The Billboard House

The best thing in today's paper (and maybe any recent paper) is this from the Star Tribune: St. Paul home renovation uncovers hand-painted signs of the past. A guy named Todd Johnson is renovating an 1880 house on the hill overlooking downtown St. Paul, and when he removed the asbestos shingles he found this:


The Star Tribune has a great photo gallery of close-ups that I envy (since I couldn't go into the yard). But here are my photos:


There are rainbow-striped letters throughout. A few of those letters are visible in the upper part of this photo:








The name "Leslie," visible in the upper right of this photo, is the name of the sign painter. The Strib article fills in some of his details:


Johnson plans to cover the boards up again as his renovation proceeds. I hope (and expect) that someone has taken good photos that will allow the puzzle pieces to be assembled to show what the complete originals looked like, or as much as the parts that are on the walls will allow.