Fondelling My Volute

Last March at our local Chili Cook-Off event I met someone who was a self described fan of this blog. Sometime in May or June he and his wife got a tour of the "Old Crack House" and he was telling me about his woodworking ability. So I whipped out my volute and handed it to his wife. "Can he match this?" I wondered as she held the thing with both of her hands.

Now before you all start commenting about being a pervert you need to know what a "Volute" is. Raise your hand if you know.....

A volute in our case is the spiral end of the stair rail that sits on top of the newel post. The very tip of which is missing!

The gentleman volunteered to try his best at replicating a volute for us and I must add that he has surpassed all expectations. As a result he needs to be showered in praises. Especially because he offered to do this for us for the sheer pleasure of helping us out and the challenge to try his hand at some carving.

Here is the end result resting in place;




I wasn't worried about the wood matching because there is so much filling of divots and cracks with putty to be done on the original wood that I am going to have to tint the shellac that I apply to this rail so the original cherry is going to be masked anyway.
So, if you are impressed, let his wife know. She has her own blog you can leave comments on.
I don't know for sure but seeing this thing lying on her kitchen counter every day for several months may have something to do with one of her latest announcements ....

Being Labelled

I made a bunch of labels like the one above this afternoon. If you put clear shellac on them they have that "Old-Timey" look. Let me tell you why I did this.

I think the time has come for many beaten communities to get back to their roots. Dayton has been beaten and stomped on for many years. This city was founded on invention and progressive thinking. I collect old Dayton items. Most say "Made in Dayton, O." on them or have Dayton patents issued on them or were sold as souvenirs of Dayton. We can't find many items any more that say "Made in USA" let alone a city or a state.
My wife attends a stampers club meeting every month where she makes cards. I often tell her that her cards should be stamped "Made in Dayton". The stuff that I toy around with and make for our house like my concrete sink and counter tops, or the funky steam punk air filter that I made, should say "Made in Dayton". People who make crafts locally or grow food locally should label their stuff where it is made or grown. I would buy something made in Dayton over something similar made in another part of Ohio. Then I would buy something made in Ohio over anything similar made anywhere else in the USA. Why are we importing green peppers and salad items from Mexico when we can grow them here?
So I'm labeling stuff I make or do with the above labels because I'm proud of where I live and what I have been able to achieve. In most instances, with no previous knowledge. I think this could be a start to turning local economies around.

Tomorrow, if I can catch her. I'm going to stick one of these on Elizabeth's bottom!

Death From Above

It is scary what you can do on the internet!

Not Much to Report

I am officially slacking! At least it seems that way to me. In reality I have been doing many small jobs. I made a wood "damper" for the "WEE Rumford". I figured that paying $150 or more for a damper on a fireplace we may use three times a year is foolish at this stage so I made a block that seals the throat of the fireplace and stops the passage of warm air up the chimney. I just have to attach a tag that says "Remove before lighting fire" or we'll have a problem or two. I put proper stove pipe on the wood stove and lit a fire to test it. The fumes that come off the stove pipe from the factory paint are quite nauseating. (cough, cough) I've been patching some areas of wall that took some water damage this year from our leaky slate roof. Drawer slides are installed in the kitchen counter cabinets. I just have to make the shelves to attach them to. The hardest thing I did last week was stack two tons of wood pellets in the basement. 100 trips up and down the stairs with 40# bags is quite a workout. Especially for someone only used to weight lifting 12 oz bottles!

Time Is on My Side, Yes It Is.

We now have a back up to the emergency heating system. This wasn't that hard to do once you figure out where to place the bricks. This is a small fireplace. The opening width is just 18 inches. I'm sure the mantle was made for a gas fireplace or a shallow coal burning fireplace with a built in basket grate. This job was a little hard on the knees though and I almost had a faux pas by forgetting to remove the large piece of cushion foam that I had stuffed up the chimney to keep the warm air in the room. I remembered when I was two thirds of the way done. Otherwise it would have been bricked in would have been a bugger to get out. I already tested whether smoke will draw properly up the chimney by burning some damp paper in a coffee can and it seems to be working fine. I did manage to rid myself of my rubble collection. For several years I have been saving broken bricks, stones, plaster and bits of concrete to fill the space behind the fire bricks so as to build up a smoke shelf. I had buckets of rubble on every floor of the house. I used five and a half joint compound buckets full of rubble in this project leaving me with just half a bucket of cellar dirt which I can dump in the back yard where there is a large pile of rubble waiting to be placed in buckets and brought into the house when I rebuild the main living room firebox sometime in the future. Guess that will make me a "Rubble Rouser" ..... nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

Preparing for the Next Project

The next project involves getting this firebox rebuilt to accomodate the smaller opening. I bought 45 firebricks and two buckets of refractory mortar this week for the job. All I need now is some angle iron, an ash dump door and the most important thing, some TIME!

