The doorbell that's original to the house has never worked. I bought a wireless one at Home Depot when I moved in and called it good. This summer our electrician was futzing with the original unit while he waited for me to pick up supplies and he actually got it working for about five minutes. You guys, it makes the most beautiful sound.
He lost the thread somehow because it stopped working and we chased him up into the attic so he could finish the electrical upgrade there. I plan on having him come out again sometime when I have money to burn so he can get it working.
I was thinking about crawling into bed with my seed catalogs this weekend but then I decided I should try and strip the paint from the doorbell cover. No idea why! Then I ate a bunch of pasta. It was actually a pretty good night.
Under three layers of paint (white on top of red on top of tan) there were brass musical notes and a gunmetal case. I had to spend a good hour with steel wool and a bottle of Brasso to get it looking like this; it could use a few more hours of elbow grease still. Citristrip and plastic wrap removed the paint with almost no effort, which makes me wonder what else in the house might be worth stripping.
I should just strip Greg. He certainly smells better than Citristrip and he'd probably make me some pasta afterward. Priorities, I have them.
I hope you had a marvelous holiday season and that your new year smells better than mine.
The old door bell looks magnificent! Well done. I am very glad to see December's behind receding into the distance. I'm in the same sort of ambivalent mood.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I thought about you a lot during the month of December--I think we have a lot of similar feelings during that time.
ReplyDeleteThat looks AWESOME!
ReplyDeleteThanks, girl. So does YOUR BED! :)
ReplyDeleteThe brass and metal decoration is just beautiful. And it was right there all along. There is no comparison between modern doorbell bleeps and the melody tones of an old, brass-decorated door chime. I hope you get it working again!
ReplyDeleteThat doorbell is gorgeous! Seriously, I adore it.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteI hope so too. Our cheap HD one plays the Big Ben song and it's so embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteIncredible doorbell! I've seen those painted before and thought they must be plastic underneath. Yowsa! You have quite a future as a stripper! Had pasta for dinner and thought of you.
ReplyDeleteClearly, pasta is good for you!
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of idiot would paint that? Good call on your part.
ReplyDelete(And I thought you'd have already stripped Greg by now)
I love how it looks now...it's crazy to think someone painted over it...then again, at some point, it seems people went crazy and painted absolutely everything that didn't move.
ReplyDeleteBuying lucite heels in preparation . . . oh wait, not that kind of stripper.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I think! :)
ReplyDeleteHe keeps putting his clothes back on! As if he's here for anything other than decoration. ;)
ReplyDeleteIt was probably the same person that glued astroturf to our kitchen stairs.
ReplyDeleteAll this speculation about who would have done such a thing. Well, let me tell you something: their spawn must have been hired to paint the stripes on our street. They look pretty crisp right now, but they painted right over leaves and loose gravel and pine needles so it will soon be as if they had never done it at all.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, that's hilarious. Painting is all in the preparation.
ReplyDeleteHere by way of the Houzz feature... Love what I'm seeing!
ReplyDeleteOur old doorbell case is plastic so color me envious :) Ours has 5 chimes, whose order I've changed around for my amusement. Gotta figure out hot to program new patterns (a Metallica tune? James Brown?).
The metal colors all tie in quite nicely to your paint colors too!
We just bought our first home here in Rose City. Similarly tore out the arbor vitae and am plotting my first garden (joy!).
Cheers!
Thanks for stopping by! If you could program Crazy Train by Ozzy I'd be eternally jealous. Did you find any malt liquor bottles in your arbor vitae? We found a shocking numbers hidden away in ours. Must've been the squirrels . . . :)
ReplyDeleteLaughing... You must have just been at the same music recital as us?! Ozzy is still kick in it with the beginning musician set.
ReplyDeleteOur take down went well... Kept thinking we'd be attacked by squirrels. And it's always nice when the neighbors introduce themselves during the act to say how happy they are to see the arbor v go. Whew!