Jambo!!

Jambo from the Heart of Africa!!

That's right - from the Heart of Africa.

The past several days have been incredibly busy for SWMBO and I. From a quick trip to Africa to a couple of family reunions, to finding our house colors in south east Kansas.

Where shall we begin - Africa?

Africa it is....

And here we are - the train depot.

Actually it's a train depot that's been converted into a Museum. Not just a museum, but the #1 museum in Kansas! It is also one of THE best safari museums in the world.

Okay - so I'm cheating; we didn't really go to Africa but the museum was so good it's as if we could have been there.

The museum is the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute Kansas.

If you are ever in the Chanute KS area you NEED to make time to see this place.

Their collection of ceremonial African masks is perhaps one of the best in the nation and I have seen a few so trust me on this one.

And here is Martin and Osa Johnson themselves.

Cool picture isn't it?

I would love to have a similar one of SWMBO and I taken - with Grover in the background of course.

This is one of a pair of Giraffes that are in the foyer of the museum. They are carved from wood.












This lion skin rug is made from the pelt of one of the lions Osa actually killed.

Part of her job was to protect her husband from the animals while he took photos or filmed (this was before telephoto lenses). She was a crack shot and would have to take down an occasional animal that charged them.

These are headdresses from one of the East African tribes.

To give an idea of just how big these are, that's SWMBO standing next to them for scale.

Another interesting thing is how they were kept upright on the head. There is a mouth piece in the part that covers the face. The wearer clamps down on this with his teeth to keep it upright.

These are some Maasai (Masai) shields and weapons.

I've always been fascinated with the Maasai people as well as the Zulu.

As a kid I use to pretend I was on safari in the lands of the Maasai and Zulu, to name just a couple tribes. Usually I was looking for Dr. Livingstone.

Here's another shot of some Maasai items. I really wish this picture had turned out better so you could see the funny looking oval thing.











This is what that oval thing is - a traditional Maasai warriors feathered headdress.

I was fortunate enough to snag an authentic Maasai ceremonial spear before we left. That puppy will look nice on the wall! Now if I could only get a shield to go with it.

After our time 'in Africa' we headed to SWMBO's ancestral stomping grounds - Iola Kansas.

We went for a couple of family reunions. Had one on Saturday and another one on Sunday.

Even though the reunions were fun the main event was the house we found!!

The house was found by accident and is almost identical to our place. There are some differences, but there's enough similarity that our houses could be related.

Best part - WE LOVED THE COLORS!!!!

So, after driving around the block three times we decided to stop and talk to the owner. He was out in his yard each time we drove past; I was beginning to get the idea he thought we were stalking him.

While talking, he gave us permission to snap a few pictures. Below are just a few.

If you wrapped the porch on around, and removed the second floor bay, this would be our house.




What do you think of the colors?

They look more tan in the photos, but they are actually more green.

The owners painted the house three years ago, however, they still had the paint names and color numbers. Talk about luck. It's as if we were meant to see this house.

A view of the front. There is a bay like ours.

Note the balcony as well as roof pediment - cool eh?

Did you notice the porch, and balcony ceilings? They're sky blue.

We would like to have a pediment above our front door some day and are actually planning a similar balcony for the back porch.

A closer view of the colors.

As you can see, several of the windows are different than ours but most are the same.

A better view of the balcony and pediment.

Don't you just like that blue?!





Now take a close look at this picture - the fish scale specifically.

This is the first house we have found with the exact same style, and pattern, of fish scale that ours has. The only difference is that the fish scale ends at the top of the window.

I'm sure there are other houses out there with the same style and pattern but we have not seen one in person yet.

When we told the relatives about the house some of them, those who have seen our place, wanted to drive by and see the colors too. They all agreed that the colors would look great on our house.

Okay - let's get back to our house.

After our short time away I got busy scraping again - when the rain and heat would let me that is. BTW - yesterday was the first official day of our first heat wave of the season here in Kansas.

The east side...












The south side...











And a panoramic view.

You've heard of 'Painted Ladies'? Well, ours is a 'Naked Lady'.



For the fun of it, here are a couple pictures showing my vantage points.

This one is from the south side looking south east.

Not a lot of space between the back end of the platform and the roof edge, about three feet; and it's steep.

It's so steep that I had to wedge the shop vac in some cable to make sure it didn't roll over the edge while moving the platforms. It did anyway. Luckily the thing hit the grass and not the side walk.

Today it tried doing it again but this time it was on the platform and I stopped it in time.

