Indecent Places

The banner motto on this blog is "I'll make a silk purse out of this house if it kills me."

And yeah, I've put a modicum of suffering into it . . . To the tune of refinisher-tanned fingers where the stripping gloves wear through . . . and lingering congestion when the ventilation isn't quite adequate to take away the fumes of a five-hour basement woodwork stripping session . . . and the occasional bruise or splinter when pieces of trim get out of hand when I'm prying them off the wall . . .

But "if it kills me"? That's just been something cute to say. Window dressing. I have not truly suffered for my renovation Art as so many of my houseblogs.net fellow travellers have. I have not lived with crevasses in my bedroom floor, or done the dishes in the bathtub for four months or gone to the bathroom in a coffee can while the toilet was waiting to be plumbed, or endured the other true hardships necessary to enter the kingdom of house renovation heaven. No, even while removing a piece of trim here, and stripping it there, I have endeavored to go on living a Civilized Life. I have had my books and music on their shelves where I can get at them. I've had my computer in my study, to take me whithersoever I will. I've got my piano in the front room. And if I don't feel like facing the state of the house, I can sit down and read or surf or play, and pretend everything is just fine.

But last week, when I moved the trim removal operation into the living room, the penny dropped: Silly hobbit! This isn't Civilized Places! I have to make the sacrifices everyone else does.

So the books on Art and Architecture History, the Church and General History Books, the beautiful tomes on ancient icons and Frank Lloyd Wright and medieval cathedrals, they all had to be packed up in boxes and stored in the guest bedroom until the trim is back on and refinished and the walls are repapered or painted. Can't get at the trim or the walls with a full bookcase in the way.

And the two other bookcases in the living room must undergo the same fate, as soon as I get more boxes. Ornaments and pictures and candlesticks have to be put safely away. And when the time comes, the furniture must be covered and moved aside. I've must to do what I have to do and live as I must live to get this job done.

. . . Of course, having thought of that saying of the famous philosopher Smeagol the Stoor, I had to follow the quotation to its source, to make sure I had it right. Which I didn't: It's actually "Silly! We're not in decent places!" And in the process of finding it, this past week and a half I've reread half of Tolkien's The Two Towers, and then of course I had to reread all of The Return of the King, and here we are again, alas! alas! fallen from the daily rigor that should be my path and my goal.

I've been very civilized these past few days, but from a house renovation perspective, not exactly decent!

Find

Couple of weeks ago was the annual book sale at the local library.

Look what I picked up from the Free boxes!

Copyright 1929, original price, ten cents.

I have no idea what I'll use it for. But it's got great 3-D illustrations of overall framing systems and close-up details. I have to half wonder what, if any of it, is not up to present Code. But it's just as likely, a house framed as described in this booklet would today be considered overbuilt.

. . . Oh, hey, it's got a detail on laying a ceramic tile floor flush with your main floor by dropping the subfloor on ledgers between your floor joists. Hmm, very interesting . . .

Book Me-Me-Meme!

I've been tagged (thanks, Sandy!) with the book meme that's going around. I'd been thinking it'd be fun to play that, and here I have my chance.

Here's how it works:

To participate in the book tag.............Pick a book at least 123 pages long. Open that book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence and post the next three. Then tag five other people.

I'm assuming this means a book I'm currently reading. Hmm, which one? I have books-in-progress all over the house!

But since I got tagged on my houseblog, I'll choose the one with the page 123 excerpt that's most house-related. Here goes:

"'You can order the coal.'

'Very good, my lady. I fancy there will be some time between lunch and dinner to effect a clearance of the kitchen chimney, provided there is no interference from the police.'"*

Or as it would be in 2008, objections by the EPA!

Now that I've completed the selfish part of this meme, I'm afraid I have to bow out of Part 2, the tagging. Just because I'm reading (and re-reading!) when I ought to be working on my house doesn't mean the rest of you are!

But if you are reading something to help you work on your house, to reward you for having worked on your house, or to distract you from getting round to working on your house, open that volume to page 123 and leave a comment. I'd be interested to hear what you find!
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(From Busman's Honeymoon, a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, 1937)

O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast

This past August I read a novel by English author Rosamunde Pilcher called Winter Solstice. The main part of the action is set deep in December in a town on the far northwest coast of Scotland. She did such a fine job of describing the snow, the rain, the cold winter weather, that when I'd open the door to let the dog out I'd be surprised to feel the balmy breezes of a southwestern Pennsylvania summer.

And I was impressed how convincingly Mrs. Pilcher depicted her characters going out into this weather without moaning or complaining. They were continually out visiting, shopping, walking the dog, walking themselves, and the conditions seemed always to strike them as bracing, or envigorating, or, at the most, challenging.

Gosh, how admirable! Once winter has set in, whatever happens in my back yard stays there till next spring. In the dead of winter, once I'm inside I hardly want to open the door to pick up the mail!

But there's a basis for all this Pilcherian cheerfulness. As the creator of her novelistic world, she decreed that her characters should have a "well-built Victorian house" to live in and enough pounds and pence to keep the central heat going comfortably and to pay for logs to throw on the sitting room fire whenever wanted. It's easy to face inclement weather with good cheer when you know the house you'll return to is toasty and warm.

I wish I could rewrite my own current life story that way. But alas, no. I finally had enough and turned on the furnace night before last, and the highest it's going this winter is 61 degrees when I'm home and awake and 56 at night.

No, I'm not trying to reduce my carbon footprint. I'm just trying to reduce the drain on my wallet.

It's been all right so far. Really. The temperature outside hasn't gotten below the low 30s and the double-glazed windows are shut and locked. It helps having three cats to act as live hot water bottles, too.

I'll see how it goes once it gets colder. I suppose turning up the thermostat a bit is preferable to my sitting on my icy hands whining. Thinking of other and older British novels, the proverbial drafty 19th century manse may seem romantic, but living in a house that feels like one is not.