Thursday 14 January 2010

Dwayne Wade's House in Miami, Florida

At 9330 SW 59th Pl, Miami, FL 33156 you will find Miami's favorite baller, Dwayne Wade's House.
The massive home in the Pinecrest, Florida area puts to shame other NBA homes I have seen such as those owned by Shaquille O'Neal and Karl Malone. Like Shaq, Wade personalized his pool and like Malone, Wade went a wee bit crazy with the murals.

From the outside the nearly 12,000-square-foot French-style home seems rather sedate but once inside the six-bedroom home things get a bit Flashtastic. Wade, known as "Flash," has put a "W" inlaid in the marble floor in the entrance hall and the listing includes the furnishings, artwork and some of Mr. Wade's memorabilia. There are rooms in the home, such as the dining room that are rather elegantly decorated, there are also touches like the Spider-man-themed bathrooms and the many, many renderings of Mr. Wade, that make this a home in need of some work. The home is so idiosyncratic that you would really have to be a fan to live here and I wonder if he will have as tough a time selling as Malone did. There is also a one-bedroom guest house, pool and patio with a summer kitchen on the property. The home is listed at $8.9 million. After the jump, a monument to ego.

UPDATE: Wade has struggled to sell the home, reducing the price several times. It is now listed at $4.599 million.







Wednesday 13 January 2010

Rosie O'Donnell's Miami Beach Mansion

43 Star Island Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139, FL 33139 is home to Rosie O'Donnell. Rosie bought the house in 1999 for 6.7 million and it is now worth between 14 and 16 million.

Transformer's Director Michael Bay Bought The Hogan's Old Miami Beach Mansion

Does Michael Bay's Miami Beach Mansion look familiar? Well it should, it was the one that Hogan Knows Best was filmed in. Terry Bollea, aka wrestler Hulk Hogan, has sold his Miami Beach mansion on the bay -- to Michael Bay, Hollywood director and producer.

The Miami Herald writes that the deal was done for just under the sticker price of $18.9 million. Bollea, 54, bought the gated residence at 2900 N. Bay Rd. in April '06 for $12 million.
Bay, 42, the director of many action films, including the recent "Transformers" will enjoy his modern six-bedroom main house with elliptical floating staircase, two guest apartments, pool, cabana and dock, plus a five-car garage.
Troubles have been plaguing the family Hogan, as Hulk, wife Linda, daughter Brooke and son Nicholas realized someone stole jewelry during their move Thursday -- including a diamond watch and a couple of necklaces. The police report put the value of the missing items at $100,000.

Hulk has an estate in Belleair, near Clearwater, in the style of a French chateau.

Neal Litman, Bollea's Miami real estate attorney, declined to comment on the sale to the Herald. "He's exciting, he's interesting, he's humorous. The way he acts on TV, he really is that guy, but he's got a warm side to him.''




Andy Roddick's Boca Raton Home (much smaller than his Austin, Tx mansion)

Andy Roddick rose to tennis fame in Boca Raton Florida. While he still maintains a home in Boca Raton, Florida, it pales in comparison to Andy Roddick and Brooklyn Decker's Austin, Texas mansion!

In November of 2003 Andy Roddick purchased a home in Austin, Texas for just under $2 million. Built in 1998 and located on Lake Austin, the two-story home offers a spacious 5,558 square feet. Roddick added a boat lift and a sport court to the home in 2004.

Jim Clark, Netscape Founder's Palm Beach Mansion

Who knew the interweb fad would last? Clark, cofounded Silicon Graphics and Netscape, had been married 4 times and also houses his yachtes, Hyperion and Athena at this Palm Beach mansion he calls home. His most recent wife (version 4.0) is an Austrailian model 36 years his junior (Kristy Hinze).

Friday 1 January 2010

A Table of Contents


This site was put together from notes and pictures I had saved from the many books I’d read over the years.
As a favor to members of several online forums, I started putting my notes into cohesive sentences and paragraphs, and I put together this website. It just grew and grew.
Recently I had planned to spruce up and add a bit more, but I found I just didn’t have the free time.
Please check the  From the Bookstore Section. Much, but not all, of the information on this site came from those books. If you want to learn more, read them.

