The End, But Also A New Beginning

Posted on August 7, 2019 by Julie

After nine years of writing about the Red House and the so-called “project,” I have decided to end the blog.

I approach this not with regrets but with many happy feelings about how we took a run-down, bank-foreclosed property and made it into a home.

Remember this is what the house originally looked like! Yikes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BIG RED MESS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what the house looks like now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, we still have a few projects to complete (after all it is a house that was built in the 1850’s!) but a few things have transpired which has given me inspiration to write about other things.

First and foremost, Lynn and I moved to the “Red House” permanently on June 27, 2019. Second, the point of The Red House Project blog was to describe in detail all the problems we had with renovations or contractors or just life on the property.  Over the years I also included some stories about our road trips or food-related articles, always trying to tie the stories into whatever project we were facing back home.

I loved writing about the house and the many challenges we faced throughout the renovation. I think I succeeded in making the blog a fun read. Hopefully, I also brought to life some of the characters I chose to write about as I tried to portray them as helpful, yet quirky, personalities. Going forward I have decided to write more about food and travel and anything that strikes me of interest in the Mohawk Valley.

The Red House Project blog will still remain online there just won’t be any further posts.

For the past nine years I have loved living in this Red House, even if it was only for long weekends or during the summer months. This passion, I hope, will never leave me.  That said, I’ve created a new blog, “Let’s Go!” that I hope will entertain you as I know the Red House did.

Here’s a link to my first post about the move.  So “Let’s Go.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Gardening, Renovation, The Property, Travel | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Travel Stories And Other Tales From The Red House

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Julie

Our long summer vacation is unfortunately coming to an end at the Red House. I feel that Lynn and I have accomplished much this summer both travel-wise and project-wise on the house.

We did two road trips this summer. The first was to Cleveland, Chicago, Ann Arbor and Jordan, Ontario. Since I LOVE TO DRIVE, road tripping is a great way to see the USA without the added expense of airfare. It’s also amazing that we rarely run out of things to say to each other (yes, even after 39 years). Granted, we do occasionally have long stretches of silence, blasting the radio when warranted, but mostly we talk about stuff we’ve just seen, are going to see, and most importantly what we are going to eat!

Since we have adopted the motto that you are never ever too old to have fun, one of the first things we did on our first stop is play pinball at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

And yes, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones are the greatest rock band that ever existed.

We also went to see a Frank Gehry building at Case Western University in Cleveland, and when we were snapping a few photographs, a professor-type walked by us and said hello. Perhaps he was just being friendly or maybe he was actually impressed that we knew this building was architecturally significant.

When we got to Chicago, we took the Architectural Foundation’s River Cruise and even though the weather was really crappy and all my pictures came out really dark, we saw lots of interesting buildings and I don’t know, you just feel a little bit smarter afterwards with a tour guide who bombards you with a whole bunch of history and fun facts.

I also paid a visit to my Uncle John who lives outside the city and he gave me two very special gifts. The first was a rolling pin that belonged to his grandmother, so my great-grandmother. We decided to hang it in the kitchen right above the sink as an objet d’art. I think it looks quite pretty there.The second gift he gave me was a painting I had always coveted. It was a simple oil painting of a lemon tree he did when he was a teenager. I remember it hanging in my grandmother’s house and when I asked him if I could have it, he simply said, “it belongs to you.” I was very touched.

While we were in Chicago, we did a quick detour up to Racine, Wisconsin. Why Racine you might ask? Well, see, if you are a HUGE Frank Lloyd Wright buff like Lynn is, and you had studied his work, notably the SC Johnson Wax building in Racine, and you were given the opportunity to visit it, well that’s what you do. Unfortunately, we were only allowed to take pictures outside the building since the structure is still used today (housing the accounting department if I remember correctly). I don’t have a degree in architecture but all I can say when I walked inside the space was WOW, WOW, WOW.

While traveling this summer, we also had the opportunity to see what chefs outside of New York City and State are doing. I know for “real” New Yorker’s this is mind-boggling that there are even restaurants worthy outside of NYC but the fact is there are amazing chefs doing lots of interesting things all across the country.

Frozen and shaved foie gras? Yes, please.

An endive and green leaf salad with a poached egg on top of a crispy “potato basket?” Yummy.

What about a thick cut of house-cured salmon with purple potato pancakes, Greek yogurt with salmon roe AND caviar? Yes, pretty please!

Hungry yet?

Did I mention the haddock we had one night, the octopus, and the cheese plate with balsamic marinated strawberries?

Okay, in fairness we split almost all of these dishes and usually only order one entree. Plus even if the restaurant is a half hour from where we are staying, we never take a cab, preferring to walk to and from the establishment.

Our second (albeit shorter) road trip started in Vermont and took us to Quebec City and Ottawa.  There, too, we ate and walked and walked and ate some more. It was all really good.

We saw some cool art installations, the famous Chateau Frontenac, and lots of buildings and courtyards that reminded me of being in Europe. Perhaps that’s why I love Canada so much!

Dare I mention the donuts that are made to order at a restaurant in Ottawa?

Or the pastries you can get at the Byward Market, also in Ottawa?

Remember we are STILL WALKING and even though I took a picture of the pastries, I DID NOT PURCHASE A SINGLE ONE.

Obviously we love to travel and eat! But let’s get back to the Red House.

The first order of business this summer was to make the house seem like a home. We ordered some new furniture and tried to incorporate the old furniture and miscellaneous items we had at our house on Long Island. This included a knock-off Achille Castiglioni Arco lamp that took us nearly 5 hours (I kid not) to figure out how to put back together. It had been lying on the floor in the den for over two years and Lynn simply couldn’t remember how to put the shade on. When we finally figured it out and plugged it in, it sparked and blew out the power. (Our daughter Rachel told me she used to call this lamp the “Alien Hairdryer” so perhaps it was apropos for the fixture to blow the fuses.)

