miscellany...

 Given my long absence, today will be a bit of a photo dump.  I noticed that my stats actually went up in the last week, so I'm assuming people were checking in on me, and that a failure to post would result in a search party appearing on my doorstep.

The reason for my disappearance (other than a very needy puppy); the tedium of painting our plaster moldings in the current entry room (future library).  Given that our moldings are quite simple, I was shocked at how impossibly long they took to paint.  The cove seems to have been gilded and wallpapered in its past lives, and currently sports a thick uneven coat of joint compound and white paint.  While I know it should have been fully scraped, I just didn't have it in me, especially given that there is a layer of drywall over the original plaster ceiling.  The drywall was extremely well done, and we'll most likely leave it alone until we're ready to do the final restoration of the room - rebuilding the lost built-ins and wallpapering.  I'm hopeful that the drywall is hiding original wallpaper or stenciling, and as long as I believe that, the drywall doesn't stand a chance of surviving us finishing this space.  For now, several coats of gold paint are in the cove, with a brick red picking out some of the bullnosed sections, and the ceiling has been painted a pale gloss gold.

The scaffolding remained a feature of the room longer than I care to admit as I figured out one unassailable truth - decorating a 10 1/2 foot Christmas tree becomes infinitely easier when one has jolly yellow scaffolding to do it from.

In other news, this is the most perfect tree that has ever been grown, and I don't know that we'll ever find it's equal...  Also, in just a couple of weeks our dear little Maugrim has doubled in size (now 30 pounds, and taller than I'd care to admit).  At this rate of exponential growth I fear for the future of the planet, as such growth must be some sort of Grey Goo scenario.

PRESENTS!!!!!!

And for the rest, let me present: Christmas decorations, part of a huge parlor set we recently obtained, the enormous framed antique photo of our house that we've been waiting to hang for almost 3 years, and the finished painted crown (and partially finished woodwork).

 

 

And while I had fully intended to take photos of our Hanukkah party (actually HAMukkah, because we just can't find it in ourselves to ever be normal), we had too much fun to bother with pictures.  Our lonely menorah is all that remains...

heavy lifting

So, the piano ran away to join the circus...

 Here's hoping she takes pictures, or better yet, writes us a postcard inviting us to the set...

 Incidentally, the guys picking it up didn't know it was only being rented, and after the hell of loading it, took great pleasure talking about the scene where it was to be set on fire.

 Hilarious...

snails, spirals and shibas

We're still here, still, kicking, still chasing baby bunnies.

Our much adored shiba, Cool Hand Luke, went downhill fast after that last post - ending up in full blown congestive heart failure by the following morning.  Bad enough that he had to be carried in, and the vet warned us he would likely not make it out of the office.  Every damn test was negative, except for the x-ray that revealed hip dysplasia and a rather large kidney stone...  But neither of those explained what was wrong.  We never did find out what was going on, other than it appearing that he may have had a blockage.  We took him home after he had been re-hydrated via iv, and stayed with him 24/7 for the next several days until he was able to eat again and perked up.  Just as we thought we were out of the woods he relapsed and we were back to square one.  We're repeating the same meds as before, and again he seems be to recovering - still not eating, but he at least attempted to capture a rabbit today.  We think this may be the beginning of some sort of bowel failure, and hopefully keeping him on the prescription diet will keep him healthy for the time being.

So, we haven't done much other than pet the dog and stay with him in the air-conditioned bedroom.  We did pick up that mystery couch (settle, bench?) I mentioned, and it's enormous loveliness hasn't left the entry room.  It's a curious piece of furniture, and looks as though it may have been a built-in at one point judging by how it's pieced together and has been reinforced.  It's Art Nouveau, with some Arts and Crafts influence in the carving, and looks to be solid mahogany with fruitwood inlays. I'd guess that it's pre 1910, and almost definitely European.  It has many flaws, but then again, it has satyrs, so I can forgive it anything...

Art Nouveau inlaid fauns

antique couch?  settle?  bench?  

I only just now noticed these are snails.  how utterly marvelous...

I think we've established I'm obsessed with spirals

If you couldn't tell, that's not our house.  It's been too frantic around here to even think about trying to clean enough to take photos.  But if there are any secret Art Nouveau aficionados out there, I'd love to know what you think, a piece like this definitely had a maker, and I'd love to put a name to their beautiful work.  

five feet long and luminous

Soul Coughing really pinned my mood down tonight...

