Naughty or Nice?

Can you guess?

Let There Be Light!

Now here is a first! This room has never had a ceiling light, ever! Years ago, when I replaced the roof, I ran a length of BMX cable across the brick wall that divides these rooms on the 2nd floor since the attic above this room has no access to it and dropped it into a hole that I made in the center of the ceiling. I hooked up the wire but capped the ends so I wouldn't get shocked if I decided to hold a screwdriver above my head as I walked through this room. Since I am working in the room next door and it gets dark early, I need a light in this room in order that I can find the stairs without walking into the worlds heaviest bath tub which has migrated into this room now and is that much closer to going down the stairs. So I rigged this up;



No switch yet. This is one of those lights that you turn on with a twist of the bulb. Turning it off requires that you own a pair of heat resistant gloves!

So, this weeks quiz is "How many of you readers have one just like it in YOUR house?"

Wanna See Me Strip?

Yeah, what an anticlimax? I know!

Kitchen Cleaning?

More good advice from the 1909 book of Household Discoveries.

A recipe for stove polish but first some advice;

Before polishing the stove rub lard under the finger nails

Stove Blacking.- Dissolve 1/2 ounce of alum in 1 gill of soft water. Add 6 1/2 pounds of plumbago mixed with 12 ounces of lampblack. Stir vigourously. Stir in 1 1/2 gills of molasses, next 1/2 bar of white soap dissolved in 3 pints of water, and lastly 1 ounce of glycerine. This is a commercial article which has a great reputation.

Or beat up the whites of 3 eggs and mix in 1/2 pound of black lead. Dilute with sour beer or ale to the consistency of cream and boil gently for 15 or 20 minutes.

Or mix 8 ounces of copperas, 4 ounces of bone black and 4 ounces of black lead with water to the consistency of cream.

Or melt 1 pound of hard yellow soap with a little water and while hot stir in 1 pound of powdered soft coal. Cool, and preserve in tight fruit jars or wide mouthed bottles for use.

Or mix 4 ounces of black lead with 2 tablespoons of vinegar, 1 teaspoonful of sugar, and a piece of yellow soap the size of a butternut. Melt the soap with gentle heat and reduce while hot to the consistency of cream with coffee strained through a cheese cloth. Stir in 1/2 teaspoonful of alum.

Or use vinegar instead of water for mixing any of the above. The work of polishing will not be so hard and the polish will last longer.

Or mix with oil of turpentine. This prevents and removes rust.

Or add a little sugar or alum to any of the above; or a little benzine or naptha to help cut the grease. If these are added the stove must be polished cold.

Failure to observe that last bit of advice could result in some interesting consequences.

Now that you are completely confused, plumbago is graphite. A gill is 1/4 of a pint. There is no such thing as sour beer in this house and who in their right mind has EVER strained coffee and cream through a cheese cloth?

I'm Sellin' Out!

It's true. I've finally decided to sell out and capitalize on this blog.

I have toyed with the idea for several years and even got the solicitations from some suppliers to advertise on this blog but have held all contenders at bay.

My reasonining was simple. Most people reading my blog would be reading other house blogs where they chose to advertise. This seemed to be the case about one year ago. We would all be advertising the same things to each other and nobody would be generating the click-throughs needed to generate income. I wasn't comfortable promoting a company that I hadn't done business with either. I felt it wasn't a worthwhile venture. Lately though I have noticed a surge in hits from Google searches. It seems that people aren't just wanting to know what "crack smells like" or what "raccoon poop looks like" any more. They have legitimate searches regarding plaster, shellac, wood stripping and concrete counter tops.

Yesterday it was cold outside and I wasn't able to work on the "Crackhouse" so I got bored and started thinking. I am dangerous when I start thinking, real dangerous! Within a couple of hours I came up with a bunch of amusing sayings that could be marketed to the growing home improvement market. As far as I know these are all original because I actually thought them all up! So I have sold out in the name of capitalism, but the products are truely "This Old Crack House" related and original. Here are two of them. There is even PINK for the ladies!

If you click on either picture you can see my gallery of items and just in time for Christmas too!








You might want to check back a few times in the next week because I have more "Garyisms" to add. I seem to be on a roll!

Getting on my knees and squealing like a pig!

I've been stripping slop off this floor for DAYS!



See that area marked by a black line? 8 hours it took to get it stripped to a sandable surface.



8 hours bent over on my knees alternating between the silent paint remover and heat gun. Heating the floor to remove the remaining linoleum, mastic, tar paper, shellac and paint. That coupled with 8 hours of Blue Grass music on NPR (National Public Radio) makes me want to take a canoe trip in West Virginia and learn to play the banjo!

"OOOOOOOH-EEEEEEEEEE!"

The Fungus Amungus!

Enquiring minds wanted to know! Proof that we do have a mushroom growing out of our ceiling.





There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes;

Confucius, he say, "Man who live in big house with small family have mushroom to grow."