lyndale renovation 2015 & 2016
sheetrock & time capsule

The kitchen's northeast corner —
Now the insulation is complete, and sheetrock is going up! Pictured here is the last spot to
be covered with sheetrock. Val and I have something special in mind for this area.

I tacked a board between the old studs in the walls, attached an alligator clip, and from the clip I've
hung a copy of Scott's architectural plans. The plans include a bunch of Edgar's hand notations.

We've gathered small time-capsule items and photographed them on a handy scrap of sheetrock —
- a sweet little poppy from the garden
- bourbon and beer caps representing so many social occassions in this home
- a pen swiped from Fresh Wok, our neighborhood Chinese take-out place which has fed us more times than we could count
- a Human Rights Campaigh sticker, ubiquitous on the Volvos and Subarus in the neighborhood, captures the spirit of the times
- our business cards represent many years of earning our living out of the home
- a bike-tire patch is always a good addition to any kit and so too is a good skipping stone (carefully selected from a beach on Lake Superior)
- finally, a Charles de Gaulle medallion represents our love of travel, particularly to France

More clips hold a zip-lock which contains the time capsule items in a gold box.

Two folders are also in the ziplock. One contains a fabulous collection of documents assembled by our friend Aaron Rubenstein.
Aaron is an architectural preservationist and he has the hookup for all sorts of information on Minneapolis and St. Paul buildings.
He provided us with building permits for our house from 1905! He also unearthed permits and inspection reports from the early
1900's to the late eighties.

A second folder contains an equally fabulous collection of photos that Val assembled and captioned perfectly. From these photos
and Val's text, a future reader could really understand how much fun, happiness and love has played out in this house. Here's the
file which was used to print the photos: Val's multi-page PDF

We did find a few artifacts in the walls during our demo including this old book.

It's a elementary spelling book. The most recent printing is 1880!

The really curious thing about this book is that it was found open to page 140 where there is an illustration and a paragarph about squirrels. The adjacent pages seemed to have been gnawed (in a squirrel-like manner?). Were literate, turn-of-the-century squirrels trying to send us a message?

February 3, 2016 —
We've been hit with another snow storm and MInneapolis has declared a snow emergency. This means that parking is restricted in order to
clear the streets for plowing. Val and I have two cars on the streets while our garage and driveway are unusable (see the pod blocking the
driveway on the left). If you don't get your car moved to a sanctioned side of the street, you risk getting a spendy ticket and even spendier
tow. It is a miserable rite of passage in Minneapolis and it looks like this: click here

A snow storm is also a sentence of hard labor for me. I hand shovel the entire strip of the southside walk (picture) and a lot more, since the
front walk, the north walk and the walks to the front and back doors are cleared as well. Sometimes I benefit from the kindness and snowblower
prowess of my neighbor CJ, but not on this storm. For this neighborly gesture, CJ has been compensated in whiskey (not necessary, but welcomed).
He then goes about sharing his whiskey generously with me. Win win, I'd say!

The north side of the house —
My attempt to chronicle the change in the kitchen's north window is hampered by cold, snow and darkness. Still, visible on the stucco wall is a chunk of plywood where a window used to be. Twice now, when modifying windows, the weather has gotten all Minnesotan on us.

The secret garden —
Under normal conditions, this is a delightful spot. Now, however, is a utilitarian storage area for the old kitchen cabinets. I don't yet know exactly what I'll do with these cabinets, but the basement and garage come to mind. To see the secret garden under better conditions, click here.

How foolish of me to whine about towing and shoveling. I should be more like Val who viewed the storm differently.
Check out her photo of Kenwood park. Just west of this park is the dense uptown neighborhood, and the heart
of downtown is maybe ten minutes away by bike. Such serenity in the heart of the city!