Sandra - this next view is for you!!

This is how close I had to get to the edge to scrape.

I don't mind heights, but I would prefer some sort of railing when this close to the edge.

Tomorrow I'm going to set up some extra safety devices. The next step in scraping will require ladders on those platforms. You know how I hat ladders, and at that height to boot! I'll keep you informed on what measures we take.

Here's a better view of the original colors. Too bad a color photo doesn't exist of the house before being painted white.

It's kind of hard to see, but if you look at the bottom edges of some of the fish scale you can see the original color - deep emerald green.

The color doesn't come out as well as seeing it in person, but it's there.

I will leave you with this final picture.

Can you tell what it is?

Take a close look.

Any idea?

No?

It's a bullet.



That's right - a bullet!!

It's about the size of a 9mm round. I found it embedded on the east side near the northern most window. This window is in the room the previous owner used as a study. We now use it as our library. Makes one wonder if someone was out to get the guy.

Anyway, that's about it for now.

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

un Petit Projet

Hello Everyone!

We kind of took a break from house scraping for the past few days. The weather has not been our friend. It's been either too hot and muggy (mid 90s are high for Kansas this time of year) or too wet.

Even though the scraping was neglected we did finish un petit projet so we could say we got something done.

Do you remember this little cabinet, the one that was partially completed?

We decided to finish it.












Even though it was hot outside it wasn't too bad in the shade and there was a breeze once in while.

Besides, we didn't want to get all the sanding dust in the house!

So there it lies - in all it's pieces.

The sanding didn't take all that long - maybe 4 hours. What took the most time was the staining and finishing.

It was so hot, and kind of steamy, that it took a lot longer for the stain to dry. After this came the tinted shellac. Another problem we had was that one of the big drawers, and the top, did not handle the shellac well and they had to be re-done.

Once the shellac was dry one coat of polyurethane was applied. Since the cabinet is going to be in the kitchen we thought the extra protection of the poly would be a good idea. The bad part is that it took almost 3 times the amount of time to dry.

Once dried I lightly sanded the top and prepped it for the last coat of poly. This coat had to sit for 24 hours; so, as of 6PM our time I was able to attach the top.

And here is the finished project.

Not too bad...

There are some spots where we were not able to get some stains out as well as 'something else' we can't identify. All-n-all though it looks good.

While working on the cabinet outside we did have a visitor.

Mr. Toad.

SWMBO said we should have stuck a fist next to Mr. Toad because the picture doesn't do him justice. This guy is almost as wide as a soft ball.

Not sure where he lives, but it's somewhere around the back patio.

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

Front Porch Walls Finished & a Couple of Surprises

Finally!! The front porch walls are all finished...the scraping at least.

We can't believe how long it took to scrape all the intricate, detailed, hard to get to places. Thank goodness we don't have one of those real ornate Victorians!

As mentioned in the title we had a few surprises the past few days while scraping.

The first was the inner trim surrounding the window inserts on each side of the door as well as the inserts themselves. Two different colors of stain were used - presumably to contrast and highlights.

In this picture you can see the whole door / side window setup sans paint.





In this one you can see the darker stain of the side window inserts as well as the lighter stain of the wood holding it in.



Now this is where it gets real interesting...

See the darker stain? Well, it was top-coated with either shellac, varnish or something else. Whatever the top-coated was made the thick layers of paint slough off like pealing skin when the heat gun was applied. In fact, the paint puffed up! It reminded me of a piece of Kraft American Cheese fried or broiled. If you've ever seen this done you'll know what I'm talking about. Even the fine detail came out more crisp and clean than when using the other stripper.

This led to the next surprise.

While scraping the paint off the dark stained area I kept thinking to myself "man - this reminds me of something, but I can't put my finger on it."

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks... THE TRIM AND MOLDING IN THE HOUSE IS DARK STAINED WOOD COVERED WITH WHITE PAINT!!!!

So I grabbed the heat gun and went inside.

Now remember, this is what the pedestals separating the foyer and living room look like now.




The one above is on the right - looking into the foyer.

This is the pedestal on the left side after only about 30 minutes of work (if that) with the heat gun.




It still needs cleaning up. I think using alcohol and 0000 steel-wool will do the trick. The larger pieces of paint just need to be flicked off.

But just look at the stain and patina under there!!!!

Isn't this AWESOME!!!

Based on the amount of time it took to do the pedestal it would probably take just a week-end to remove the paint from the rest of the trim/molding in the living room. Another major plus is that it's by far easier to clean up than using the stripper we used in the kitchen.

