

 I was nervous to begin with, and she didn't help. 

"Go out into the waiting room and relax!" She barked at me. "If your BP doesn't go down I'm gonna send you downstairs!

 I didn't know what was downstairs but it didn't sound good.

Now when I see the cuff at the doctors office I get agitated. Last year at work I sat with the blood pressure cuff on my arm and took readings, over and over, trying to desensitize myself to the experience. I printed out each normal reading, like a little trophy. It actually helped a lot. 

Inspirations

The Museum of Modern Renaissance 

Bohemian Russian artists Nicholas Shaplyko and Ekaterina Sorokina bought this building from the Masons in the mid 1990s in Somerville, Massachusetts, working to create their temple of art. Photos are from the couples website. 

I doubt this couple has a television in their house.

I watched the Netflix Series Amazing Interiors, this and several other houses I will write about are featured in this show. This house is on season 1 episode 6, starting at about 13:00

Group tours are $200. and will accommodate 10-15 people.  

Poetry Corner

For those of you just joining us a collection of pornographic poetry was found it the house. I've been posting one poem at the end of each entry

Be warned, this one gets nasty at paragraph three.

August 2018

                   I've got the straight edge!
I spent a week at the house in August. I arrived to these levels, staring back at me with their green eyes, shouting "Look at how straight the house is!"

Its such a relief to have the house reinforced and stable!


I guess enough time had passed where Pete felt it was OK to tell me about a flood in our basement from months ago. Due to the groundhog hole I found but apparently didn't fill in properly, heavy rain caused water to pour through the foundation into the basement in the middle of the night. Pete heard the cascade and rushed to the basement in his boots and pajamas, getting soaked and muddy trying to stop the tsunami from entering.

This is the groundhog hole, found in December 2015 when we finished tearing down the front porch.

Apparently our groundhog likes the high thread count sheets for her den. I was expecting to find body parts in there before I figured out what was going on. 

I met with Joe the structural contractor again. He gave me some great tips on how to keep the basement dry. Its a long list of tasks, some easy, most labor intensive. This meeting left me feeling overwhelmed, the basement is like a whole other house! 

Home Sweet Home

Even though the house is barely habitable, Pete said he felt the need to clean up and make it as homey as possible for my visit. The room that will eventually be our kitchen is now the "apartment". Here's how he decorated the downstairs bathroom for my arrival.

Pete got this toilet bowl light two years ago at a Secret Santa grab bag party. We finally put it to use.

Its a gag gift but it really does make a great night light!

Back bedroom

I was home by myself during the week while Pete worked his freelance job. In the past he's complained that working on the house by himself was overwhelming and caused him anxiety. I finally understood what he meant. I worked on dismantling the back bedroom, it felt isolating and lonely. 

It's a blonde! Its a brunette!

Horse hair was used is a binder/filler in 19th century plaster. I thought there was a body buried in the wall when I first pulled down the plaster in my Manhattan bedroom 25 years ago.

I didn't feel like schlepping the ladder from the basement, so I  shoveled all the plaster against the fireplace in an attempt to reach the top of the chimney. 

Unfortunately garbage mountain didn't get me to the top.

There has been a few times where debris gets thrown out on to the lawn to clear out the room, then left there until our next visit. I promised myself this will be the last time. I was picking up lathe that was woven under months of uncut grass. I made the mistake of not wearing my boots and got a nail through the foot.

Also woven in the grass were these tripping stones.  Pete made these with the extra concrete from the structural reinforcement. I spent a fair amount of time unearthing them with a shovel, cussing under my breath.

Flora and Fauna

We have one snippy neighbor who seems to be obsessed with our lawn and shrubbery. She introduced herself as the "community leader" when we bought the house. "We just wanted to check you out, make sure you're on the level" is what she said to me when we first met. I made the mistake of giving her my phone number. She called me to yell at me about my front bushes a few months later, I didn't exactly take kindly to her tone, so lucky for me she stopped calling. Our lawn man was out of commission for a while so we got a few summonses to appear in court (!) because our grass/ hedges were too high. This happened twice. Pete decided to take care of the hedges himself and got poison ivy for the third time, it was worse every time he got it. 

