Some ugly photos!

We don't use the fireplace very often, only twice this winter, and when we do, it's with a candelabra and some pillar candles stacked on bricks. Browsing through the Lehman's catalog, I saw this, # 600 Castable Refractory Cement, meant to replace missing firebricks. The product claims to last five years, so I might try to source actual firebrick and then use this to patch around the brick. Since our chimney is also uncapped, (what were they thinking??)I found a top-damping chimney cap . Most of our house improvements are DIY, but I don't know if these additions would make me comfortable enough to really use the fireplace. Having a hose and bucket handy may make it mentally easier in learning more about my fireplace while it burns. And of course, the whole thing needs to be cleaned and professionally inspected, & trees pruned back.

Continuing on the theme of "free", none of this is, but I'm sure it is much cheaper than having a professional insist it's entirely failing, not that it is at all, and is $4000 in repairs. Human beings have had fireplaces like this for several hundred years. In areas without a mason, handy people had to figure these things out for themselves. Why couldn't we attempt to improve the situation ourselves with lots of research and product assistance?

Here is the clay lining. The dark stripe is from today's rain. There is water damage, obviously.










There are several types of firebrick in the box. The Stevens Volcano (H. Stevens & Sons Co., Macon, GA? **see below) seems to be more brittle. All of the mortar, especially in the liner, should be tuckpointed, if not redone.














See? we do have a brick house!














Water damage, from open chimney. We have soft, water soluble bricks all over our house. Again, what were they thinking? This was built around the time of the stock market crash-maybe that's the reason?














**November 15, 1927 Atlanta Constitution
Milledgeville Pottery Plant Damaged by Fire; $50,000 Estimated Loss Milledgeville, Ga. Nov. 14 (UP)
"Fire which started from a stove in the molding room of one of the plants operated by Stevens, Inc., at Stevens Pottery, nine miles from here, partially destroyed the smaller plant owned by the company. The loss is estimated at $50,0000 by Walter S. Stapler, president of the organization. Stevens, Inc., which is owned and operated by heirs of the late W. C. and J. H. Stevens, manufacture firebrick at their two plants at Stevens Pottery. Mr. Stapler said that the fire will not materially affect the company as the larger plant was not damaged and plans will be made for the rebuilding of the destroyed plant as soon as the board of directors can be convened. The company has its own fire apparatus and firemen were at work soon after the flames were discovered. It was only due to the work of the employers who aided in fighting the fire that the damage was not greater, Mr. Stapler said. The building was partially covered by insurance. "

Ralph!

Of plants and sinks

There hasn't been much going on at Ralph's House in the last 2-3 months, except for great new back steps and hooks I installed in the laundry room. Not nearly the progress that would be if money and health were normal. Especially money. It's better to be sick when there is enough money to buy basics, let alone get me a lovely new router table with 3hp motor and shaker cabinet door/45 degree joining bits.

So we'll focus on free things for a while. This is the butterfly garden I planted a few months back; now it's nice and overgrown. It has purple Swedish ivy, sweet potato vine, yellow moss roses, a leggy plant with striated leaves and tiny white flowers which the bees love, irises and random marigolds. It hasn't attracted any butterflies, but it has attracted bees, lots of them, where there were few before. Subsequently, we've had lots of tomatoes and bell peppers this winter, 3x more than in the regular growing season. Last week I made tomato sauce with a pound. I think I'll keep this plot around. It makes the vegetable plots and compost look more attractive.

Parsley loves mushroom compost.


The NY Botanical Garden grounds are free on Wednesdays. They say they have 90563 vascular plant specimens. When I went up last week to move my sister to Florida, we visited. How do you make these things in miniature for a tiny corner-yard?
























The bus from LaGuardia passes Demolition Depot, so we got off and looked. $$$.
















Since dreams are also free, this is my dream kitchen sink! I want to acquire one before starting the kitchen cabinets. Here in the south, it's harder to find the salvage you see in the north and midwest. Here, new construction is far more popular and old building salvage gets put in the trash; when you do find stuff like sinks, stoves, doors, it's silly overpriced or in very bad condition, usually from rots, rust and other water damage. As in many towns, lots of early 1900's stuff was torn out in the 60's and 70's, from cabinets and plumbing (my house) to entire Henry Klutho buildings. Currently, Florida is besieged by developers razing swamp ecosystems, farmland and trailer parks, and the Jacksonville City Council seems pretty susceptible to their needs in the name of slick progress, similarly to what happened here in the 60's. Without the internet and vigilant citizens' groups, much of the historical buildings that give downtown Jacksonville its character might have been razed in the name of building a glossy new downtown. I think true progress and revitalization in a city involves embracing history, rather than just building 10 new highrise riverfront condo structures to bring in the winter tourists.

