A True Luxious Love Story - A Hallowe'en Tale of Mystery & Suspense.

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Yes Deb, it does have a West Side Story flavor.

So I suppose I can think of the new rack as a fire escape on a brownstone. :-)

Played around with photo merging software on 3 pan shots to give an idea how much floorspace is available for more vacs. Or not.

There are still more cylinders around here to comfortably cram 5 per shelf but I'll stick with this arrangement for now and work on the upstairs unit, respaceing the shleves for the Filter Queen type drum canisters and hand vacs.

Hoses on Parade is a whole different storage & display project but I got me some ideas to hang 'em vertical up the walls.

btw, those stains are from an old brick chimney leak 15 years ago.

When I bought the house I researched all the owners and tenants and their occupations. Besides the statistic that half of them were bachelors, from 1957 to 1959 one Norman Snyder lived here and worked for Electrolux Canada Ltd. and sold them out of this house, presumably door to door. I like to think he is the approving spirit watching over this place.

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Painted the house last year.

This is how it looked a year ago around hallowe'en; the original thickly molded doors & storm windows have since been finished.
It doesn't show but I mow my lawn in diagonal stripes toward the fence.

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But where's the second floor?

This is the result of two major structural renovations I designed, engineered and directed 15 years ago. The entire attic was unfinished space with no floor, just fibreglas batts between the floor rafters - amazing it stayed untouched til I moved in. Found all the original storm windows up there and had those awful alluminmm storms & phoney plastic shutters torn off within days. :-)

You can just make out the second floor balcony deck and raised half roof, over the neighbor's blue car. The bedroom space is 25' by 16' along the wall of windows & doors to the balcony while the main attic space is a 35' square 3 sided pyramid with a 12 foot peak. A much roomier house than it first appears.

Photo taken Hallowe'en 2006.

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Ah yes Dave, I do notice I only see the orbs (mostly ;p) in pictures where Electroluxes are present ;p and even then only ones of a certain age.. ;]
 
What a pretty house! It doesn't look a thing like I thought, I thought if would look like the house on the left in the first picture. I think it's kind of sad nobody lived in it for more than two or three years at a time, or so it would seem. I know the original family that lived in our house. I am one of them!
 
What's that blue mist in the picture cleaners on the shelves? :P looks like the outline of a person
 
I see lotsa fun stuff in your house...a model plane, a herculean sized gold diamond ring on the wall, little plastic dolls... LOL
 
That's an easy one, Ian; it's flash bounce off my finger on the second photo. The second seam passes through the green Air-Way 77s. This is a merged image of 3 photos, simulating a wide angle lense...to take in the 'vast breadth' of the 12 foot wide room through a standard doorway at a distance of 10 feet. LOL

Yes pete, one of my Dad's balsa wood models saved from the basement when Mom was cleaning out his stuff. Altogether I brought home 14, from biplanes to the Concord. a few are already hanging from the attic ceiling. The carved & gilded wood ring used to hang outside a Jeweler here in town. For years my hallowe'en get up was Frodo. On the dusty organ is the electric flashlight collection and up top you may be seeing the Dancing Baby animated doll from Ally McBeal...found in a bin of 'children's toys' at a church bazarre sale! The silicone rubbery baby twists and dances while "I'm Stuck On A Feeling" plays.
The Owl, The Ferret and The Mouse, well that's another story of peaceful co-existance in the land of Taxidermy.
 
A better view of the back corner renovation of the house. I have no back yard, as such. More of a 5 foot wide Patio Imaginaire between the fence and the garage...

Thus, the idea to raise the half roof increasing living space and the east facing wall of windows with a view into the backyard trees and a blast of Dawn in my face some mornings. :-)

I took care to compliment the 1895 archtecture while injecting some sympathetic Arts & Crafts/Mission elements. Another feature - the house is entirely framed in Chestnut timber from the Chestnut Blight of the 1880s...saved every 10 x 2 roof beam and 2 x 4 wall stud from the reno, stacked in the basement hopefully to be turned one day into Frank Lloyd Wright furniture.

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Dave,

Your house is absolutely charming! Not at all what I expected. It looks like a small cottage from the front, then go around the back, and plenty of space upstairs! You have done a very thoughtful renovation, it blends well with the rest of the house. I love the balcony and all those windows...must make for a breathtaking morning. I would love to see even more photos of the interior.

