The dogwood across the alley

Blast from the Past... our first house

We bought our first house in 1980 and we did quite a bit of work on that house. We refinised all the floors, gutted the kitchen, rebuilt both the front and back porches and resided the house. We did a lot of the work ourselves but we had a couple of angels who advised us and did some of the work. One of them was Carl Ziegler.  Carl was willing to work with John and teach him.  I was thinking about Carl lately and how important he was in building the foundation of John's woodworking skills.  I called Carl a couple days ago. He is retired now (he is in his eighties) and he was glad to hear from us. It was very cool to talk with him.

 We didn't take a lot of photos back then (way before digital cameras) but I did find a few of Carl working with John. Here are some photos of  Carl working and teaching....

 

Our first project was to side the whole house.  I had my own crow bar because we had to remove the awful asphalt siding.  I remember we paid the kids next door to pick up nails... until we figured out they were "recycling" the nails and charging us again.

Putting up the clapboard and building out the trim took us about a month a side.  We bought a 36 foot ladder so we could reach the top.  It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves with that ladder.  We had a couple of near accidents.  That is actually me at the top of that ladder.  I was painting the trim.

We only lived there six years but we poured our hearts into that house.  We worked on it all the time we lived in it.  I do cringe at some of the choices we made (foolish youngsters).  There are things I still miss about that house.  The wonderful old heart pine (yellow pine) floors.  The staircase.  The upstairs hall.  The wetlands behind it.  The view over the rooftops from my sewing room on the third floor.  The walk in attic.

Binding my quilt

I found this excellent article on the merits of straight grain, cross grain and bias binding.  The whole article is well worth reading but the following really got my attention... it makes so much sense, yet never occurred to me.

"Bias binding will wear longer than straight binding so in a bed quilt that is getting lots of use bias might be the better choice. The straight binding will have only one or two threads actually on the edge of the quilt. These few threads in the fabric right on the edge of the quilt will wear faster. Bias binding has stretch and flow and moves at the edge and won't wear as quickly."

Back Yard

After the hot spell, it turned cooler, about ten degrees below average and just right for holding flowers in bloom.  And yet, things have been happening.  Look how much our teeny tiny backyard had changed in under two weeks....

March 31st

April 10th

An alley view

Temporary Scullery

While our kitchen sink is out of commission, we will be using the basement laundry sink to do dishes.  It sure isn't fancy but I think it will do for a few weeks.  That's John outside washing the filthy basement window.

John is going to make a better counter to the right of the laundry sink there.  We won't be moving down there until next month but we are getting ready.  I like playing house, even in the basement.

The plumber is coming today to install a shutoff for the kitchen sink.

In the meantime, John is making the pullout cutting boards.

Pullout cutting board glued and clamped

Cool place to live in Seattle

The pyramid atop the Smith Tower in Seattle is a residence, which includes access to the very tippy top.  I've always been attracted to high up places like fire lookouts and lighthouses.  The apartment occupies the space where the water tower used to be.  You can see photos and videos from these links.


Woman who lives there

She has a blog with posts about living there.  Here is a  blog post that talks about how they ended up living way up there.