In year three of the porch project, we have achieved restoration of the old woodwork long hidden by aluminum cladding (see that stuff on the eaves? it’s going next) and also—kaboom—lighting!

We still need to put up wood trim fat enough to hide the transition between brick and beadboard—and that there’s a transition between common brick and show brick that is apparent at the ceiling line. And actually, I’m wondering whether we should scale down the light bulbs a few dozen watts. Granted, I’m used to using the Braille method of finding the keyhole, but this is now the brightest light on the block! Either way, I’m so pleased with how it all pulls together.

Coming soon to a porch near … me:

After we get the beadboard ceiling back up, anyway. Seems it’s going to be a two-person job. Mr. Carpenter Cohort started working on it alone yesterday and says with the warping of the old boards, there’s no way to make it a tidy job without an extra hand. And my extra hand isn’t free for several days.

We spent most of the day on scaffolding, taking advantage of a rare day without rain to try to finish the porch-eave project. We did really well, managing to move the rig, scrape, scrape, scrape, patch, sand, clean and get the primer coat on before, uh … well not before dark. Before we collapsed! And I set myself on fire only twice—you don’t want to know how I stopped the glowing paint globs from burning through my pants. Since kids started coming around in costume a couple hours before sunset, we set a monster-head-full of peanut butter pumpkins and cups on the steps and encouraged the costumed to take one (a naive directive to children faced with a bowl of plenty) since we were busy up high. Unfortunately, we had to miss a Halloween party to get all this done, but since we shirked work so much in September we were on the spot to make up for it. Tomorrow we need to get two coats of paint on and get 3 pieces of crown molding on, caulk a bit and pull down that scaffolding since it is partially on our neighbors’ driveway. We have fabulous neighbors. I knew they might be freaked out when we set up infringing on their space (though cars can still get by and park there) since they’d just seen the rig out front for about three weeks. So I put up a sign saying we’d have it down Monday night. We’re really shooting for Sunday night. Cross appendages, and Happy Halloween, everybody!

For those of you with mid-century houses or habits, I offer this Roper with Spectro-Matic burner control. I became aware of this when a reader contacted me wondering what the S on one knob meant. To tell the truth, I’m still not sure, though I’m fairly certain it’s the broiler knob. But check out those color-coded knobs!

It’s interesting that Roper decided to highlight the simmer feature with this model because as far as I know, all Roper burners from this era and earlier have a center-simmer feature, when the inside ring of fire stays lit while the outside one extinguishes.

The brochure in this gallery was sighted at eBay, and the stove pics are from the reader in Westchester, Illinois.

Also springing from this era is the Roper Space-Master.

While I continue to not update this blog (tuckered out by trying to finish the summer projects, now that winter is creeping forth), I’d like to share this supercool Halloween embellishment courtesy of Warren Letson at the Old House Web forums. Yet another reason to hang out with that fine bunch of folks.

On the underside of the front porch roof, after we’d removed the beadboard for easier scraping and repainting, I found a nearly-century-old scrawl in pencil:

It says “no good.” Well, I’ve got to disagree with you there, sir. See, I’ve got time on my side. I am hindsight, here in 2009. That board is damn fine. Your handiwork lives on, and I thank you.

We ended up buying scaffolding to restore the front porch eaves instead of renting it because renting for a month would have cost more than buying! In between working, I shot this pic of the brickwork, also showing the roof eaves that are going to be losing that aluminum sometime next year (cross appendages).

People who told me horseradish isn’t invasive, I don’t believe you. Not that I’m complaining, the leaves are lush and lovely, and the root is fiery-licious. Ask me again what I think in 5 years when it’s invaded not only the corner but the whole garden. 

The front porch ceiling was once a vivid blue, as well as a more muted green. This is what I learned from spending the day stripping the original beadboard with the infrared paint remover.

Sky blue on porch ceilings is traditional, but this is a richer hue. And the green—well, someone who owned this house adored green; it pops up everywhere. The worst thing about stripping this stuff is all the staples from the installation of the aluminum that covered it for decades. I’m just really glad we decided to take this down. Stripping the roof base, which for obvious reasons needs to stay in place, is plenty of performance art for the neighbors. It’s a relief to be able to retreat to the backyard with a pair of sawhorses and a stack of beadboard and scrape away the day.

I spied this insect on a tomato plant and am wondering whether this crazy-cool summer has made the insects mutate.

It’s ladybug-size. And I have seen a good number of baby ladybugs feasting on my aphid smorgasbord lately. But it wasn’t until I got this pic with the closup lens that I was sure of what I was seeing. So is this a ladybug or some evil marauder?