Cooking with Fire

Now we're cooking with fire. There is something primal about preparing your food over an open flame. The wood cook stove is the somewhat modern equivalent of an open fire for cooking in your house. The previous owners of the Little Blue House said that they used the cook stove up until their last stay in the house, over 3 years ago.

As I've said in a previous post, these stoves were manufactured in the late 1800s by the Tinnerman Steel Range Company in Cleveland, Ohio. Check out the turn-of-the-century advertisement for the range below:

Our cook stove needed a new gasket, and a good cleaning. Also, the chimney was topped with - you guessed it - a bucket. I got a conical hat for the chimney, to replace the bucket. My dad and I got up there on the roof and installed it atop the chimney. The chimney itself looks to be in really good shape, as it was replaced about 7 years ago with a modern double-walled version.

A Conical Hat for our Chimney

Once we fixed the chimney, I replaced the gasket on the cook stove. See? I cleaned the stove and we lit her up! It was amazing how warm the little house became; my mum was really happy about that. She actually ditched her hat, gloves and puffy vest for a while.

New Gasket on Antique Cook Stove

I cooked part of our dinner that night on this cook stove, which was built in the late 1800s. It needs a little more work, but it is functional. Of the 6 burners atop the stove, 3 are cracked. I imagine that if I look around, I could find new ones to replace those that are broken.

Cooking with Fire

My initial experience with the cook stove was positive, and the next step will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner! I don't know about roasting the turkey in there, but I am definitely going to bake a pumpkin pie. Perhaps I will cook the potatoes and other veggies on the ancient stove, too. I will let you know how that goes. At least we will be warm!

Autumn Impressions

Fall is my favourite season, anywhere. In this small town, where we found our little Victorian home, it is perhaps even more calming. The leaves grab your attention; they seem to say, "Look at me! This is it; I will not be this beautiful again. Soon I will dry up, fall to the ground, and be covered with snow." It is a time of decay, but it is also the start of regrowth.

A View from Town

Autumn Fireweed

Sneak Peek at Our LBH and Workshop

Aspen and Sky

Burning Leaves

Playing with My Level

Does this house look level to you? It isn't, and of course you know this already because you've been reading my blog for a little while, perhaps? If you didn't know this, look at the photos below! Behold our crooked Little Blue House. Being that it was built in 1898, during the big Gold Rush, and being that the house was moved 7 km to its present location, the fact that it is not level should not come as a surprise. Please read previous posts for the story of this house, although the story isn't over yet. :)

The House is Settling In

Okay, we promised ourselves that we would focus on restoring this house from the bottom-up. We actually had a peek underneath the house - specifically, my husband had a peek - and it is not too tragic. We think that it can be repaired, with some work. Those crawl-space photos will follow in a future post.

I went round the house with my little level, just for fun, to see how bad it really is.

Table in Parlour

Here is the table top in the parlour, where the level sat for a little while recently, telling me that the house was all crooked. Look at that! One notices while standing in the LBH that one has one knee bent, and the other leg straight, in order to maintain a somewhat normal standing position! My mother commented recently, "This house makes me a bit dizzy."

Level Resting on Window Frame

The level hung out for a bit on a window frame in the 5-sided bay window room. It looked out at the neighbor's house and said, "What does it feel like to stand up straight?"

The house is slumping towards the street; the house sits on a sloping property, and it's just settling in because it is comfortable there. I think we shall give it a wee lift, gently, so as not to hurt it. A local builder, the fellow who built the extension on the back of the LBH 20 years ago, said we probably should not level it perfectly. If we do so, it may hurt the structure of the house, and will likely damage the roof also.

So I think that this work will be like a face lift on an aging woman. It must be done with care, it must be done by qualified people, it must be done right, it will cost money, and if we screw it up, we will end up with the house equivalent of Cat Lady.

Fringe Lamp

I am putting the cart before the horse, when I find things for the inside of the LBH... We know that we should restore the house from the bottom-up, outside-in... and we will. But we need light to read, don't we? I am not going to go overboard with stuff for the inside of the house, like furniture and light fixtures. Really, I'm not. We must get the back-breaking, labour-intensive, expensive and unglamorous aspect of the house done first. More to follow on that subject in a future post, soon!