A piece of furniture I loved is missing from our old entry room, and I'm absolutely ecstatic about it!  The giddiness is twofold.  About a month ago I found a piece of furniture I adored (no holds barred obsessed with).  The seller didn't reply to my e-mail and I assumed it had sold.  A few days ago it appeared again for a much higher price, but the seller was kind enough to agree to sell it for the previous price.  This in itself is a good thing, but to subsidize the purchase I decided to sell a lovely old Victorian wingback I had.  It needed work, and with so many projects around here it was languishing and taking up space.

"I'm gonna be a star!"

A day after I posted it someone e-mailed to buy it, but this was no ordinary buyer.  As it turns out he was a buyer for a production company, and would be buying it for use it an upcoming movie (yes, I know what and who, but would rather not risk ruining a good thing).  He and the set decorator went though every room taking pictures of every detail, cataloging things they may be interested in renting for future projects.  It was so lovely to meet people for once that loved my worn and dilapidated antiques as much as I do.  Even better, our house has been added to the list of possible filming locations for the company.

Now I'm not one who has ever dreamed of being a movie star, but seeing some of the objects we've rescued, let alone our home, on the silver screen would be utterly thrilling.  I'm pretty sure this is how pretty young starlets feel when they book their first embarrassing pharmaceutical commercial.

It's not all rainbows and kittens around here though, the red dog is sick and in pain, and Daphne won't shift into anything but second.  Nothing's ever simple...

clear a path

Getting things done would be so much easier if cool stuff didn't keep getting in the way...

We haven't had a week like this in a while. A house of antique wavy glass windows (including three stained glass transoms with a single textured purple glass pane), a tramp art parlor set, some estate sale nonsense and a rather fantastic chandelier, with extra shades... Also, since we had a trailer rented, we'd be remiss if we didn't buy blueboard too. Real work posts to come soon, you know, once we clear a path through the house again...

dirty broken pretty things

I'm pretty sure there's a help line out there for furniture and objects in need, and the number they give out is mine. Pittsburgh has been extremely generous to us, I think it helps that since we work for home we tell people we can pick something up anytime (not to mention that old picture of our house is pretty convincing when we say the house NEEDS something). Two recent freebies are this Victorian buffet and Aesthetic Movement desk, both were pulled from basements where they'd been pressed into workbench slavery. The horror . . . I didn't intend to talk about them today, so forgive the absence of before pictures.

Yes, we have the drawers and cabinet door

Obviously they're rough. The buffet is high Victorian though, and aside from some chipped quartersawn oak veneer is in rather brilliant condition under it's paint splatters, deeply embedded grime and nailed on linoleum top - even the glass is in perfect shape. We picked it up a week ago with only a vague description to go on, and it's owner was very dubious of our promise to take it no matter what. Truthfully I was half expecting some 1970's thing with fake stained glass that we'd promptly have to drop off at the ReStore, so to see this thing in the dark basement was a sight to behold. Working on it was supposed to be a winter project, but we decided we could use it, so stripping the shellac has begun (I'm about half done).

First pass on the right, glue from the linoleum on the left

This is the first time I've stripped shellac, and though tedious, it's sooooo easy compared to what I'm used to (50 layers of paint, heat guns, and caustic strippers). I'm using denatured alcohol and varying grades of steel wool, q-tips, scrapers and shop towels. I read on Shellac.net (bought some garnet flakes that are on they're way now) that most denatured alcohol you can buy now is trash (including the jug I bought at Lowes) because of the ingredients - so I know to use the good stuff for mixing my shellac, but does anyone know if the better stuff makes stripping easier?

As for the cabinet, this is similar to what it's supposed to look like - rolltop and bookcase that fit into the top with pegs, but, all we have is the cabinet (insert sad face here).

It's really just serving as a flat surface that things get stacked on for now, but since we were getting ready to move it upstairs I decided to give it a closer inspection. We had assumed that the top was missing it's leather, although that didn't explain why the moldings didn't match up. When I pulled out the drawers it all became clear though, obviously the top was on upside down, now why didn't that occur to me?

now why would there be pink felt UNDER the desktop?

I have no idea what possessed the previous owners of this poor little cabinet to ditch the top, break the door and two handles, and remove the top and glue it back on upside down; but, at least the top is right-side up now.

so, anyone know where I can pick up tiny Greek Key border?

