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As summer sinks below the horizon and the cold times begin their sneaky but inescapable creep, I’ve really got to figure out what to do about the front door surround. Figuring out how to replace the missing door itself is simply too much, so I’m putting that off for some distant future. But I’ve been moving ever so slowly through trying to restore what the front door region once looked like. This is what’s been facing the street for many years now:
Obviously, that’s a replacement door, and the right side is a cover-up.
Looking at the inside, I had a naive hope that the cover-up hid a narrow door that could be opened sometimes and latched other times. Though really, that’s not what the inside suggests. I guess I hoped that middle piece of wood was added later. But the alligatoring of the shellac is consistent with the rest of the wood trim.
When we started removing the aluminum cover-up outside, here’s what we found, which indicates it was not two doors but a door and a stationary light—and also something chopped off above:
After removing all the aluminum, we have this:
So some detail was chopped off at the top and the bottom of the wood divider.
Having worked on an old house with old paint and old problems for 8 years now, I understand the urge to cover it up and have everything seem nice. But why oh why couldn’t they have simply covered up? Wasn’t it more difficult to chop off than to cover up? I mean, was it ornate and huge in profile? I really doubt it, considering the rest of the house. Now I need to figure out what’s appropriate for the area and determine how I can add it. Any ideas? I need to dig through my 1910 Sears catalog.
So I’ve stripped off all the old paint and found oak underneath:
It took a few weeks to strip all the paint. It was kind of easy because the bottom coat seems to have been shellac. But also kind of hard because the finish was very weathered and had been painted over with brown paint and several coats of other colors, some of them very resistant to removal. Now I am working on how to showcase and preserve the oak for Chicago weather.
And I still have to pry off all the old caulk. But wow it’s going to look so much better when I’m done—in 7 years or so …
Over the weekend I had a dream in which I was going to see the Dalai Lama. What does this have to do with the house, you ask? Read on!
So I’m in a humongous lecture hall, milling around with the other minions looking for a place to sit. We climb up and up and find new and ever-narrower seating sections—all full. Finally, as I’m thinking about how I’m really supposed to be at work anyway, I’m seated and craning to try to find the stage. When I realize I have a bucket in my lap. Full of plaster. Pink plaster, since I am smitten with Plaster-Weld. So I start mixing it up and smooshing the stuff against the sides of the bucket to smoothen it out. And then I realize there’s no way this stuff is going to stay soft throughout the whole lecture and the trip home. So what should I do—plaster the seats around me?
And then I woke up. Much to the relief of everybody else in the dream, I am sure.
I can think of many interpretations of this, though none of them really help me with the fact that I intended to finish off the plastering today so we could start nailing up the tin ceiling next weekend. But instead we slept in until after noon. And now I am blogging. And thinking about making brownies with this recipe yanked from an imaginary friend:
8 tbsp butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 c flour
Melt butter and chocolate together. Stir in sugar. Stir in vanilla. Stir in eggs. Stir in flour. Pour into buttered 8″x8″ pan (not a different size). (Lick bowl.) Bake at 325 for 20-22 minutes, just until top is set. (Watch carefully. Dry and crumbly probably means baked too long.)
The January drear has got me searching for inspiration. It’s hard to push on in this sullen month, when it seems like I haven’t gotten anything actually done, but instead all too many projects half-attempted. So here are some flowers from not that long ago to provide a little Friday relief. 
Yes, snow has fallen and the porch isn’t quite done yet. Well, the porch is—the decking and posts and whatzit, sorta—but the stair railings are not. Please accept this in the spirit of full disclosure. I’m thinking by solstice, or Christmas anyway!
Yes, we’ve mixed painted parts with natural wood; the concept is that the wood (ipe decking and cedar sides) will gray out and blend in over time—and will last and last and last without maintenance; I was giddy the other day while shoveling off the steps that we were not going to have any problems with paint peeling off).
I’m thinking the last one should be our holiday card—it’s got the red, the green, the snow—ho!
I would like to know how much time I have spent in my life looking for my favorite scraper. I would advise myself to buy another three of it, but it’s the one that came with the heat gun. I don’t even use it with the heat gun anymore because I usually choose the homemade infrared paint remover. One could also wonder how much time I have wasted blogging about looking for my favorite scraper. Ack.
