The Historic District

" You've got to know when to hold 'em Know when to fold 'em Know when to walk away And know when to run" (It's a sad day when I am quoting Kenny Rogers but here I am) The cabinets do look good - very good - but do you need cabinets ? Would you consider tearing out your current kitchen to m...

The smoothness of the skim coat is up to you ? In my house the original plaster walls (unearthed under layers of wallpaper, never painted) were very smooth to the touch - which is not to say there weren't cracks and dimples, etc. that needed to be touched up. When I feel a plaster wall, there are so...

I don't know what the process is where cotton picks up the yellow/brown stains from wood or cardboard, or what it is properly called. I have some old linens that have been permanently discolored from a wood shelf where they sat for a couple of years, unused. Sometimes the best you can do is to dye t...

Here is a link about cleaning antique lace: m Natural fibers like cotton or linen can get "tanned" by their proximity to bare wood or brown paper or cardboard. Since the ornaments were previously starched, you will need to re-starch them after you have cleaned them. You'll have to look onl...

The area where the fan seller is located has many photography studios. I wouldn't be surprised if these fans had been collected for a photo series, and are now being liquidated ?

Not all the fans are pictured - what are the 16 the seller is holding out on, I wonder ? I let a pretty nice 1930's fan go during a great purge some time ago. It had some dubious wiring, handyman-on-a-budget type of repairs. Wisely, some other handy person had cut the plug off, so I was never tempte...

The price is a little steep ( $ 1200 CAN) but you get 36 antique electric fans ! That works out to about $ 33.00 per fan. I find this collection quite appealing, even as winter nears:

http://toronto.craigslist.ca/tor/atq/5906855065.html

I'm glad you let the sleeping pails of mystery stucco lie, Phil. The living room progress will be 1000x more satisfying than epoxy stucco experiments. Although the volume of the pails alone could have been stacked up to build a sizeable outbuilding, I think ? Here's hoping an innovative and industri...

Okay - but you bought an old home - and so far you have talked about aluminum replacement windows(no wood due to cost and local market), took out a ton of original plaster (v.s. repairing the loose spots), appear to be moving around walls and I'm not sure what you are doing with those cabinets. This...

If you will not be saving the cabinets please remove them carefully and properly so someone else can benefit from them. It really pains me that you are doing this. Many old houses were designed thoughtfully and logically, and were very functional. Modest homes had modest appliances that fit the spac...