What I don't want to talk about is the fact that although the top was glued in - it's also mounted in an original channel so it could slide in and out. It took us longer than I care to admit to figure that second part out.

spa treatments for inanimate objects

Today ended up not being half bad despite beginning with a bowl of rice. Yeah, you heard me, rice. Actually the rice part began last night, after realizing that in my new blogger eagerness to take decent photos I had left my camera outside, in the rain, overnight. Amazingly, after its starchy spa treatment, it's revived and clicking - disaster averted.

I had hoped to work on a bunch of small things today, but instead ended up going to the first day of the Phipps Conservatory's May Market. Last year I went on Saturday, and not only was it crowded but most of the smaller things that I wanted/could afford were long gone. This year I behaved myself, and came home having spent a whole 2 dollars (3 if you include parking), on a tiny daylily - Night Embers, which has been on my wish list for a while.

night embers (not my plant though)

We had planned on having raised beds made by now (we've earmarked our piles of yellow bricks for that sole purpose), and the plant sale would have been heavenly for vegetables, but oh well, maybe next year. Then, since we had been so good not buying plants, we went to lunch. After we got home we wandered the yard a bit looking for something we felt like doing, but the thunder and lightening nixed our productivity . . . Instead I cleaned a bunch a paint brushes, which wasn't nearly as fulfilling, but at least the plants are enjoying the rain while it lasts . . . Astoundingly, the plants in the side yard are original to the house and used to border the wrap around porch, after several prunings they're finally blooming again.






























At least during the thunder it's lovely to finally have an office to work in, especially one with windows on three sides and a sleeping porch! The table top came out nice (and functional, which was its main purpose), it sits on top of an antique industrial drafting table base that we love, and have been waiting ages to be able to use. The desk is a free one (also an industrial castoff) that we never in a million years thought would clean up like it did. But I tried the Howard restore-a-finish (and their wax) that everyone raves about, and lo and behold, this desk is heavily grained quartersawn oak. Still beat up, but in an absolutely beautiful way. I need to do a much more detailed post on the office itself, but until then, some pictures . . .

fir porch boards reborn!

we added the casters to make it tall enough for
the exceptionally tall trained monkey

hello beautiful

a cure for boardom

Now that it's warmed up our main task is sorting through all the piles that we've accumulated in the past two years. Most of these are marginally useful building materials, things like fir porch boards and true 2x4's, that we keep around for patching. The problem in the case of the wood is that the longer it sits outside, the less and less useful it becomes (in addition to attracting things like carpenter ants and termites, which have already claimed a set of corbels), not to mention how heinous it all looks. We knew it was time to begin cleaning it up when a current aerial of the house was worse than it was before we bought it (when there were piles of trash, a collapsed garage, trees taking over the fire escapes and junk cars). We'll hopefully finish moving all the bricks next week when reinforcements arrive, until then, we took on a project that will hopefully prove that hording these things serves a purpose.

The purpose in this case is a table top for an antique industrial drafting table base. The plan is for a long, console type table to sit behind our main office desk, with our filing cabinet underneath and printer and such on top. We're using the beautiful straight-grained fir porch boards we removed from the stair addition. We had hoped to use the full 10 foot lengths, but doubted the edges would support the weight of the printer (the drafting table supports are only 28 inches apart). We cleaned up the usable boards with 80 grit, and then nailed them to 1x6's.

yes, we build stuff at night, we wouldn't
want our neighbors getting sleep or anything!

We couldn't nail them properly because most of them were missing their tongues, which means ugly, impossible to hide nail holes - but it will be covered in office supplies most of the time, so I doubt anyone will notice. We then used 1x2 on the edges, both to hide the end grain and the nailers, and to stiffen the table top (which worked much better than expected - there is no flex).

We couldn't resist writing on the inside of one of the 1x2's, if you can't read it, it says something like "this was made on my birthday, 4/23/13, from floor boards removed from the stair addition." Yes, it is indeed my birthday, if you need proof, here it is . . .

Those are for me. Because I'm awesome. And my mother-in-law loves me.

Here's the first coat of stain (just dark oak gel stain), it needs another coat of stain, then some poly. In a day or two we should have our 1/6th of a bowling alley to put our printer on. Hopefully it keeps behaving itself.