kitchen register

Once upon a time I tried finding a replacement for the kitchen heat register. I knew I needed a register for a 10x12 opening, The original replacement I got off ebay went towards the project house when I realized the dimensions were for the outside frame and would never work. So I was stuck with the ugly air return vent pictured above. To tame the amount of airflow I resorted to partially taping the vent. It was a temporary solution until I got off my keester and got a true replacement. Upon my wife's insistence, I finally got a replacement solution off ebay. This one had the correct dimensions so I proceeded to clean up the old duct and spray paint it with some high heat gray paint.

After some tedious cleaning and painting of the new heat register, we installed it and it looks like it's always been there. I'm thinking about continuing the momentum and painting the kitchen too -- it's down the priority list but I think it'll make this room feel so much nicer.

house numbers

So after deciding to rip open the porch beam to get to the bottom of the sagging issue, the house numbers came down as well. They initially looked fairly unremarkable, until we noticed bits of copper shining through the paint. A hardware boil and cleanup session later and we had some sweet looking copper house numbers, which as far as we know, are original.

Before:

After:

register resurrection

A while back you may remember I introduced some of my old heat registers. They're original to the house and while in fair condition, definitely need to be restored. I got a replacement register for the dining room, but the other two had a few issues that needed ironing out. A crack here, a missing piece there -- luckily I was able to find a good welder to help me put these back into working order. In the interest of getting this information out there for other old house nuts in the EP area, Master's Welding hooked me up.

You might notice a beefy register in the top left photo -- that's my new kitchen register. There's a long story that goes with that so I'll save it for next time. Check those sweet welds!

swanky curtain rods

One of the original reasons for fixing up the windows in this room is so I could finally put up some worthy curtain rods. As you can see in the pic above, come afternoon sun this room can really heat up. In summertime it becomes a blazing inferno. Thus the need to diffuse the light coming into the dining room. You can't see it here, but we actually put up a faux stained glass sheet over the big middle window. This helped bring down temperatures in this room big time. But there was always a need to put up some curtains over these windows both from a heat control standpoint and for privacy. Since these are in the back of the house, I guess heat control won out.. It's been five years that we've lived in this house and we still don't have curtains up downstairs -- these will be the first. I still have the other set of windows in the dining room to overhaul before dressing them up. Then we can finally go for the ones in the living room.

Ok enough with the backstory. I've had my eye on this set of curtain rods since we bought the place. We actually have a pair of the same style in the upstairs bedrooms with a nice oil rubbed bronze finish. I always wanted brass for the formal rooms though. As you can see they are a nice and shiny brass, which I'm not really a fan of. However these are unlacquered so over time will patina to a nice aged brass and match the rest of the brass hardware downstairs. They are nice and beefy though and are pretty heavy. Hopefully a future owner doesn't think they need to toss them as they were somewhat pricey. In fact, my wife has taken to calling them the $XXX curtain rods. I won't divulge how much they cost, but they weren't cheap. Let's leave it at that.

Something else that left a bad taste in my mouth is rejuvenation kept getting my order wrong. I ordered these way back in july and only now do I have the complete set I ordered. I know, I know.. The first time I got one mismatched set of finials. The second time I got my brass finials except they were lacquered. Third time's the charm I guess, as I now finally have all hardware in unlacquered brass. I wasn't too happy about that, but dammit I wanted these rods. It's taken forever, but I am finally content with my dining room windows. Helps give me a little motivation that I can actually finish a project and am not completely crazy refinishing all this wood..

the new hotness

It's no exaggeration, I've been looking for this register for the better part of four years. After buying the house, I scoured ebay and antique stores for the first year. I was bombarded with tons of cool old hardware, but I could never find what I was looking for. After a while I became disgruntled and forgot ebay even existed. My hopes were dashed and it would seem I'd never find that missing piece of hardware to complete this register. A few months ago my interest in ebay was rekindled and I browsed the hardware section every once in a while out of curiosity. I never expected to see this beautiful auer heat register, but there it was. The clouds opened up and a bright light came down from the sky. I distinctly remember hearing the voices of angels. I always thought to myself that if I ever did see it I would spare no expense to get my hands on it. Well, I wasn't going to spend $300 on it -- but the deal I got on it was way better than that. I couldn't resist.

The plan was originally to canibalize the new register for the faceplate that was missing. This thing just looks too nice though. Once I restore the original I may fall back to that plan, but for now it will inject some much needed eye candy in the dining room. I think these are cast iron but they do have a sort of copper planted finish on them. I love these registers. Here's a closeup of the manufacturer's mark. It says "The Auer Register Co. Cleveland O.".

Drool..

old heat registers

One thing I've been blessed with in this house, is much of the original hardware is still intact. Door and window hardware is 95% complete. The heat registers are all there too, save for the one in the kitchen. I'm still hunting one down to put in there. But probably the most important pieces are these fancy cast iron heat registers. I've seen several homes around here with this exact model -- must have been popular in the 1910s - 1920s. The Auer heat register was apparently made in Cleveland, OH but I don't know much more about them then that. If anyone could pass along any info it'd be most appreciated.

The formal rooms in this house have one of these registers each. They're in fair condition -- some surface rust, a crack here or there but nothing too major. At some point in the future I plan to pull them out and give them a proper restoration. This is the register in the foyer:

The register in the living room:

And this is the register in the dining room. We're obviously missing the face plate the door hinges on, so the door is pretty much stuck open all the time. The thermostat is just on the other side of this wall behind the swinging door and so I'd like to be able to control the airflow out of this one a little better. More of the story to come tomorrow..