Outdoor progress...

So over the past few weeks we have been building a storage shed in the backyard - A gift from my Dad. The original plan was to build it from scratch, but we stumbled across a perfect kit at Home Depot that was less than the cost of materials, and actually looks really good - It looked and was scaled like a 1920's garage. We spent the time with my dad getting the structure built, and then he and Steve emptied out a rented storage unit, which will save us quite a bit of money.

The next phase of the project is for me to add craftsman brackets and a wide overhang so it matches the house - The kit roof had no overhangs, so we extended the roof off the sides a foot and the front and back 14 inches. I will be making some fake rafter tails and we got some fake beadboard that I will attach under the overhangs so it matches the house. The brackets will be smaller versions on the one on the house, and I will also make new door trim to match. So much more to do!

I also had a little mishap this weekend with the sprinklers, again! I installed all of the sprinklers, but one of the ones in the lawn is set too high, and I have it adjusted as far down as it can go, but it still gets caught on the lawnmower and snaps off - This has now happened a few times and I always have a nightmare getting the broken nipple out of the pipe - So today I decided to google "sprinkler extractor" and low and behold, they make a tool called nipple extractor that is designed to grip and remove the broken stub, and is only $3.95.... Mind you up to this point it had taken me 45 minutes to an hour to get the broken piece out. I had given up yesterday afternoon so I will be picking a nipple extractor on the way home....

Blast from the past....

So last night when working on the window project, I had to move a stack of boxes from the service porch to access the sash cords from the dining room window. In the boxes, I found pictures from our first house, and a picture of the crystal fixture that now graces our front hall...Now you can see why I didn't realize it was crystal. Somebody had the bright idea to put the chandelier in the

kitchen, Now it would be considered chic, then, downright scary....I honestly thought it was cast iron, so I placed in a bucket of hot water, and out comes a brass and glass fixture...who knew???? So we went down to a vintage light fixture parts place and I replaced the missing parts and voila, the resurrected fixture!

So a few months ago, steve was inspired to replace the multitude broken sash cords in prepartion of summer - after 100 years, most had given up the ghost, but several were still intact. Well ,over the course of the summer weather, the remaining ones gave up the ghost, so I decided today to finish the job, and get a couple of windows that Steve had not had time to finish....
I am now convinced that this house was built by morons and "maintained" by idiots....

As a bit of a background, I have renovated a number of old houses, so I know what the inside of a sash pocket (where the weights live) look like, and what the weights are like.

In this house, no weight are remotely alike, and weren’t even the same size! They must have been in the discount bin in 1910….

So, I replaced the cords, and in the process discovered that the most of the window trim is rotted, and hacked from when they installed the new screens. I have known for awhile that no to windows in the house are the same size (they vary from ½ to an inch), but when they installed the aluminum screens, its clear they made the mistake of measuring one window… So, the screen installer took his reciprocating saw to the trim and hacked the trim so it would fit, and used a chisel for the rest..

The other discovery was the that when they built the house, they used scrap bits of sash cord as filler between the window trim and the siding – When you have clapboard siding, which is beveled, and you install a piece of flat trim on top, you have small triangular gaps between the siding and trim. In most other houses I worked on, they had wood filler pieces…here, they used cord. I am picturing some poor sot coiling bits or cord and stuffing them behind the trim….that must have been painful! When I repaint, I will probably apply liberal amounts of painters caulk…

So everything was going fine until I got to the big dining room window on the back of the house, this was tricky, because one of the houses craftsman brackets was “attached” to the top corner of the frame – at least in 1910 it was… In the years since the bracket had pulled away from the house, and had left a gap in the sash pocket, since the trim was cut around it – so the pocket was filled with pigeon poop, feathers, and stuff I really don’t want to know about… I retied the weights, and then set my sights on repairing the bracket so seal up the pocket – so I took my hammer, pounded the bracket back into position, and then watched the whole bracket crash into my rose bush…oops…. SO… I found a piece of scrap redwood, nailed it over the gap in the siding, dragged the bracket to backyard, and then poured a glass of whiskey… Isn’t the house supposed to look better after a day of repairs????? OIY?