Buzzings from a quilter who bumbles her way through life!

Monday, March 17, 2014

Hill Country Update and a Mystery!

We finally gave up and hired someone to take the old stone up at our hill country house. This was a photo I took when I drove up on Tuesday to pay for the work. He hadn't hauled off all the old stone yet. When we arrived Saturday morning, it didn't really look a lot different. The big pieces of stone were gone, but the piles of cement dust, portions of cement backer board, and thousands of nails remained. Since we needed to be able to work in the house, we needed all of that up so we could walk on the floor. (He said he would clean it up when he laid the floor, but we have to do some reconfiguring in the kitchen before the floor goes down.)

 After a  day of sweeping up bucket loads of cement dust and bending over a pry bar pulling up nails, the floor is now "walkable"! The next step is taking out a few cabinets and putting in an island. 
I have a mystery that I'm hoping someone can solve. You may remember the old desk that we bought for my husband's office. It had been modified to accommodate a computer. (This is an OLD desk - much older than modern computers!
Front and center on the top is a little brass plate with a rectangular spring loaded "slot". As far as I can tell, its only function is to pinch the fire out of your finger when you push down on the slot.  As far as I can tell, it is not connected to anything below the top of the desk. I can see where it is screwed in. It might have served a function before the drawer was modified to be a pull-out keyboard tray. The desk belonged to a medical doctor, if that helps. (His name is stamped in the drawers.)


        Does anyone know what it is? (I'm a very curious person!)

                                                        

11 comments:

  1. It looks like it was once a roll top desk and that little thing appears to be the bottom of the lock. My roll top has the same thing and the roll top has the other part of the lock in it. Yes...it is a finger biter!!!

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  2. I'm thinking the same thing like Needled Mom. Maybe it was a lock to a drawer. Push it and it unlocks the drawer. Just guessing.

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  3. looks like a latch catch for a roll top desk -- we had a desk like that once and the hutch part was removable (I'm guessing for things like moving)

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  4. have no idea….but I will say your floors look pretty good now….sad when you have to pick up after tradespeople…what happened to leaving an impression instead of your mess lol

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  5. Wow! I have learned a lot today! I am super excited to see where you will place the island!

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  6. Looks like you did a lot of the hard work after all, sweeping and pulling out all those nails! Ugh! And it looks like the mystery is solved.

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  7. Hey Linda was it a Greek person who did the work, he sounds Greek, that's what they do they never clean up or finish, when we had some guys making a new bathroom it was my husband who was mixing the cement and hailing the buckets of cement inside, he also did all of the dust clean up too. I told him they should pay HIM not the other way around.

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  8. My daddy would NEVER have let his employees leave a mess like that. Sorry you had to deal with his mess. Doesn't speak well for his company. Good luck with the query. Does the desk have a slot on the left side (back) like it does on the right side (back)? If it was a removable roll top, then that would make sense. The slots would be the anchors for the top.

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  9. Very sad how workers do not take pride in a job completely and well done. Your work cleaning up the floor looks very thorough. I know nothing about the desk except it is fabulous. Home Sweet Home Dear...

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  10. I hope you didn't pay for the full job since they didn't finish it, YOU did! Agree on the pretty little finger biter! We spent the morning drilling and sawing our way into a locked desk drawer in my Mom's old desk. All for the want of a key! (We didn't harm the outside of the desk, for anyone who is worried. It just is no longer a secure drawer and the inside piece on the top could be replaced should anyone want to use the desk with a new lock in the drawer.) Happy renovating, Linda!

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  11. I guess you won't be giving that guy's name to your friends for reliable work! Sigh. Your kitchen is going to be so lovely one day and it will just be an unfortunate memory that you had to clean up after him! Your desk mystery is solved, I think....yay for blog readers!

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