I am very fond of cars with wreaths attached to their grills at Christmas. There is something both festive and hostile about it. A delicate, loving baby was born, and we mark that event by dressing up a potentially deadly machine.
In recent days I came upon two bits of garbage. The first was a short length of red ribbon. This made it to the handlebars of one of my bicycles.
A few days later, I found several feet of evergreen branches that were bound together, something that might have been used to wrap the lamp posts of a Chicago commercial district. It was sitting in the street as I rode by. I turned back and picked it up. It is now wrapped around the top tube of the bike, with the red ribbon securing an end to the handlebars.
The oven has not been working since I moved into my apartment this summer. I didn't like the range much -- It didn't look like a quality product and certainly was not cared for. Instead of repairing it or buying a new stove, I wanted to get an old stove, one from the 1940s, 50s, or 60s. I grew up with such a stove, which my grandmother, Milosava Petković, used to make many tasty meals. She was a great cook.
While I prefer old and used things to new ones, I can see their flaws. In a car, no matter how beautiful an old one may be, I would prefer a new one. They are (usually) safer. When it comes to gas stoves, however, there is no benefit to having a new one. The old ones are sturdy, have a clumsy grace, and they seem to burn bluer (see top photo).
The search for an old stove wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. When I lived in San Francisco, there were salvage yards and used appliance stores that carried stoves of this age. They were esteemed objects. Chicago is a more difficult environment for old stoves. The few stores that carried decades-old stoves have closed. An appliance retailer, who appreciates the old, says that Chicagoans seem to prefer certain homogeneous looks (currently it is granite and stainless steel everything).
Fortunately, I asked a friend if he knew where I could find an old stove. He had recently bought a century-old worker's cottage in Chicago's Logan Square district. He told me that he had two stoves he no longer wanted (maybe he, too, was going for granite and stainless steel). In every case, Jonathan sold me a beautiful, (probably) 1950s, Cribben & Sexton Universal stove (see photo of it in the garage in Logan Square). It has an atomic-era logo that seems to promise that, if the stove cannot protect you from annihilation, at least it can cook as well as a nuclear bomb (see photo, second from the bottom).
Yesterday, the stove was loaded onto a truck, carried up three flights of stairs, and installed in my home. The flame burns bluer. A repairman is coming tomorrow. The oven doesn't work (and that's fine).
As you may know, I have recently moved into a new home in Chicago's Uptown. It is a railroad apartment with approximately 20 windows, mostly original to 1917 and in varying states of disrepair. The worst one was in the kitchen, where, during a recent wind storm, the frame came apart and a portion of the glass broke (see second photo from the top of the unpainted frame and broken glass at rest on my stove).
I am dedicated both to reducing energy use and to making old things last as long as possible. This put me into a bit of an apparent bind -- Do I replace a window with a more energy efficient one or do I repair a window that has been doing service for 93 years? Thanks to the suggestions of a sympathetic contractor, an enthusiastic hardware store employee, and a lack of cash, I opted for the latter. What could it hurt to try out a cheaper and more context-sensitive approach, at least first?
I spoke about my dilemma with a contractor, Andrew. He introduced me to the idea of window repair and recommended a local hardware store that does this kind of work. At the store, the aforementioned employee countered all I had been told by someone who had given me an estimate for new windows some weeks earlier. He showed me products I could use to make existing windows more airtight. He recommended curtains for use during the coldest months.
Most convincingly, he said that old windows were made to be repaired, whereas new ones are not. He showed me an aluminum window, not ten years old, that was beyond repair from torquing. Have my windows not lasted most of a century?
I took the sash to the store and had it reglazed and the frame repaired and repainted. Once I got the repaired sash home, Mel (see top photo, where he is inspecting the work site) and I got to work. A counterweight had come detached and needed to be threaded back over the pulley (which, itself, was a little sticky and needed lubricant). The gap in one of the counterweight housings was missing its cover, so we made one. Next, the sash was unwrapped and hung (see second photo from the bottom). We used one of the hardware store suggestions and nailed felt to the inside of the frame. The window now closes tightly!
It is very gratifying to reuse the old. Sometimes our (American) assessment of things stops at that. Old, yes, but is it still useful? Can it be repaired? Is it, perhaps, more beautiful or complementary to its surroundings than a replacement? The answer to all these questions, for this kitchen window, is "yes".
Two armchairs have been living in a storage locker since my siblings and I cleared-out my mother's apartment last year. They are identical and were last new probably in the 1950s, when my parents immigrated to Canada from what was then Yugoslavia. The chairs followed my parents to Chicago in 1959 or 1960.
My maternal grandmother, Milosava Petković (née Milić) lived with my parents and my siblings. She was a lifelong needlepointer. Probably after we visited Florence in the mid-1970s, my grandmother began needlepointing Bargello-style patterns, usually pillows. I don't know what made her take on such a large project, but she needlepointed enough to re-cover both armchairs (except the backs). The cushions are a little worn (see the rip, in the photo above, probably caused by one of my poorly-behaved nieces or nephew). They are to be refurbished next week at a local upholsterer.
These chairs synthesize memories and values important to me: The possibility of a new life, both for my family (in its escape from Yugoslavia) and for the chairs (with reupholstery); childhood; my grandmother; and the exhuberance and joyfulness of a jolt of color. They will be a powerful force for good in my new home.
The armchairs will also guide the color palette for the apartment ("dreamsicle" (orange and white) and blue). The palette is based on a theory I have about color. There are studies that have found that exposure to various colors can, slightly, change one's perception of temperature. As a result, I believe that in warm weather, to feel more comfortable, one should be exposed to cool colors (blues and greens). In cool weather, warm colors (reds, yellows, and orange). To cover the hot and cold weather in Chicago over the course of the year, I plan to have curtains and certain major pieces of furniture be orange, white, and/or blue. I have two dreamsicles already in place.
I am very fond of cars with wreaths attached to their grills at Christmas. There is something both festive and hostile about it. A delicate, loving baby was born, and we mark that event by dressing up a potentially deadly machine.