A Walk in the Woods on Thanksgiving Day

We went to Sugercreek Metropark this afternoon for a walk in the woods. There are a couple of 500 year old oak trees in the woods there. There used to be three but one died several years back and some moron set fire to it and now it is laying on it's side. They are still called the "Three Sisters." We were surprised at how many people visited the park today. Besides hiking around the woods we took a stroll on the prairie walk when Elizabeth began to get fussy. It took us a while to figure out why she was so bored on this walk because this was our view from the path.



Then we got it. This was her view!



Reminds me of the one about the Fukarwee tribe of pygmies in darkest Africa. They got their name because they jump up and down in the tall grass shouting "Where the fukarwee! Where the fukarwee!"

Current Tax Evaluation Update (Hint: It Still Sucks!)

Remember a few weeks back how our real estate tax evaluation increased our property value 96% over last year? The price of everything around us has dropped. Metal and oil prices are down considerably? Well, I made an appointment to plead my case and explained that we don't have three and a half bathrooms, we only have one full bath that doesn't work. a half bath on the first floor that does work and a quarter bathroom on the second floor because I haven't installed the toilet and that room isn't functioning either because we don't have heat on the second floor and the pipes keep freezing. I also explained that the total square footage of the two floors that they count for tax purposes isn't 3970 but in fact 3631. I gave them pictures showing how the front porch is collapsing and we have an extension of the Amazon Rain Forest in our very own back yard yet alone in our bathroom when it rains and the walls blossom with mushrooms!

The guy told me that the value would be adjusted down and should come in about where I would expect it to. He said I would get notice of an adjustment within three weeks. That was six weeks ago! So I check the treasurer's website and noticed a few weeks ago that the value dropped $3000 when the correct number of bathrooms was listed. Last week the value dropped another $44,000 because they corrected the square footage and probably reclassified the condition of the property. Currently we are at a 43% increase over last year and $40,000 - $60,000 above everyone else on our side of the street who have finished, livable houses. I think we are about $60,000 higher than the other side of the street. This equates to a $600 increase in taxes for us every year. The house is worth little more than we paid for it in its current condition, even with all the work because it isn't any where near finished. I told the man if he wanted to appraise it $5000 dollars above what we paid I wouldn't argue but any higher and I would fight it. Especially when 5 properties adjoining ours are vacant and have been for several years. Currently we are $33,000 above last years tax value. They must have justified the increase because I finally rebuilt that chimney and put in the bulk head doors, which are the only improvements I have made in the last 12 months! So you know that economic stimulus check that we got back in June because we pay too many taxes to the Federal Government? Well, it looks like our local county auditor wants to claim ours. In January I can appeal my evaluation to the State. Looks like I might be doing that. I better go find where I packed up the boxing gloves!

This is a Test of the Emergency Heating System

This is only a test. If this were a real emergency you would see cups of coffee and hot cocoa in the vicinity.



I need to replace the duct pipe with black stove pipe and I need to line the chimney ultimately but since it is clean and I don't plan on having to use this thing this winter I figured I should fire it up to see if there are holes anywhere in the stove or in the chimney! This old thing raised the temperature in the adjoining dining room from 50 degrees to 52 degrees in three hours. At this rate we might get up to 70 degrees by Christmas! The pellet stove is programmed to come on at 45 degrees. We don't know if it will work this winter because we haven't tested it yet. Hence the need for an emergency heat system .......
The thing seems to be working just fine. I didn't manage to burn down the house today and the upstairs rooms didn't fill up with smoke, which is a good thing, I think.

Bulk Head Doors are Done!

These babies lock on the inside. Later in the week when it rains I will find out if water still floods into my basement or if these do the trick!