Why oh why wasn't the trim and molding in the kitchen this easy?!?!?!?!

Before I forget, see the electrical outlet to the left, and the hole above it? Look around the hole and you will see dark streaks on the wall paper. When we first got the house SWMBO plugged something into the outlet. It burst into flames - scorching the wall and destroying the outlet. When the outlet was replace we lowered it. Now there is a hole in the wall. Eventually it'll get fixed.

Anyway...moving on...

For grins-n-giggles here's a picture of our house guest from last week-end. She is sharing Izzy's favorite perch; the one that allows her to look out the front door.

Aren't they cute?
Actually - they're more like little monsters.

Izzy's little friend is named 'Princess'. She is the baby of SWMBO's uncle Jimmy, the one who was helping us scrap a few weeks back.

HEY! Come to think of it... See the dark streaks in the molding in the picture? That's the dark stain coming through.

Well, that's about it for now. It's getting late and I'm tired.

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry

Yes - Still Scraping

Hello everyone!

We are still scraping and our hands and arms are aching.

Since my last post we have acquired a nice piece of antique oak furniture. We won it at an auction the Friday before last; let's see, that would be Friday April 23.

Here it is. Some people call it a lowboy with hat box but we've learned it's actually called a 'Cheval Dresser'.

There are only two pieces missing, the drawer on top of the hat box section and the fancy do-dad that sits on top of hat box section.

Over all the dresser is not in bad shape. The top needs to be redone, but other than that it just needs cleaning.

Originally we thought to use it in the upstairs bathroom, but we really like it here in the foyer.

We did find something really cool though. On the back were two shipping labels. One was in great condition and we could read were it was being shipped to - Belle Plaine KS. The name of the person, or perhaps business, is something like A K Barry. I think it's cool that this piece of furniture has been in three auctions that we are aware of and yet it still remains here.

While cleaning the dresser up we removed the hat box section and found the original finish in perfect condition.

Now, the question before us is - "do we return to the original finish color or try to keep the warm, aged, patina"? Either way the piece will look great.






Let's get to the house scraping...

The following picture will take some explaining.

This is the bottom section of the east sidelight of the front door.

Look at all the mess! The window itself is about 1 inch above the cutoff at the top of the picture.

Here is what's so special about this spot.

Do you see the shiny wood work? The paint was popping up somewhat easily without damaging the varnish underneath. The sidelight on the west side of the door is the same way.

So, now we know that the exterior portions of the front door, and sidelights, we stained and varnished. We'll do the same when we refinish them.

On a side note...while working on the front door I've been noticing a family of black, fuzzy spiders with a splash of Azure Blue to them. They seem to be following me around and watching. Seriously. They crawl to within inches and just stare at me. They will also crawl over the areas where I've scraped and try to get close to where I'm scraping. It's quite interesting, it's like they are curious and want to know what's going on.

Tomorrow I'll try to get a good picture of one.

BTW - I found out that white houses draw spiders.

Here we have a new problem.

While scraping I noticed that the rounded part of the porch roof looked like it was sagging.

I took a straightedge and checked...it is.

Now we need to figure out what to do with it.

Okay, do you remember clue number 2 in this post?

No one figured it out - bummer.

Here are three of those things in the clue number 2 picture along with the platform they will support.

My father-n-law helped us out by taking my template and building us two platforms.

This is the second one with the addition of carpet to the wood runners.

The carpet will grip the shingles on the porch roof and keep it from slipping.

And here they are - mobile ladder platforms; a kind of rooftop scaffolding base.

The cleat running down the center is to keep a ladder from slipping.

The platforms are tall enough that most of the 2nd story work can be done standing on them. The 3rd story will require a ladder - and you know how I hate ladders.

I was afraid they'd be a bugger to get up on the roof, but it was quite easy. The father-n-law tied a tow strap to the center runner, climbed up the ladder and pulled as I pushed. Quick and easy and Bob was our uncle.

In this view you can see how level they are.

BTW - that's the father-n-law scraping away.



After a few hours hand scraping.

Sometimes, scraping loose paint can be addictive, and therapeutic for the mind. Another benefit is that it let me take a closer look at the clapboards.

Before I forget... Do you see that divot/cutaway in the molding between the wall and the eave? It's in the section no scraping has been done. The divot is where the original downspout came through the roof.

Anywho...

While scraping, the father-n-law found a patch of original paint. Eventually I found one as well. These patches are better than what we found on the 1st floor.

