Merry Christmas

Life is a compromise

Some of you may recall how excited I was with the linoleum floor in the kitchen:

Cherokee Red floor in the kitchen

Nice!

But not original. These floors, and indeed that whole kitchen was put in during the 1960s, by Taliesin Associated Architects (TAA) and if you look closely, what you really see is a Usonian kitchen. (Check it out below. I can wait)

Here's a glimpse if you don't want to click through:

 

What you see is flat fronts, Cherokee Red floors (usually concrete, not linoleum) round cabinet pulls, and simple wood fronts.

Now, if you recall, this house is definitely NOT a Usonian house. And that is really OK. We don't want to make it something that it is not. 

And you may also recall that I mentioned that we have the original cabinets in the basement (worse for wear):

and that the Butler's Pantry is also original to the house, though the doors are a bit warped:

Which is a long way of explaining that because we are now keeping the original subway tile (after discovering a good sweep of original tile in great shape) we will now NOT be replacing the Cherokee Red linoleum floor with another linoleum floor (Berlin Red, it's called now)

The missing tile was harvested for other use. This is a wall that was hidden for 60 years

The harvested tile

I'll say that again. The linoleum floor will not be replaced with another linoleum floor. 

But this, also, will be true to the specs. This is from the specification document we saw at the Avery Library at Columbia University:

Floors of the kitchen and bathrooms are to be of ivory-colored vitreous tile, 1" squares 

applied immediately over the foundation and laid level, bedded in 1/2" black cement 

mortar with joints not wider than 1/16" of an inch. The base is to be of the same tile, 6" high, 

set with the wall cement and external corners and returns at door openings, set with the 

face flush with the plaster work of walls

We won't be using 1" squares, but rather 1" hex tiles.

To give you an idea of what that will look like, here is an old photo from the floor of the Robie House in Chicago:

And to bring you up to date even further, here is a photo of my niece's new house outside of De Pere, WI:

Fantastic! We hope to do something like that.

So, good-bye linoleum, hello tile!

Why Milwaukee?

Sometimes people ask me, "Why Milwaukee?"

That is a complicated question with many facets to the answer. Family, the neighborhood, access to services, and... 

Weather.

Here is a chart for the actual high and low temperatures for Houston and Milwaukee this month.

You can draw your own conclusions. 

(The vertical line is the date we arrived in Houston. Data is from the Weather Underground, Charted via Microsoft Co-Pilot)

Interesting little tid-bits

 I am not sure if mentioned that the House had an "Ice Door" that opened directly into the kitchen Ice Box from the back door.

You can see it here:

Well,  you can also see it in the wall, once we take off the plaster:

That is the east wall to the kitchen. I am not sure if it is the top gap, or the bottom gap. I am guessing the bottom gap, as it would have been easier from the other side to lift the blocks of ice into the ice box.

The house also had a milk chute, which you can see here:

as well as here:

The dishwasher was set in front of it, and there were motion detector lights set in the door facing the garage.

I don't think that we will rehabilitate that.

The tile harvesting seems to be possible:

Where they were

What it looks like

That is very encouraging.

Back in Houston

 We knew this day would come sooner or later.

Delaying it as long as possible, with a trip to New York and watching a show in Milwaukee ("Come From Away") just meant that we were pushing up to the limits of daylight. And after the switch back to "normal" time, we had to get up earlier, or drive faster.

So we ended up getting up earlier. But in reality, we didn't really come too close to driving in strange cities in the dark.

We left Milwaukee sometime before 9:00 AM on Saturday, November 8th:

It's nice to start on a Saturday, as it gives you more options around Chicago. But we went our usual route anyway.

The last view of the Bogk House before we left Milwaukee

The first stop was the Haze Smokehouse, a BBQ joint in La Salle IL. A dog friendly BBQ joint:

Next stop, St Louis:

Doreen's college buddy who lives in St Louis was otherwise occupied, so we had a night in the Gateway City all to ourselves.

It was cold, but scenic.

The next day, we made our way down to Pocahontas, MO

We've stopped there on almost every trip. There is a nice park on the Black River, and if you are lucky (we were not this time) Green's BBQ will be open (it's by the airport) and you can have a nice picnic. Mr Green once put together a plate of Que for Lulu as well. A dog lover.

One thing I did not realize until this trip (shame on me) is that this park is almost exactly (within a couple of miles) halfway between the Bogk House and the Stevenson House. 

Imagine that!

Then we made it to Little Rock, another great place to stay.

They have a free trolly in Little Rock, that goes between downtown Little Rock and Dog Town (North Little Rock) and you get a history lesson as well. I highly recommend it.

This is the house we stayed in, run by the Baker Hotel:

Our last day was a long day - almost seven hours:

We stopped in Marshall for lunch at a local burger joint called Jucy's. And it was.

Then Houston. Made it in just as dusk was coming on and rush hour was building up.

Look out Houston, they'll be thunder on the hill.

After a while, all rubble looks the same

 Deep into the demo stage.

Not many surprises, and some of them are good. (See previous post. We will be keeping the subway tile in the kitchen)

Primary Bathroom

Primary Bath, floor

Primary Bath

Note the window

Small Guest Bath

Small Guest Bath

Guest Bath

Guest Bath

Still working out a few details about wood selection, floor coverings, and tile selection.

Heading to Houston in a week, new photos will be relying on the contractors.

I won't say anything about the door knob, but maybe later.

Slight change in design?

 This is what we discovered when we torn off the cabinets on the south side of the kitchen:

Don't look at the lath and plaster, look at the tile:

Pristine.

So we are now contemplating saving all the subway tile (which is original to the house) in the kitchen.

Personally, I would love this solution! I think it has a lot of character, even if some of the tile that has been in the open looks a bit, well, "used". 

I prefect the word "character"

(That green stripe is our neighbor's awning)

There is almost NO grout between these tiles! Crazy.

We are zeroing in on a couple of other items, too. The wood type for the upstairs woodwork (Black  Walnut vs Birch)

More later.

Some images

 Northeast corner of the kitchen:

Kitchen table, countertop, coat closet and pantry

No more table, no more cabinet. The soffit is next

Doreen at the table, cabinet along the south wall of the kitchen

Another image of above

South wall of the kitchen. The hole there is where the clothes chute goes

Close-up of the lath and plaster

Kitchen Cabinets. Keep you eye on that little shelf under the cabinets

No more cabinets. But you can still see the shelf

Small radiator in guest bath

Same

I only have a couple of other photos. This is moving pretty fast, and I am sure I will miss some in the meantime.

This is not fun for me.