He finally let me photograph it. This is the rash in its healing phase. "Your poison ivy looks better, I don't want to throw up when I look at it" was a comment made by his friend. 

In lighter flora and fauna news, a wasp carried a grub into a hole in our porch.

The deer, rabbits, or local freegans were busy eating off our land as well. This was all that was left of the tomato plants given to us from David Lee Rollins, one of the guys who worked on reinforcing our house in June.

Also eaten were the weeping willow trees that Pete planted in June. 

Deer are the most likely suspects. Why cant they just eat the grass!

Cemetery on a Hill, Part 2

I'm discovering all the cemeteries in our town are on a hill. We finally drove around another cemetery in our neighborhood. I was impressed with the view!

"They should just burn it down and start fresh"

This was what my neighbor said about one of the towns about 10 miles away from us. There is suffocating poverty in several areas near us, poverty like I've never seen before. It makes me realize how wealthy New York is. These photos are from McKeesport, a town (like may others) that went to shit when the steel factories closed in the 1970s.  I found a few addresses of  really beautiful derelict houses on a local architecture blog and finally got the chance to see them in person. A part of me wished I hadn't seen it.

This house had a hand written for sale sign on it. I sent a text to the number asking for the price.

$6000. was the reply. 

A real fixer upper

These were the most alarming structures on our tour. We found them by accident, making a turn onto a street that was really bumpy and completely neglected. The town has been too broke to knock down or even fence off these overt hazards, and they haven't bothered to pave the road. In July of this year McKeesport received a grant to demolish derelict houses. These structures are confusingly not slated for demolition.

Ignore a problem long enough and sometimes it resolves itself!

We took a ride through the well funded McKeesport Versailles Cemetery. Its like a mini Greenwood Cemetery, a well maintained arched sandstone entryway, mowed lawns, etc, etc. The dead have it better than the living in this town. 

Inspiration

I recently visited the Morris Jumel house in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. I've been to every historic landmark house in New York City open to the public, but it was years since I'd been there. The blocky federal style structure doesn't thrill me, but being in a house built in 1765 does have its merits. I was impressed by this classic, yet trippy, wallpaper.

 The pattern above is produced by Zuber & Cie, founded in France, in business since 1797.

 Surprisingly, this is one of their more simple patterns. They specialize in elaborate panoramic scenes with saturated colors.

I don't know how modern wallpaper is manufactured, but Zuber makes their wallpaper with wood blocks carved in the 19th century.

 This wallpaper is for rich people who want to save money by not hiring a muralist.  

Zuber also produces fabric.....

 .....as well as embossed leather.

There is a video link to their process here.

This falls under the "If you have to ask how much it costs, you cant afford it" category.

I visited their New York City showroom and talked to the sales rep for at least two hours. She was fantastic, showed me her favorite sample books, sorted by subjects- birds, flowers, fleur de lis, bamboo, I was enthralled.  

New Acquisitions 

These mini milk glass butter dishes and this candle sconce were on a table of free things on 5th Street in the East Village. 

The Sterling Collection

Pete and I have been very, very fortunate. In a gesture of downsizing that I don't understand but really appreciate, a friend of ours has given us his collection of antiques. Once a man that only dressed in 19th century clothes, he is now a practicing Buddhist and is taking minimalism to the extreme. I will be featuring a item or two at a time, the collection is pretty extensive. The Sterling Collection will feature antiques from this endowment. 

One of my favorite items is this crest and monogram album. I've seen 19th century dye cut picture seals before, but I didn't know old timey sticker collecting was a thing. 

Each page has a one or two color geometric design on it. The colors and patterns are intricate and engaging. Some pages are blank, but most have these embossed seals glued in them.

Except for this one.

 Grover is Grover Cleveland, who fought against European tariffs during his presidential term. The baby refers to his child born outside of marriage.

The William.S. Lincoln Company in London published these blank books, as well as books for stamp collecting and boxes for coin collecting.

Poetry corner

For those of you just joining us, I found pornographic poetry in the house. I've been posting one cheesy poem since January 2017. So if you are offended by pornographic poetry, skip this.

Continuing with the rain theme, this is yet another version of the piece entitled Hot Rain.