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I learned the other day that groundhogs, those marmots we mostly only think about in February, eat dandelion heads (be sure to click that link—it’s a great photo). Why isn’t somebody renting them out at this time of year when the lovely little lion-heads are transforming into seed shooters and threatening neighborly relationships everywhere (or at least in my backyard)? Think about it—they would be a cute, green … er, brown, organic alternative to ChemLawn.
My neighborhood bespeaks classic, working-class Chicago style—belts of bungalows broken up by rows of two-family homes and the occasional oddball like my house. But even when a series of houses sprang from the earth looking the same, there’s no telling what one’s future might hold. Witness this two-flat:
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I really wish I had seen this work in progress because it must have involved at least multiple paint cans and brushes—and maybe multiple painters, not to mention the ladders. I wonder whether its neighbors are now feeling drab?
The New York Times writes about the “Spite House,” an intriguing 1830 house in Alexandria, Va., that is only 7 feet wide. Be sure to check out the slideshow.
I can see the charm in such a modest abode, particularly since it’s still got some outside space. It would certainly make housekeeping more manageable!
My steampunk heart goes tick-tock at the sight of this clawfoot laptop.
It’s based on a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 and can boot either Ubuntu Linux or Windows XP. To start it, you turn the clock-winding key in the lower left part of the picture.
The creator is Richard R. Nagy (yay for Hungarian roots).
He also builds custom keyboards, like this hexy beauty.
These pieces have got to be one of the coolest uses of old materials ever. I imagine I might be building such things myself if I weren’t so engaged in shoring up my dear abode.
I was honored last week to learn that my colleagues consider me their go-to girl for junk. A friend encouraged me—nay, implored me—to go home and round up odds-and-ends for a schoolgirl’s art project. And boy did I come through: baluster ends, hex tiles, decommissioned keys, samples of metal ceiling tiles and fabric wall coverings, springs, a dead clock, the face and wiring from a quartz heater that we ripped apart to make our infrared paint remover, wire bits, knobs, pipes, bulbs including a spent bubble light, a squished metal eyeglasses case, a dangly bit from a lamp I found in a parking lot …
I just have this phonecam photo of a little edge of the pre-art pile.
But the girl has been instructed to cough up a photo of the finished piece—so stay tuned!
After all the work I put into restoring nearly 100-year-old windows, it’s annoying to be able to see the metal point or the paint that covers the glazing from the inside of the window because of a shallow rabbet holding the glass. So, on the advice of my old-house cohort, I snipped the tips off the points that protruded beyond the edge of the rabbet or would force me to paint so that it would be visible from the inside. I’m pleased with the results and the approach, which takes only a few more seconds when installing the glass.
A full-size glaziers point
Snipping off a millimeter or two
A shorter profile that allows for applying putty and paint without them being visible from the other side
We’re creeping along on the porch rebuild. Here you can see the very exacting inspector keeping an eye on the installation of newel posts.
The deck is ipe and the posts are painted cedar. The concept is that the ipe will grey out to match the paint (stay tuned) while lasting forever and needing no maintenance.
Having finished painting the porch parts (at least until that guy decides the real lengths we’ll be using and chops off a bunch of baluster and railing ends—sending me back to the brush), I’m returning to the window project. Parts of the bottom sashes had rotted out, so I soaked them in an epoxy sealer to stabilize and strengthen the remaining wood. And I’ve been puzzling my way through replacing the missing wood with an epoxy filler, an oak-colored wood filler, and new oak.
The other night, I was working on the sashes in the kitchen because I was plum sick of being in the basement. I was debating with myself about whether it was going to be worth it in the end to continue with my approach of filling the deep gaps with epoxy and then embedding a piece of new wood as the top layer. The concept being that it would look better to have wood on top rather than the epoxy patch, which is white (and I’d have to do faux-graining over with gel stains). Then I noticed the oak dust in the corners of the plastic container I’d been carrying these little oak scraps around in, and I experimented with jamming them on top of the epoxy to create a wood layer. But I ran out of oak dust. Then I saw the food processor on my stove that I’d used the night before to make pesto out of my mountainous basil. And—look out—the lightbulb popped on over my head. That guy was alarmed to see me running oak bits through my old Oskar, and he wisely reserved comment and went away. But it worked! And I scored more oak dust. Now, a couple days later, I think this approach worked well. It’s a lot easier than trying to shape little pieces of wood to fit the irregular gaps in the sash.
So today I had to fill some more gaps and, knowing that my cohort is a clever, tool-using monkey, asked him whether he had a better idea than my food processor. And he did. He directed me to hold a baggy around the dust chute of the radial arm saw while he chopped repeatedly through a piece of oak. And voila—baggy full of perfect oak dust. So I sludged that up with the epoxy filler and got an excellent gap-stopping goo.
I only just wish I’d thought of this earlier. Oh well—call it evolution.
