The Best Treasure Find Yet!

You would think that after seven years we would have found everything we were going to find, Well, there was one little section on the third floor where I had not removed the drywall that was put up in the 1960s when the attic was turned into an apartment. It was a closet when we acquired the place and I had left a small strip of drywall and base molding in place along a section of the brick exterior wall that included a part of the bay section that was added between 1887 and 1890. Tonight, when I pulled the strip of drywall away it exposed a "hole" in the brick wall where some five bricks had fallen into the floor cavity below. After pulling the bricks out of the floor I stuck my arm under the floor boards and groped around to see if I could feel anything under there. I pulled out several things. The first being a stovepipe wall ring. Then a bent piece of metal that was the face of a mantle clock at one time. Then there were these;



Two bottles and a bow tie. The bow tie is a primative form of clip on tie. The large bottle is old. The glass has bubbles in it and the hand carved, hollowed out stopper is attached with a string. The small bottle has a label on the front that says "Sour Mash. From John Deis" who owned a liquor store on Wayne Ave in the 1880s. The back has the following molded into it;
A.J. Schiml Apothecary 38 Xenia Ave Dayton Ohio. Sour Mash is sipping whiskey.
I pulled up a floor board to see if there was anything else and found what appears to be a glass oil lamp chimney that is cracked and missing a large piece of glass. It has "Ohio Tubular" imprinted on it.
What is really neat is that these things were left here intentionally. Probably by people putting the flooring in. I guess times were tough or they just weren't being considerate because both bottles were empty! Bastards ......

Heating System Installed

I installed the heating system for one of the second floor rooms on the "cottage" side of the house. We opted for a traditional form of heating system that wouldn't cost too much money. Since all the walls of the cottage are brick including the inside wall, my options were very limited, but I think I have the perfect system:

My Latest Creation

Still working on the resident house and I must say that it has never looked cleaner! For years I had piece of wobbly laminate counter top sitting on top of the dishwasher. I dismantled the frameing when I sanded the floors sometime around 1999 and never put it back because I always meant to replace the counter top. Well I finally took care of the problem. I made a mold and poured a concrete counter top. It was a small piece, 27" X 26" so I made it in the basement and polished it in the back yard. I got this done last week between orgaizing the basement and the attic and dusting everywhere. I tried to be a little artistic and made two triangle shaped inserts using broken glass as the aggregate but they didn't come out the way that I imagined. I thought more glass would be visible after the whole thing was polished. It doesn't look bad but may have been better without the inserts. Here are the pictures




and for all you house porn addicts, here is the rest of the kitchen from assorted angles!

When Asbestos was Cool!

We are having our neighborhood yard sale this weekend. The woman across the street was showing me a bunch of items in an old suitcase and this caught my attention. You don't see many of these around, do you?

Pitchin' the Hood Again!

Next week is our third annual Walnut Hills Yard Sale Event but this year I've added an open house day. The idea being that we have much foot traffic and drive through traffic for three days which gives plenty of people the opportunity to see "Open House Sunday" signs in the yards of those properties participating in the event. We have never done anything like this before but it really makes sense for a neighborhood to host an annual OPEN HOUSE DAY if you want to promote the neighborhood and reduce the number of "For Sale "signs dotted about the streets. We produce a map with all the yard sales and open house locations listed to make navigation about the area easier for visitors. The map works really well for the yard sales. People tend to migrate to the streets with the largest concentration of dots first and then to the area with the next highest cluster and so on. I am hoping to get between 10 and 20 open houses for the day. We are close to the lower number at present, which is good for a first time event. I expect a bunch of realtors will wait until the last minute before they sign up. Just like waiting until the week before a listing expires to try to sell your house!

Such Class!

If you drive along Wayne Avenue where it intersects with Edgar Avenue and look at the front yards, you will see this. I can't say if the chairs are there to support the dish or if the dish holds up the chairs. I'm waitng to see if a big screen TV appears in the front yard too.

I guess it could be worse. There could be a used washing machine strapped to the pole!

Flour Power!

I've been cleaning up the residence basement and was wondering what kind of paint had been applied to the walls. It is flat, white, thick and textured with sand in a few locations. So I looked in the old "Household Hints and Discoveries" book from 1909 and found this recipe for cellar paint;

Slake enough lime for a pailful of whitewash. Mix half a pint of flour with cold water to a smooth paste, thin with scalding water, and boil until it thickens. Pour this boiling hot onto the whitewash and stir vigorously.
Or use boiled rice strained through cheese cloth. Add a teacupful of the strained rice to a pailful of slaked lime. Cover cellar walls twice a year or oftener with whitewash, to which add copperas at the rate of 2 pounds to a gallon. Apply whitewash freely, removing all shelves, etc., so as to cover the entire surface of the walls.

So, what do you think I did?

That's right. I made me a batch and went at it. (Without the iron sulphate of course.) In fact I have made two batches. It works really well. It goes on like a gooey paste and dries to a brilliant white. It covers stains pretty good too. I don't know about painting my basement twice a year since this is the first time I've done it in 14 years. One more thing, I can't tell if I like the whole wheat or bleached all purpose flour better ...