The Historic District

One down, eight to go at the front of the house.



This is the dining room window, and the last window restoration of the season until the weather warms up again in the spring. The color is not quite as vivid as the phone camera and afternoon sun make it appear. It's a rich and pleasant (to my eye) moss green, with stained wood and shellac on the inside.

Visible in the photo are other projects awaiting attention: the exposed rafter tails (previously sheathed in vinyl) need painting, asbestos shingles need to be removed to expose the original clapboards, and the house needs a porch light that's more than a dangling bulb.

Well that looks fantastic James. I can see your vision for the home and I think it will be great. Well done. Earthy colour tones, the mark of all great craftsman home restoration.

Thanks, Ron. Ever since Trinity Church in Newport, Rhode Island painted their church building exterior a vanilla ice-cream color (chosen as a result of a chemical analysis of the earliest layers of paint they found) and I saw that mellow color against the blue sky, I was hooked. In this hot climate, a dark color would not only absorb more heat from the sun's rays, it would look out-of-place and uncomfortable. A neighbor recently painted their house a dark loden green with black trim, and with vermilion sash. It's a terrific Craftsman combination, and it suits the style of the house perfectly. The trouble is, this isn't the Pacific Northwest. When temperatures hit 104F, it looked painful.

Long overdue, I'm turning my attention to the dining room restoration. The room had been serving as my window restoration station, and storage for a lot of materials. Of particular note is the condition of the ceiling. I scrubbed the left half with TSP, then scuffed with coarse sandpaper, to achieve better adhesion of the kwik-set.



There were space heaters throughout the house, but this room had a big beast of a heater (visible in the listing photos, but removed before I occupied; I suspect the PO used this room as her bedroom when she got old and frail) that was vented, but obviously not well. It will be a huge relief to get this cleaned up, as well as the very gloomy dark plum-brown of the walls. I have a light wallpaper chosen for this room that I think will be nice with the natural woodwork.

What a difference a little elbow grease will accomplish. Sounds like you have a workable plan James. As usual I look forward to seeing your progress.

Since you asked...



Ceiling has final skim coat and will be ready for sanding and primer tomorrow. I smoothed out the awkward gap between the picture rail and ceiling, and gave it a good vacuuming. Walls will need an additional skim coat.

I needed inspiration, so I went and picked out paint for this room. Ultimately, I plan to wallpaper, but the walls need to be painted first anyway, so I chose a nice Craftsman khaki color that will harmonize with the draperies. That will be a while off because all the woodwork has only been heat-gun stripped so far.

The fireplace (hidden behind the blue dropcloth), in particular, will need attention. A PO painted the brick - ugh.

This is the fireplace. Any suggestions for restoration of the brick to its natural state would be greatly appreciated.



I don't need more stuff, but I couldn't pass up this pitcher in a thrift shop for 75 cents.



It's marked:
Camille Burgess & Leigh
Middleport Pottery
Burslem

No chips, cracks or repairs, but the glaze is crazed, and there is darkening on the inside, and visible here on the handle. Besides finding it aesthetically pleasing, I like that it's similar in color to the old set of china I have, "Twigs" by F. Winkle. It seems to me that it's at least as old as the house, probably older, but I haven't found any information on it yet.

James, this looks like a good place to use one of those stripper products you paint on and then cover with a film for a couple of days.
Your .75 cent jug is beautiful, how come I can never find such a good deal. Does the bottom have a ‘made in England’ stamp on the bottom or just England? It would be even better with a ‘rg.number’ even better if it has a triangle with makings within.

Check out this site, a bit clumsy to navigate but it does have an alphabetical search function
http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/index.htm

There is a number but no triangle or mention of England, other than Burslem, which of course is there.



Thanks for the link!

James, that number is the design register. Used after 1884,by 1889 it required a country of origin,so you can date it to between 1885 and 1889. just looked up the number, if I am reading it correctly the number 90483 was used in 1888