FROM THE BOOKSTORE
A few good books about Victorian life and decor, available from libraries and bookstores.

DOING THE LAUNDRY

PUTTING UP THE STOVE-1871

CONTENTS OF A HOUSE IN THE 1850'S

THE VICTORIAN KITCHEN

VICTORIAN DINING Food of the middle class

THE DINING ROOM CIRCA 1880

THE FRONT HALL CIRCA 1880

VICTORIAN DECORATING 1830-50

VICTORIAN DECORATING 1850-70

VICTORIAN DECORATING 1870-1890, PART 1 AND INTRODUCTION

1870-90 PART II, COLORS, WALLPAPERS, FLOORS & WINDOWS

DECORATING IN THE 1890'S
Colors, wallpapers, flooring and window treatments.


THE BEDROOM AND BOUDOIR CIRCA 1880

THE VICTORIAN BEDROOM

THE VICTORIAN BATHROOM

GREEK REVIVAL & 19TH C. HEATING, PLUMBING, ETC.

WHAT A HOUSE SHOULD BE???
A humorous excerpt from the book, THE HOUSE THAT JILL BUILT AFTER JACK’S HAD PROVED A FAILURE, published in 1882

IN THE VICTORIAN DRAWING ROOM, a bit about Victorian life.

THE VICTORIAN HOME, perhaps not quite what you thought it was
A general background about life in the Victorian home.

LIFE IN A MAINE HAMLET 1894-1904

LIFE IN LONDON, 1849

A VIEW OF 19TH C. ARCHITECTURE AS SEEN FROM 1907

VICTORIAN VIEW OF THE HOUSE OF THE FUTURE

MISCELLANY

THE SERVANT'S QUARTERS

THE PARLOR AND DRAWING ROOM, CIRCA 1880

19TH C. AMERICAN TOWNHOUSES

PORTABLE WAINSCOTING 1869

A DINING ROOM CEILING DESIGN, 1869

PORTIERS,1897

INTERIOR TRIM AND WOOD FINISHES 1897

AN 1890'S MODEL KITCHEN

MAKING A BEAUTIFUL HOME 1870

A WOMAN'S IDEA OF WHAT A KITCHEN SHOULD BE, 1870

USING A NEW KIND OF TACK, 1870

THE AMERICAN WOMAN'S HOME, 1869

CONTENTS OF A HOUSE IN THE 1850'S






Doing the Laundry

From A Treatise on Domestic Economy, by Catherine Esther Beecher, 1845

To do laundry you needed plenty of water. If your water was hard, you'd add lye or soda to it, but not too much, or you'd injure your hands and the clothes. You'd also need an assortment of tubs, a large wooden dipper (metal ones were apt to rust), 2 or 3 pails, a wash board, a clothes line, a wash stick to move clothes around in the tub while boiling, and a wooden fork to take them out.
Soap dishes, made to hook on the tubs saved soap and time.
You'd need a clothes bag, in which you boiled clothes, an indigo bag made of double flannel, a linen starch strainer, starch (which you made yourself), clothespins (described as cleft sticks), a bottle of dissolved gum Arabic,
two clothes baskets, and a brass or copper kettle, for boiling clothes, as iron tended to rust.
Catherine Beecher suggested a laundry storage closet, six feet high, three feet deep, and four feet wide, with a lock and key, in which to keep all your paraphernalia. To quote her, If the mistress of the family requests the washerwoman to notify her, when she is through, and then ascertains if all these articles are put in their places, it (the lock and key) will prove useful.

Victorians never trusted the help, everything was kept under lock and key.

She also noted that: Tubs, pails, and all hooped wooden ware, should be kept out of the sun, and in a cool place, or they will fall to pieces.

