Where the heck have you been?

Hello friends,

I'm still here and I haven't forgotten about you, about this blog or this house.  This could not be father from the truth.  As many of you know who read this blog I work as a tour guide in my profession and so I am often on the move in all parts of the world taking me away from my dreams and loves here.  Its a difficult and extreme balance, but now is the time for the other side of the coin; to dedicate all my off time to the house.  These balances seem to work ok for me except for exterior work on the house.  Since I'm gone much of the nice and warm months I can't get a ton done on the outside of the house and when I'm home it's -20 degrees out which is not exactly fun to work in. Believe me I have done it with my family.  I can vaguely recall putting in new windows on scaffolding 30 ft off the ground with the temperature around -10 degrees, wind blowing and the scaffolding snowy and icy.  I guess when you have snow in your front stairway for the first few years you are highly motivated to seal the envelope no matter what the circumstances.   So after a long summer working all over the world I am home, and in full swing mode on the house.

Another piece of good news is that my finial off the tower  was finally removed!  Why is this so exciting?  Grr...

I had the finial removed when the roof was redone many years ago.  I repaired the tin finial with some bondo auto body filler and cleaned it up a bit, primed it and painted it so it looked nice and new and shiny.  Just getting it back up there was not an easy task mind you.  I had to give a guy a little money to climb the scaffolding to the top, then climb an extension ladder to get to the peak of the tower and nail it on.  He was not happy with me and I sure as heck wasn't going to do it myself.

Here it is looking all new and pretty when I got it down the first time.

 

And it stayed looking fairly good on the tower, albeit crooked slightly but at the time I figured I could live with it.  Fast forward to March 2018 and some really strong winds eventually knocked the thing off the roof, but let it hang there by a single stubborn nail.  It also broke the top spire part off and I grabbed that from the yard one day.  There it sat hanging by one nail the whole winter, spring, summer and until fall when I got lucky.  I had been hoping it would just fall down because without a tall cherry picker I couldn't reach it. 

 

 

 

 

Well I got lucky because one of my neighbors was doing some work and happened to have a cherry picker. I begged him to let me use it or that I would pay him to get it down.  He said he would let me know.  One day I came home and there it was on my porch removed and ready to be saved again.

 

 

So now it sits in the vestibule waiting for me to do something.  Do I dare try to repair it ?  I am worried because it is tin and so worn on the upper parts and quite fragile.  So I am considering having it replicated, tin I guess preferably, but have also considered copper.  While this would be insanely expensive to replicate I believe because it's not a local job (or at least I can't find anyone local) I like the idea of having a new study one going up there to last another 100 years.  There is also another benefit to having it replicated and that is that I would get at least 1 extra copy made, perhaps 2.  Why you ask?  Well with the 3 towered houses on my block that were all built at the same time, they all had one, but mine was the only one with it left.  The others are gone.  The owner of the other towered house on the other corner expressed interest in having one made for his building so that I could get that one restored to that house.  The other towered house my family owns and while the tower roof is missing, I have this vision one day of having it put back and then I can just happen to have the finial on had to put on that one too.  Wishful thinking I know, but I'm always a long time planner.

 

Any suggestions of places that can recreate these things located in the Midwest?  I'm in Minnesota, but I did find one place in Chicago that can do it.  Any other suggestions my readers?

 

 

While I ponder my finial problem I am also inside working feverously on the Library, a room that was down to the bare studs for YEARS and I'll get to that room in the next post.

 

I thought I would share with you something fun I did; a Podcast for a local publication.  So if you have ever wondered what my voice sounds like and have 45 minutes to kill give it a listen.  It tells a bit of the history of the house.  You can find the link HERE  <---------- Click this link to hear the podcast 

 

 

So my friends we will talk soon and I can't wait to show you how the library is coming along.  Thanks for following and keeping a smile on my face knowing that you're out there.