There was a lamp that came with the house. It was green and faux-brass. Very 90s. It looked okay. Sort of. However, I was recently in Edmonton, Alberta. There are some amazing antique stores there. Look what I found for less than $100!

Lamp with Beaded Fringe, circa 1920

This lamp has what I call "tattered elegance." It has character! It's solid wood, with a silk shade. The shade is coming apart slightly in a couple of spots. The shade has a silk flower sewn onto one panel, as you can see above, and it is trimmed with a fringe of tiny glass beads. We told the kids, "This is a Looking-At Lamp, not a Touching Lamp."

I found it at the Old Strathcona Antique Mall in Edmonton, Alberta. Check out the mall's website at:

http://www.oldstrathconamall.com

A Reading Nook

I just want to curl up in the chair, next to the warm and inviting light of this somewhat tattered but beautiful lamp, and read something written by Charles Dickens. The house may be crooked, and perhaps it's falling down, but I know we will get to that eventually. For now, let there be light! 

The Girls' Cabins

Beyond Repair

A little while ago, I mentioned that our Little Blue House was a brothel. There are two cabins on our property, where the girls would take their customers. One of the cabins is falling down. Here is a side view. It's beyond all hope, I'm afraid.

Daybreak

Autumn is my favourite season. I love how the fireweed turns yellow, then red, and finally becomes a deep purple.

To Restore or Not Restore?

Should we restore this little cabin? We showed the interior to a friend of ours recently, and he thought that if it remained dry over the winter, that a restoration might be worthwhile. However, there was a heavy rain last weekend, and there were some damp spots on the underside of the roof. My dad looked at it and said, "I don't know if I agree with your plans on this one..."

Does this look like a place where you would like to stay?

Tin roof

It doesn't look so bad for a 100-or-so-year-old roof, does it?

Side View

It even has windows, see?!

Well, I guess we have lots of time to think about what to do with this cabin. For now, it's a good place to store firewood. Oh, and the mice are happy to stay there, too. As long as they keep out of the LBH, I will be glad. 

Saturday Afternoon Entertainment

We have no laundry facilities in the LBH, of course. The washtub and washboard I found in the house are the Victorian equivalent of the washing machine.

For our children, a visit to the town's laundromat proved to be both functional and entertaining.

Chimney Woes

Economy No 21 Wood Stove

See the wood stove in the photo? (My dad was drinking the beer you see there, as he was sitting nearby.) We are presently using the wood stove as an ornament. This is because it looks dodgy. The chimney in particular is suspect, mostly due to the rust, but also because it has two 90-degree turns before it arrives at the ceiling. The wood stove itself has loads of character; I believe it says, "Economy No. 21."

I found the circa 1910 kerosene lamp, pictured in the foreground, at an antique mall in Leduc, Alberta. It casts a beautiful light, but the fumes may take some getting used to.

Water Leaks

Previous Damage

The photos above show the chimney, where it enters the attic. I cannot imagine the nastiness that we will discover once we are brave enough to explore that area of the Little Blue House. We were able to witness water leaking from the ceiling, in the vicinity of the chimney, during a recent stay in the LBH. There was a big rainstorm, and water was dripping both from the chimney itself (where you can see the rusty area and wet part near the elbow) and from the ceiling (at the lower edge of the tin panel on the ceiling).

We placed a bucket underneath the leak, and decided that the chimney should be removed. I think we should find a professional to remove the outside portion of the chimney and to repair the roof in that spot. Then we can remove the inside part of the chimney ourselves... Maybe? Sledgehammer? Saw? I think that will be messy. Sooner or later, it must happen.

What should we do with the wood stove? Should we:

a) leave it in its current location, as an ornament, or
b) put a new chimney in, and use the wood stove in its current location, or
c) remove the wood stove altogether?

Chimney from Woodstove

Here is the chimney as seen from outside. Like the bucket? We've seen houses with buckets on chimneys all over town! I guess we will take the chimney out and fix up the resulting hole in the roof. I think it may be wise to do this before winter hits. Our youngest child wants the bucket.

The other chimney, the one for the cookstove, is in much better shape! It is quite new, and was installed when the metal roof was put on the house about 6 or 7 years ago. I will talk more about the cookstove in a future post.

What would an old house be without water dripping from the ceiling into a bucket? An impostor!