This house was built in 1855, and it has seen very little renovation since then (except for a horrifying kitchen redo in 1970 and a tsunami of wall paneling from the 1960s). I like to open up the walls and ceilings, here and there, to see what’s behind. (Any excuse to ditch that lousy wall [...]
Continue reading...11. November 2008
I’ve always preferred drawing my house plans and ideas on graph paper, by hand. As much as I love the computer, and as much as I have incoporated a lot of my tasks to it, I just can’t seem to leave the age-old tradition of graph paper and pencil (and for me, a big eraser). [...]
Continue reading...10. November 2008
This is a totally, totally amazing gadget! Can’t install a skylight because you don’t want to hack a hole in your roof? Get a virtual one! It’s called the Ambient SkyCeiling. It’s actually an LED panel (some are flourescent), and they illuminate the images from behind. They are absolutely gorgeous! I think they’d be neat [...]
Continue reading...7. December 2007
I just finished flipping through my New Old House magazine. I got it a few weeks ago (it’s the winter 2008 edition) but hadn’t gotten to it until now. An excellent article by Russell Versaci, Pennywise, got me very excited. It’s a topic that’s been on my mind for over fifteen years, ever since I [...]
Continue reading...23. May 2007
My house is a balloon-frame house. Balloon-frame houses became all the rage after the World’s Fair in Chicago, when visitors saw Augustine Taylor’s new building design in 1833. Balloon-framing was the alternative method of post-and-beam framing. PandB framing requires massive timbers with strong, skilled workers. The labor for this is extensive and demanding. The invention [...]
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18. December 2008
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