House 173

With just two more weeks of school left I'm incredibly itchy to get going on things here at 173.  I look around and see so many things to do, but with papers due all the time, there's simply no sense in getting started on anything yet.  But there were a couple yard things to do today so I took a few minutes to photograph a couple things in bloom.


First was the forsythia.  It's funny - every year no matter what date Easter is, the forsythia blooms either right before or on Easter day!  This year the forsythia came into full bloom just a couple days before - always a beautiful and welcome sight!

And of course it's fun to watch the Cleveland Pear Tree that was planted back in 2013 continue to grow.  As a reminder, here is how I brought that tree home:

And here it is, barely more than a twig back then:

Now, here in the spring of '19:

Spring is my favorite time of the year for the Cleveland Pear.  In the summer it's a nice green tree, in the fall the leaves stay on…

Clearly I don't have any projects happening here at House 173 right now.  I have three more weeks of class then I can get moving on this summer's projects.  The two I really have my eye on are getting a few more windows re-finished, and there are a few fence panels that need replacing around the back yard.  I'm itching to get going!  In the meantime, I thought I'd get a good start on Nephew's Das Beisler Haus page, starting with the Inaugural Post last night, and a neat little post tonight.  
Way back in 2012 I posted about what some of the public records revealed about House 173, and tonight I have some pretty cool documents about Das Beisler Haus!  Nephew sent some shots of the original house plans from 1949, exciting stuff for nerds like me!

I love the old German font, and would you look at the handwriting!  Hey, if anyone out there knows anything about Georg Michael Mohr from Leutershasen, please let me know.  Herr Mohr was a maurermeister, in English - a mast…

So, this is a great honor!  Much like my parents at 812-The Home, our nephew (whom we will continue to call nephew) in Germany has given permission to post some of his house projects right here on House 173 and will have its own Das Beisler Haus page for archived posts!  I've already seen a few of his projects through pictures on WhatsApp and I gotta tell ya - he does incredible work!  

That picture is from some time in the late '90s I think, when we did the first build on the front stoop.  Nephew is the kid leaning - the one with his hat on backwards...generational thing I guess.  His father is in orange and that's yours truly wearing his hat in the proper fashion!  Anyway, Nephew and his wife (and I didn't know about the baby - I gotta ask!) have this great house in Bavaria...


And just wait 'til you see the yard...why wait?

I know - right?!  That look more like one of our parks near House 173!  I see that and all I can think of is a riding mower with headlights …

Way back in 2011 (it's painful to think that was 8 years ago already), just after the back porch remodel, I built an umbrella stand for the back porch.  After struggling with the design, it ended up turning out okay -


As a matter-of-fact the umbrella post has consistently been the most viewed post here at House 173, and that's always been a head-scratcher for me!

But there ya have it.  Probably within a week or two of finishing the umbrella stand, I was looking around the shop and noticed a stack of old hardwood bed slats that had been laying around for a couple years waiting for inspiration.  Somehow, when I saw those boards I immediately knew what I wanted to do and where it would go.  This was another one of those projects I didn't draw plans for, but I just measured the space on the back porch where I wanted it and set to work.

That picture was about the middle of the remodel, but the space in the lower right next to the outside door is where I pictured the rack going…

Sometimes I post old projects just for posterity - this is one of those posts so please bear with me.  When we first bought 173 back in '97, one of the first things we did was paint the kitchen, of course it really needed much more than that but back then there just wasn't the money.  But I had gotten a Craftsman router and I was dying to use it.

And when we moved in we inherited a small collection of old metal shelf brackets.  So I chose these two...

And because the kitchen table is hunter green...

After sanding the daylights out of those old brackets, I used the old Krylon...

 to paint them hunter green to match the table...

Then came the fun part!  Mind you, not only was this the first time using my router, it was my first time using any router!  When I was a kid I watched my dad use a router tons of times, but you know how it is - when you're a kid you don't pay much attention - mind caught up in thinking about the other kids at the school playground, wondering wha…