3rd Annual Bungalow Blog Tour

Previous Tour Stop: http://bungalow23.com/2011/05/14/3rd-annual-bungalow-blog-tour/

Thanks to Stucco House, the tour commences! Well, it's that time again! A lot has happened, some big, and some not so big.



I still miss my hound. I haven't gotten another dog-I may not, it's too soon to tell. The new one'll have some big paw prints to fill if I do. I am thinking I'll look into a rescue shelter dog. Probably another long-snouted hound. Why change a known ticket, eh?

Before any dogs, though, the yard has to be fenced in and the house gotten a little farther than I have it now. For the time being, I'll just borrow the neighbors' dogs when one needs petting or such.


I came across a little wooden grainery that is going to be the clock shop eventually. It takes forteen by sixteen feet, and has plenty of room for a loft up above for keeping junk that may actually get used in repairs. Building Savers in Emmetsburg brought it up by truck, and set it on the blocks, and now the rest is up to me. It needed a roof as it was, and will need siding help too. I bought steel for the roof before this latest asininity with fuel prices, so I didn't get clipped too hard on that. The rest of the lumber is second-hand going into its revitalization. This is in keeping with my no debt-no waste policy of living here.

The plan it to leave it twenty four inches off the ground, so I can use the space under it for ladders and that. There are to be lean-to's on each side, one for the mower and that, and the other for odds and ends that aren't going to be inside. The siding on it now it pretty well had it. My cousin had a storm hit his farm, and the insurance company made him replace all the tin on the barn, so he gave me the old, which was still good. There's my siding! My dad has friends that always want wood gone from their place. There's the framing and that! Three old storm doors from the trash? There the walls for the lean to. Got the windows and everything already in!

Ever wish you could pick your neighbors? Well, I got to! Here's how it happened: My little red shed is slated to become the clock shop as soon as the roof and windows are made sound. I hired a friend to come tin the roof, and he liked the house north of me. It was empty, and frankly I had little hope of it ever being lived in again, but he and his wife bought it! Let me tell you, I lucked out in this neighborhood!


Grannie's cupboard turns out to be ideal for pianola rolls, along with a few other parlor-y odds and ends. Some son of a snake weaseled me out of the colonnades I had lined up, so I get to find another set. Oh, well. Sucks to be him. I got to get on the stick and get the pianola or the organ working now. Either one will play rolls, and wither one would be nice to have when I want to play something. It doesn't look like there are that many rolls, but the whole bottom is full too, and there are a whole pile of the things.

The old clock from my first shop wound up over the ice box in the kitchen. I can see the thing from a mile off, and it doesn't make any noise on the hours. In a fit of creative zeal, I reverse painted that lower glass. The cat frightens little children.


See my pretty new plumbing, replacing all of the old galvanized? I was so tired of that old mess I got a mad on one day and tore out the whole pile and we ran new lines. We sold all the old en masse to a local scrap dealer, who was more than happy to make it dissapear, and from there it is has passed into dim memory. I am so happy I could grow a tail to wag it! Now onto the shower ring!

Here is another, showing the old in the background and new in the foreground. Dispite the putrid-looking ducts the furnace is new.

Here's the back bedroom, where my den is at. See how nice and settled in it is? Note the peeling paper and scrody looking walls! Settled in. Ayup.....life is good, here on the bungaloo route.

Next Tour Stop: http://ittybittybungalow.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/3rd-annual-bungalow-blog-tour/

No More Dog in the Dog House

My poor old doggie died.

He started slowing down this last fall, and by last Wednesday it was plain he was in more misery than he deserved. We took him to the vet, and it turned out he got arthritis in his back, and two of the bones near his tail broke. That meant he couldn't use his back legs without lots pain. The vet said this condition would rapidly become worse, and even in humans meant a wheelchair and lots of narcotic painkiller.

Two shot syringes and five minutes later it was all done, and we buried him out by his doghouse with his long snout pointed to the road like he always lay.

He's out of his suffering, but it's too quiet around here now. No clicking toenails or sniffing snout makes for one still damn house. No living furnace on the bed means I am up earlier because it's too damn cold to linger.



Work at the house goes on....If the basement door ever thaws out we got the kitchen floors to level.

Landfill bait?

Some people collect cats and dogs, and some get odder items sent their way.





This was headed to the landfill, so like the fool I am I told him to load it up and I'd take care of it.

It is an old Fischer, from sometime in the mid twenties.

It still has the ivory keys, and the action is decent.

The wood case has some neat detail but it is dry and sunburnt.

The pin block has some loose pins, and therein lies the reason he didn't want to dink with it.

Look at the legs!

And the matching stool!

Interesting lines.....

Brass furniture.

I have an oak Cable Euphona player piano ahead of this one in line, so it'll lay for a while before I get to it. More projects! Yippie.

Coming up on a year

I'll have been in here a year come Thanksgiving. Doesn't seem like it, and I sure didn't get all done that I wanted to.