Anyway, in looking for this sink on ebay, as I've been doing for 7 months now, all listings have been in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Michigan and the like. I kick myself every time I see a listing in upstate New York, where we used to live. If only I'd been psychic!

O-o-oh who are the people in your neighborhood?

Speaking of creepy residents, a few weeks ago I was a block away (thankfully in my car) approaching a left turn in front of the train tracks. A hefty man with lots of jewelry crossed to the left, and walking 15 feet behind him was a tall, inconspicuously-dressed guy. He crossed very slowly in front of my car as I stopped for the turn, all the while looking at my car. I thought, "maybe he has my car, too!" because I always stare at my car when I see versions of it around town. But then, he paused at the left curb and turned to face me, then followed my face as my car made the left turn. Then he picked up where he left off, walking behind the first guy as they approached a convenience store. Weird! I made up several possible stories for them. Man and bodyguard? Stalker?

A block in the other direction is a main street in the neighborhod, though only two lanes wide. Many afternoons there are two girls standing on the corner, usually smiling and talking, while two guys stand across the street, looking more somber. Hooking? Easier done in pairs?

One morning soon after we moved in, I was getting in my car and saw a young guy, about 14-15 years old, on the street after our pocket park. He wore a dark hoodie, with the hood pulled up. I changed my route to drive past him, and he didn't hide the fact that he was looking in windows. I drove down to the main intersection for our neighborhood, waited for Amtrak from Miami to pass and made a right to circle back onto my street. Sure enough, the guy was standing at the end of what we'll call my driveway, looking into my backyard. I pulled up 4 feet from him, got out of my car, and went inside. He pretended not to see me and slowly ambled on down the road, eating cheese puffs.

We live a block down from a very poor "home". It has a tall chain link fence and the group of hundred-year-old houses are peeling but the grass is always mowed. In afternoons its gate is left open and people, mostly men, wander out, down our street. There is one man, who likes to stroll down the street, right up to where people are working in their yard, or walking their dog, and he immediately turns around and walks the other direction. A younger man about my age walks around the neighborhood yelling "WHAT!" There is also a couple who likes to lay in the park or right outside the home's fence, and make out.

So there, stories of people from the neighborhood. A cop lives three houses down from us, and I carry a cell phone, so I feel reasonably safe, but for months our ditzy new next-door renting neighbors let their pre-school son run loose. I caught up with him once down by the train tracks and talked him back with the promise of petting the fluffy kitty on our porch. A few minutes later, his father roared up in his car at the corner and yelled "git in the car!" to this kid, a mentally disabled 5-year old. I think the family found a lock for their door, thankfully. I debated calling child services but figured this newly-formed family of 7 had enough to worry about. The father is military, too and I'm sure the intrusion wouldn't have been nice at all, but maybe not as bad as losing his fiance's child. I'm glad they worked it out.

It's cat-on-a-post. The fireplace window is her favorite entrance. From there she watches me open the front door and call her, but won't move until I move the plants and vases and open the window above the bookcase. I'd been wondering how she got up there. Guess I can't cut off the excess post now.

Railing

Our house is plain on the outside; all the brickwork and original stucco is hidden under the 70's stucco, and most of its limited period woodwork was removed with the installation of new electrical service and also when the stucco was put on and porch rebuilt. A passing neighbor commenting on the improved state of the yard even mistook her 1940s house as older than mine. We look like more like a run-down house rather than the more charming run-down bungalowesque house. Because of this, I'd like to have a different deck railing, that didn't look so everyday. Not only is it a deck, it's also our back entrance.

I think this Chippendale bench pattern would be nice as a deck railing, but slow to piece. I also wonder that if I made it, it would become convex and net-like, if one leaned against it.

Pockets of trellis squares framed into the railing?



The eventual pergola will give it some character too, but it won't be visible from the street.