Poop and Porn

So much has been happening at the house over the last two weeks that it is hard to keep up with it everyday. New rooms are forming on the back of the house. The Kitchen, the Breakfast room, the Gallery, the Powder room, the Master Bedroom and Bathroom, the 3rd story attic space and Bathroom. It is amazing to watch the rooms form and take shape. What was once a vision in our minds and on paper is becoming reality. I now understand the excitement that people feel when they build a house from the ground up. With the addition of each new room there seems to exist what I call the daily panic. Little surprises that catch you off guard and make you question everything you are doing. The Dining Room opening is not centered on the wall due to the placement of new tie-downs for earthquake safety. Oh My God!!! Panic!!! The room is ruined, one wall is longer than the other, and you have to walk 18 inches further to get to the kitchen! Halt all work! So then we spend an hour or so discussing the ups and downs of an asymmetrical Dining Room opening, and all of the options available. Can we move it to the right? can we move it the left? can we make it smaller? can we move the tie down? I vote for walling the whole thing shut just to make the problem go away. But in the end we come to the conclusion that it might not be too bad to have a bit of asymmetry in the Dining Room and we move on. Restart building! The very next day we show up to find an exposed beam running across the new Kitchen opening, visually bisecting it from the Breakfast Room. Oh My God!!! Panic!!! The room is ruined! Stop building! There was such a lovely flow from the Gallery Hall into the Kitchen and on into the Breakfast room. The whole house is destroyed. Forget it all, we don't want to continue, sell the whole damn place. And again we spend an hour or so talking about the pros and cons of the beam, the options, or the lack there of, and come to the conclusion that maybe it's not so bad to have a bit of visual separation and the beam does allow for a nice ending point for cabinets and crown molding. Restart building! My favorite so far was the evening, just a few days ago, when the shape of the new Breakfast room and the new Powder room made their appearance.

I was looking for a picture of a Victorian Toilet

when I came across images of Thomas Crappers 

plumbing creations from the late 1800's. 

I remember the stories of Thomas Crapper from 

my childhood visits to the Seattle Underground

where they claimed to have an original Crapper 

invented by Thomas P. 

The panic set in when it was suggested that perhaps the Powder room was too large and took up space that could be devoted to the Breakfast room.  Over to the house we went with Stewart and Thomas in tow. Phillip, and Thomas both walked through the new space and examined the powder room from this angle and that angle, circled around the area, pretended to maneuver beside the soon to be sink and then sit upon an imaginary toilet. Perching in the position, leaning left, then right, pulling nonexistent toilet paper from a nonexistent toilet paper holder, and finally standing to proclaim the space was sufficient and just fine for pooping. Hmmmm, I always wonder about folks who poop at someone elses home when they are invited over for dinner to begin with... But in case you absolutely must, apparently we have fine space to do it in.

Thomas P Crapper

Tying in new construction to a 140 year old home is not always the easiest and smoothest form of building. But we move onward. More and more of the house is being stripped of its plaster and lathe. The house is practically bear bones, a clean slate from which to create. As the last of the plaster has come down more and more treasure has been unearthed. So far six different stashes tucked under floorboards. Porn! That is all this house has had to offer. Late Sixties and early Seventies porn. You really have to wonder what was going on in this city over the years to have this big, vacant, spooky old house in town full of Men's magazines, and other sorts of adult periodicals...

 

Spanking and... (the cover only) as found under a drawer on the third floor

For a city as small as Healdsburg there are an awful lot of churches in town so perhaps our house was the polar opposite, the local den of iniquity, a place for the Men folk to gather on a Sunday afternoon and do men things, like drink, smoke cee-gars, and look at naked women. I guess we shall never know, but I am thinking perhaps we should take advantage of all the churches and exorcise the house right away to expel all the ghosts of "Dirty Nurses", and "Super Bad Maids", and "Spanking Nannies".