I did rent a jackhammer from Armstrong.


Richard and I applied it to the back steps.


The chunks were loaded, and then hauled away.


Ready to level and put the new slab up.

Do I really need another project?

No. Clearly not.

I have wanted one of these since I was a kid. They usually either sell for some ungodly sum, or are too far away to bother with. Then, along comes Mr. Gladis, who has gotten a new hip, and didn't really need another project either. He had two of these bad boys, so we came to terms, and he sold me one and kept the other.

It's a Cutler, from 1897. The drawers all lock when the tambour is closed. It has most of the pigeon holes intact, and enough of the dividers for the ledger slots and centre racks that I can copy what isn't there. Its looks are deceiving-it is 54 inches wide and pretty deep.

The bad news is that it needs to be taken all to pieces and re-glued, and several corners are actually broken. The good news is that there isn't any veneer-it's all solid, and the broken corners are going to be a little easier to fix because of that. Plus the finish is mostly intact, and can be cleaned instead of refinished.

...and fire was!

Last fall I borrowed a friend's fire ring, and he needed it back this week, so I had to scare another one up. The fellow the first block over from me built a beautiful patio and had a nice steel rim by the garage that he wasn't using anymore, so I got it for a fire ring. He even delivered it to my place and set it out in the yard!
The first night I was home after it came we had to try it out, so come dark we broke out the scraps and wood, and broke it in right.




Already, the neighbours and I have had three fires in it, and it will prove to be a favourite gathering spot, I think. As much wood as I have been getting rid of here lately, I am sure to have a supply well into the next decade.
Nothing is like a campfire roasted weenie or burnt marshmallow, and it is nice to have your entertainment close to home where nobody has to drive and if someone wants a little something to drink or smoke a pipe or cigarette they can do as they wish, because it's out behind the house, and nobody cares as long as we aren't making braying asses of ourselves and pestering the neighbourhood.
People sometimes forget how relaxing and fun it can be to set out of an evening with the fire going and talk, roast weenies and marshmallows, or just be.
God knows that entertainment of any sort can be dear these days, and I guess with the $20 the ring cost, and gallon of gas to cut the wood with the chain saw, and the buck and a half apiece for weenies and marshmallows, it's a damn sight cheaper than going out to a beer joint or picture.
I think that each time I used it cost me about three dollars, and that's if I cook food on it.


Even if nothing is said there is a certain fellowship to sitting about the fire and watching the distillate of a hundred 36,500 sunrises, sunsets, and everything in between.
The flames can be calming to look into. I find that I can look into them, and before I know it a good amount of time has passed. One of my college teachers used to suggest a candle flame to meditate on, so I suppose this is the same thing, on a bigger scale.
For whatever it was worth, I used to know a lady that would use a big glass or brandy snifter of clear water and a fire to summon ghosts (so she claimed.) But we won't do any of that-let the dead lie still and we all get along better!

The biggest sin *rant*

I could probably count the times I have called the sin card on one hand and still play the guitar with what was left. I'm just not that big on sin, I guess.

There is one sin that I can't stand, though. The name of the sin is waste. There is no excuse for 99.9999999991 % of it. When I think what terrible misery and poverty exists right in our own neighbourhoods and towns, and see perfectly good houses and buildings go to ruin, land go rank and weedy for lack of cultivation, or trash cans full of food that nobody could be bothered to eat it makes my blood boil. When I see our natural resources wasted and landfills filled because of consumer greed and envy, instead of wearing out or using up what we already have it really makes me want to slap some sense into people.

I understand the some waste is unavoidable, and it's going to have to happen. I may not like it, but I can understand it, and even accept it as the cost of life.

What I can't understand is how a building that is full of good timbers, mill work, and brick must all be destroyed because bureaucracy and ignorance out-rule common sense.

Our town tore down two old houses this last month. Never mind the fact that both were salvageable, if not in toto at least good portions of them were. I tried for two years to gain salvage from one of them to work on my own house, as they were the same vintage and had many of the same components. You know what stopped the whole thing? One miserable insurance agent. I offered them an absolute release of liability. Nope. I offered to hire a professional firm to get it, at my expense. Nadda. I called the demolition company. They wouldn't even call me back. Hell, I even offered to pay the city for all I took out of it.

I watched them tear this place down, and there were two by eights twenty feet long. Broken to slivers.
Fancy newel post and stairwell. Totaled.
Claw foot tub and matching fixtures. Smashed.
five year old 200 amp meter base and disconnect. Deliberately destroyed.

Sad thing is, if the town had sold and donated what was any good off of those two houses, it would have paid for twenty to fifty per cent of the demolition costs. It would also have dropped the bulk dump fees by that much at least, and brought them in some liquid cash at the same time!

I know this will sound mean, and maybe it is, but I am glad it did cost them.....this is one case where there is a tangible show of what waste costs.

*End of rant*