To start:
Assort the clothes, and put them in soak, the night before. Never pour
hot water on them, as it sets the dirt. In assorting clothes, put the
flannels in one lot, the colored clothes in another, the coarse white
ones in a third, and the fine clothes in a fourth lot. Wash the fine
clothes in one tub of suds; and throw them, when wrung, into another.
Then wash them, in the second suds, turning them wrong side out. Put
them in the boiling-bag, and boil them in strong suds, for half an hour,
and not much more. Move them, while boiling, with the clothes-stick.
Take them out of the boiling-bag, and put them into a tub of water, and
rub the dirtiest places, again, if need be. Throw them into the rinsing-water, and then wring them out, and put them into the blueing-water.

Put the articles to be stiffened, into a clothes-basket, by themselves, and, just before hanging out, dip them in starch, clapping it in, so as to have them equally stiff, in all parts.
Hang white clothes in the sun, and colored ones, (wrong side out,) in the
shade. Fasten them with clothes-pins.

Then wash the coarser white articles, in the same manner. Then wash the colored clothes. These must not be soaked, nor have lye or soda put in the water, and they ought not to lie wet long before hanging out, as it injures their colors.
Beef's-gall, (*prepared from the bile from a cow's gall bladder) one spoonful to two pailfuls of suds, improves calicoes.
Lastly, wash the flannels, in suds as hot as the hand can bear. Never
rub on soap, as this shrinks them in spots. Wring them out of the first
suds, and throw them into another tub of hot suds, turning them wrong
side out. Then throw them into hot blueing-water. Do not put blueing
into suds, as it makes specks in the flannel. Never leave flannels long
in water, nor put them in cold or lukewarm water. Before hanging them
out, shake and stretch them.
Some housekeepers have a close closet, made with slats across the top. On these slats, they put their flannels, when ready to hang out, and then burn brimstone under them, for ten minutes. It is but little trouble, and keeps the flannels as white as new.
Wash the colored flannels, and hose, after the white, adding more hot water.
Some persons dry woollen hose on stocking-boards, shaped like a foot and
leg, with strings to tie them on the line. This keeps them from shrinking, and makes them look better than if ironed. It is also less work, than to iron them properly.

Bedding should be washed in long days, and in hot weather. Pound
blankets in two different tubs or barrels of hot suds, first well mixing
the soap and water. Rinse in hot suds; and, after wringing, let two
persons shake them thoroughly, and then hang them out. If not dry, at
night, fold them, and hang them out the next morning. Bedquilts should
be pounded in warm suds; and, after rinsing, be wrung as dry as
possible. Bolsters and pillows can be pounded in hot suds, without
taking out the feathers, rinsing them in fair water. It is usually best,
however, for nice feathers, to take them out, wash them, and dry them on
a garret floor. Cotton comforters should have the cases taken off and
washed. Wash bedticks, after the feathers are removed, like other
things. Empty straw beds once a year.


To Cleanse Gentlemen's Broadcloths (Suits- before there were dry cleaners in every neighborhood)

The common mode, is, to shake, and brush the articles, and rip out linings and pockets; then to wash them in strong suds, adding a teacupful of lye, using white soap for light cloth; rolling and then pressing, instead of wringing, them; when dry, sprinkling them, and letting them lie all night; and ironing on the wrong side, or with a thin dark cloth over the article, until perfectly dry.
But a far better way, which the writer has repeatedly tried, with unfailing success, is the following: Take one beef's-gall, half a pound of salæratus (bicarbonate of soda), and four gallons of warm water. Lay the article on a table, and scour it thoroughly, in every part, with a clothes-brush, dipped in this mixture. The collar of a coat, and the grease-spots, (previously marked by stitches of white thread,) must be repeatedly brushed. Then, take the article, and rinse it up and down in the mixture. Then, rinse it up and down in a tub of soft cold water.
Then, without wringing or pressing, hang it to drain and dry. Fasten a
coat up by the collar. When perfectly dry, it is sometimes the case,
with coats, that nothing more is needed. In other cases, it is necessary
to dampen the parts, which look wrinkled, with a sponge, and either pull
them smooth, with the fingers, or press them with an iron, having a
piece of bombazine, or thin woollen cloth, between the iron and the
article.

Practical Housekeeping, by Estelle Woods Wilcox, published in 1887, (40 years later) gives pretty much the same instructions on doing laundry.

If you'd like to delve further into the Victorian laundering process, read Miss Beecher's book.