The Historic District

It was back in the mid 1980's halogen lighting was just coming into vogue. At the time I bought a number of Halogen wall sconces. These use 300 watt bulbs and are controlled by dimmer switches in a wall switch. A halogen fixture in alternate corners of the room will fully illuminate the entire room....

It will soon be 20 years that I purchased my 1922 Bungalow home. The interior has been a slow restoration as the house was very livable as it was bought. I finished up the last major room restoration last fall. This picture shows the room from the fall of 1996: http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e386...

I remember seeing The Petch House in person some 7 years ago from the street on a hurried trip to Eureka. What Greg accomplished was mind boggling. I too followed his blog and was always in awe of the tasks he undertook. I bought my first house in 1978 and went through it from top to bottom, and fro...

My Edison R2 Radio has been restored and working fine. Edison only produced radios for two years 1929 and 1930. Talk about bad timing to enter the radio market. These early sets can be a nightmare to restore. There is a bit of "hum" but Edison sets were notorious for this. I made a holder ...

I've been doing "old house stuff" for way too long. Back in the late 1970's through the early 1980's, The Old House Journal" was hard to beat. Today it is a slick "coffee table" magazine, I seldom look at anymore. Back then "old house people" were pretty much off t...

The second coat of finish was applied to the floor yesterday morning. I'm pretty pleased with the results. This picture was taken at 5:00 a.m. which is showing the floor darker than it is in real time. http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e386/brickpaver/refinished%20floor.jpg I have been messing with ...

I use just a mineral spirits, or lacquer thinner as a final wipe down. I don't have a problem with residue with the Original Strypeeze formula, which is why I still use it after trying many other brands. The steel wool gets up the goo from between the boards.. but then any floor I've done this to, t...

In an old house chances are the floors have already been sanded down once or twice. If the flooring itself is in decent shape, it makes sense to just remove the old finish. In the Old House Journal back in the late 1970's a method of doing this was put forward, and I've done it to too many floors. I...

I did a quick "mock up". The conduit fits into the hole drilled at the bottom of the channel for the sash cord.

Finally I got the dreaded sash cord project finished up. I just documented it for my journal: Here is the excerpt covering cutting in the access panels: I noticed how there was “white dust” appearing on the window sashes. It turned out the core of this cheap rope was breaking down. I researched repl...