Your vacuum shelf looks great! It is really making me interested in getting one myself. I have a garage here with a finished upstairs (actually 2 nice size rooms with hardwood floors and plenty of windows). I would have to set it up out there. I am reluctant at the moment to move my vacuums out of the "main house, " as I like having them at the ready.

Lastly, I loved trying to figure out what everything was in the vacuum den. I think I saw a bottle of Heinz Ketchup on the organ.
 
Excellent vision - you really are ELECTROGIRL!!!

Gosh, I had a hard time spotting the kethcup bottle myself and I know where it is among the various brass, nickle plate, chrome & plastic Flashlight collection. LOL

And in fact it is Heinz 57 flashlight, labeled like the real thing and molded in convincing ketchup coloured plastic. Unscrew the bottom to change the bulb and batteries, turn the cap to light it up. The date code leads me to believe it was made in 1962...and yes, it works.

Got busy on the upstairs vac rack last night...

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I forgot to ask...

Hi Dave,

There appears to be a note in the second to last window on the side of the house where the blue car is parked. Inquiring minds want to know, "What does it say?"
 
Try this again...

Upstairs rack is 3 feet wide limiting options. Still sorting out the lower shelf spacing.

The sign says:

"Please do not pile snow against the wall or garage. Feel free to use my front yard or your own. Thank You."

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To expand on the sign...

The area between the 2 houses is a Right Of Way as noted on the property survey, not a Driveway. The house next door has been a rental since 1990. At that time was neccesary to take legal action against the new owner & his tenant, who disputed this in all his 6'4" redneck boneheaded wife beating way (yes, his wife once pounded on my door at 3AM to call the police on him...sigh). I have a letter from the former owner, Mrs Olive Sinclair, whose father built the house in 1925 (in what was left of my house's original 1/4 acre backyard), in which she lived until her death in 1989. She states that the right of way was paved over for water drainage in 1965 when the well in her backyard was covered over, she had not had a car since 1974 and when her late husband did, it was parked in the back yard. Thus my lawyer was able to establish in perpetuaty that responsibilty for snow clearing fell to the tenant/owner should they wish to use the ROW as a driveway, with my permission.

The problem is not with natural snowfall building up in an unused ROW; it is when snow is piled up against the foundations that spring melt floods their basement to 4" and makes mine merely a little humid.

Stratford regularly experiences 12 hour snowfalls of up to 4 feet like Winnipeg, Milwaukee, Buffalo or Syracuse. I have my hands full snowblowing the west side of my house to the corner fencepost. I pride myself on keeping my ashphalt driveway and sidewalks bare throughout the winter months and put the neighborhood husbands to shame, as the wives tell me. :-)

The subsequent house owner/landlord has no problem with this legal definition but two winter's ago, Dear Betty's son chose to ignore it and she was not pleased with him and the ensuing Roto-Router bill. :-) Thus, the sign.

Imagine coming home to this at dusk after being away 3 weeks. This fell in one 24 hopur period and the cat sitter/mail bringer inner simply couldn't cope. :-)

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This all becomes timely and relevant in that the house next door went back on the market a month ago after 17 years of calm and Dear Betty and her son moved out this past weekend. So I'll be making that friendly reminder call to the Real Estate agency this week.

If I had the means to buy it myself I would...rent it out for a few years then tear it down to the foundations and build a two story high Music Room Annex. Nice dream, ain't gonna happen. :-(

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Way way way off thread. I'm going upstairs to organize the vac rack...

Incidently, today, Sunday, was the final matinee of Oklahoma and closing of the Stratford Festival Theater 2006 Season. I am now on paid vacation for the next 9-10 weeks...DANG!

My buddy in Butler Pennsylvania, who has 8 eBay vacs in his barn awaiting pickup, leaves for Germany on Monday until Thanksgiving. :-( after which I'll be picking them up.

Yet, North Canton, The Hoover Historical Center and the southern shore of Lake Erie from New York to Michigan beckons...and I'm also booked in Syracuse NY the weekend of Dec 7.

So, roadtrips pending...:-)
 

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