The color appears to be a very light, and bright, Butter Cream.

Unfortunately, the shadow of the eves, and the proximity of the camera doesn't let it show. However, you can see a color difference!

Bellow are the two spots. Take a look and see if you can see the Butter Cream color.





























Well, that's about it for now.

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

Still Scraping

Hello again everyone -

We were able to spend a big junk of Saturday scraping and had hoped to do the same on Sunday - things did not turn out that way though. Sunday was a 'down' day and Monday & Tuesday were filled with appointments in the big city.

I can't believe just how little I get to the big city anymore. It has changed so much but it also reminded me as to 'why' I don't like going so often!

Anyway, tomorrow is another day and hopefully I'll get a good chunk of time to scrape.

While SWMBO worked on the lower levels of the paint that couldn't be gotten with the Paint Shaver I worked on the upper areas. She used the infrared doohickey and I used the heat gun.

For your viewing pleasure here are some pictures.

This is the corner area I worked on. It's the top, far north eastern section of the dining room bay window.

I've been dreading this section since we bought this place. It is a very tight section and awkward for ladder placement. II couldn't open the ladder up, all I could do was lean it against the top of the window.

Look at all those cobwebs!!

Here's a nice close-up for ya'.

It was hard for me to get the heat gun, scraper, and my small hands in there. On top of this, in order to get a good look at what I was doing I had to cock my head to the side while doing it.

There's more of the light blue color!!

The layer is so thin it's hard to get a patch of it intact. This spot has so fare been the best I've gotten. BTW - it's no bigger than a dime!

Okay - take a look at this!

It was hard to do, but I got a layer of the white paint off to see the original layer. It appears to be a straw color and I like it.

Now, to be realistic, if this is the original color, it might not be the original shade. With the paint having been placed on top of ceder clapboards, and having sat there for 100+ years, the shade could have been effected.

However, we are leaning towards a pale straw color for the new paint.

For grins-n-giggles I got a shot of the bottom edge as well.







Now for the disappointing part...

It took me more than three hours to get to this point.

The picture only shows about 70% of what i got done, but it will give you an idea.

The hardest part, other than that blasted corner, was the molding on top of the window.

The rest of what got scraped off were the sections of the clapboard that was next to the window jambs that couldn't be removed with the Paint Shaver. Along with these spots were the edges of the jambs the the clapboard butt-up against.

Just thought I'd throw this one in for fun. It's not often people view a porch ceiling from this vantage point.

To the right is the top of the main window in the bay. I did get a start on it that day and hope to pick up here tomorrow.

Well, that's about it for now.

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

House Scraping Update

Hey Everyone!

Well...unfortunately the house scraping has not been going as fast a planned. Other things have gotten in the way; such as a yard in terrible need of upkeep as well has very high winds and rain.

So, I've used the Paint Shaver Pro as much as possible around the porch area, with the exception of the columns. The rest has to be scraped by hand. For this we are using the heat gun and the infrared doohickey as well as good ol' muscle power.

All this hand scraping is taking a lot of time and our arms are sore. Hopefully, next week will see more progress.

Here is the south side of the house.

The reason the trim around the door and windows isn't scraped is due to the aluminum frames still attached. Once we take those down (when there's no wind) I'll get them with the Paint Shave.

You can also see where I've been hand scrapping the columns.

Did you notice Shalimar inspecting the work?

BTW - I had to stand in the rain to get this picture!!

The east side with SWMBO's father scraping away.

More paint was removed since this picture was taken - mainly along the edges of the moldings and casings.

Do you see the molded lintel on top of the main window? It took me about two hours just to scrape this using the heat gun. Really makes me appreciate the Paint Shaver!

Okay - now for the BIG news!!!!

We found some original house color!!!!!

Yup, you read that right - original house color.

Do you see it?!

It's Robin's Egg Blue and it comes from where the corner mold meets the ceiling of the porch.

After this I did a little more testing and found more on the ceiling. So, true to form for the time period, the ceiling was painted a sky blue color.

Trivia question.... Do you know why they painted porch ceilings, and soffits, a light blue?

Anyway, this is now making us wonder if the house was originally painted a tan/beige color. Why? Because of the tan/beige stuff we are finding under the white!!

What do you all think?

Oh - before I forget... Take a look at the picture again. You can see where I've scraped on the rounded molding - right? Okay, now follow the curve to the right of the scraped area.

See it?

Can you believe how thick the paint is up that high?!?! It is over an 1/8 of an inch thick.

We have our work cut out for us.

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~