Category Archives: house history

What’s in a Name?

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How did this blog come to be named “The House on Rynkus Hill”? It seems obvious, since the house is situated in a neighborhood on top of a hill. But, it’s more than that – Grandma used to talk about all the things that happened when they were younger and had just built the house. At the time, the neighborhood had many, many more children in it than it does now, and they had three kids they were raising too.

As it turns out, this lot provides a really great place to go sledding in the winter. It’s relatively tree-free, and has a nice sloping run from the street all the way to the tree line in the back – the perfect distance to sled down but not be daunted trying to walk back up. So, the kids used to say they were going to go sledding – “over on Rynkus Hill.”

My brother, sister, cousins and I sledded on the hill too when we were kids. Coincidentally, we still do. This was in January, shot with the Polaroid:

Our Mid Century Split Level House Plans

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Our August was very eventful – Mary and I got married, and then went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. So much so that I only made one update to the blog during August. Now that I have also fixed the uploading problem for images, we’re back in business!

Not too many people have these for their house, much less have them hand drawn by your own Grandfather – but I am in possession of all of the original house plans that were used to construct the house. My grandfather sat down in 1958 and, having decided on a general house that he wanted, put pencil to vellum and whipped off a set of architectural drawings. You may ask if he was an architect? No, he was an electrical and mechanical engineer who worked at IBM as a Manager. But, he was a talented individual and apparently along the way felt he could do this himself. I never got a chance to sit down with him and discuss at length how he came about drawing the house plans, something I wish I had. I envision he probably picked up some books on the subject and studied up and had a bunch of books or magazines on popular house plans to start from.

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Every Day I’m Croquet-ing

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While I cant compete with the totally sweet built-in Shuffleboard that Robert over at Live Better Electrically has, we have land, and an important requirement as a land baron is that one must have appropriate games to partake in so you can utilize those vast green expanses.

When we moved in, we found a nice Bocce set in the basement…pretty sure it was from 1983, I may even be able to find a picture of it in some of the albums or slides I have:

Bocce set from the 1980s...nice shorts dude.

Bocce set from the 1980s…John Ritter’s ghost called and wants his shorts back.

But no yard game group would be complete without the mother of all lawn games:

The all-new Croquet set

The all-new Croquet set

Huzzah! Croquet! Just picked this up today.

Mary and I get married in a few weeks (August 10th) and my brother and sister and their families (kids) will be staying with us. Pretty sure we’ll break this out a few times.

Of course if it’s rainy, we can always play with the Legos from my childhood that are in the basement (on the ping pong table) too:

The Sorting of the Legos...it's a little like the crushing of the grapes.

The Sorting of the Legos…it’s a little like the crushing of the grapes. Sort of.

Peonies, in Polaroid

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Along the west side of the house Grandma planted a bunch of peonies many years ago – I recall her mentioning they were a gift from her mother-in-law (who passed away in 1978), so they probably date to the 1960s. Either way, they have been growing in the same spot for at least as long as I have been alive.

As we spend our first year in the house, we’ve been watching the things planted outdoors so we can make some changes but retain some perennial plantings, like these peonies. So far we have blooming (in this order): crocus, daffodils, tulips, forsythia, lilac, and peonies.

I have some vintage cameras as well, including a Polaroid from 1967 – they all still work, and I still use them fairly regularly. A few weeks ago I shot some pictures with the Exakta 35mm (that film will be developed soon, I only just finished the roll…how long has it been since you’ve heard that?), but just the other day I grabbed the Polaroid 450, attached some lenses to it, and shot a few of the peonies. These are scans of the physical pictures – no Instagram here:

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Meet Jasmine

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A bunch of things came with the house when we moved in. My grandmother, mother, and aunt had generally picked over the various things they wanted and when we started doing work in the house, we were pretty much left with a handful of items that we were keeping (the large couch, end table, some bedroom furniture upstairs)…and a ridiculously large pile of junk that became our responsibility to dispose of. That tale is a whole other story for a whole other day.

At her new place, my Grandmother was not convinced she could take her cat. She was moving into a really great senior living facility (Castle Gardens in nearby Vestal) and while they allowed pets, she just didn’t feel that confining her cat to her apartment was the right thing to do.

So…Mary and I, along with a large pile of leftover household items, inherited a little fluffy black cat that knows how to shake for treats, is used to be conversed with on a regular basis, and generally wants to be treated like a princess:

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It took some adjustment (she now primarily sleeps and lives in the basement when indoors) but she’s adapted quite well to her new owners, including informing us of when she wants in:

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