We tried a new bulb. Same problem. We took out the electrical thingy part and took the suspect looking piece to the Big Box Store where we were lucky enough to find a retired electrician who worked there. When we handed him the part, he looked at it for quite some time and then said, “Well, gee, these two metal pieces are never, ever supposed  to touch.” He bent the metal pieces back away from each other, we went home, put the electrical thingy back in the light, and it worked for about 2 seconds (no sparks either) but then fizzled.

In the meantime, it is just an outstanding copy cat light fixture that looks good until Lynn figures out how to replace the entire electrical thingy piece inside. (I say to him, Good Luck! And please don’t electrocute yourself!)

Besides the light, we also had two shag rugs that cost us an arm and a leg and half a torso, too, that we bought nearly two decades ago but didn’t want to get rid of. Problem was they were really dirty. So, we got out the metal sawhorses that Lynn uses to paint things on from the garage, flung the rugs over the sawhorses, and beat them with a tennis racket. That kind of worked. (Not.)

Then we went down to the Big Box Store and rented one of those rug cleaner machines for 24 hours. We laid the rugs on some leftover rubber tiles we have and Lynn slowly but methodically went over each rug a couple of times. I want to say it was easy peasy, but watching him struggle to push this machine over the thick wool was akin to using the bitch-heavy snow blower (as in it wasn’t any fun).

Believe it or not, the rugs came out pretty clean but we ended up only using one of them and wrapping the other one back up.

While we initially thought about redoing the garden fence this summer, it didn’t make it on our top 5 must-do projects this summer. Lynn did put some extra “rabbit proof fencing” around the existing fence which means all summer long I’ve had an abundance of good things growing. And when the gardener said, “Let there be peas and beans and tomatoes and asparagus,” there were and then some.

Our own produce coupled with what we brought back from the Byward Market in Ottawa means vegetable-wise we are pretty well stocked.  Aren’t these baby zucchini and green onions amazing looking? I think so.

And while I did see one bunny in the garden who quickly bolted when I spotted him, the bigger issue has been the deer eating all the roses and the hydrangeas on the side of the house. Therefore, we had to put the roses “in prison” so to speak by shaping more of that rabbit proof fencing into cylinders. While it doesn’t look particularly attractive, it has at least given the roses a chance to not only grow (the deer were literally biting off the rose stems, thorns at all) but bloom.

Besides the flowers on the side of the house, drum roll please, we finally got not only two whole steps (!) to the front door but landscaping as well. While it was kind of expensive, it’s done, and I’m pleased with the way it turned out. (So far the deer have tried to nibble on these new plants, too, but we’ve put in some of those dried blood infused spikes that supposedly keep deer away and used a spray-on dried blood product as well.)

Here are the before and after shots just to give you an idea.

We’ve had to set up a soaker-type hose to keep the plants watered and even though it’s been very hot in Upstate New York, my roses in the boxes on the deck seem to love the hot humid weather.

Doesn’t Mr. Gnome look happy too?

One strange thing I found in the back of the field though late yesterday afternoon (before cocktails I might add) was the way the trees and vines kind of fell on top of each other and created (at least to me from a distance) what looked like a “secret cave.” When I put on a pair of sneakers and walked to the back of the property, the “secret cave” looked less “secret” and more overgrown, but I photographed it anyway.

The final project Lynn has been working on (since I’ve been writing which is such a luxury for me these days) has been to lay down a laminate wood floor in the hallway between the laundry room and the basement. Yes, everything still needs to be rocked and painted and a pantry-type closet needs to be built but I give him credit for tackling this project on a very hot day. Plus he had to drag his table saw in and out of the house whenever a sudden rain shower would annoyingly pop up. (I know the farmers desperately need rain, so I’m only complaining on his behalf.)

The floor looked like this (with a couple of pieces of sample flooring thrown down to give us a general idea of how this would turn out.).

And so far looks like this.

I love how everything just looks so much cleaner whenever we finally tackle a project that’s been begging to be finished for the last 8 years!

On a final note, I would like to say a few things about some personal goals I accomplished this summer. I promised myself I would meet as many people (writers and artists and bakers and chefs and restaurant managers and most importantly farmers) as I could. I am happy to report that when I contacted someone I had been “following” on Instagram or FB, and asked if we could meet, they were invariably receptive to the idea and thankfully didn’t think I was a crazy person (well, maybe they did but they didn’t tell me.) I invited a few of them to see the Red House and was happy that I have finally found people that I can talk to who share similar interests (that would be art, food, farming, cooking and travel, too.) I have found new neighbors to talk to and appreciate the kind words everyone has shared with Lynn and I about the progress of the Red House and how incredibly beautiful the house looks. We have even noticed people who drive by the house who actually slow down to look. How cool is that?

I was also interviewed this summer by two Hamilton College students who are working on a research project involving farming and CSA’s in our county among others. I have to say it was insightful and fun to talk at length with these two smart women about food and farmers and what that entails.  I was so tickled when they wanted to take a photograph of me in my garden!

We also met a lot of very kind people when we were traveling this summer – not just front desk hotel staff and servers who are paid to be nice, but people on the street who bothered to stop when we asked for quick directions, or fellow drivers who let me cut ahead of them when I was in the wrong turning lane in a city we had never been to.

I will leave you with this thought and a final picture. I was in the supermarket a few weeks back and saw a farmer I know out of the corner of my eye.  He seemed not to see me so I jokingly called out to him that once again he was ignoring me. He looked at me and laughed, briefly stopped to say “hi,” but then kept on running because after all he said, he has to bring the goats inside in 40 minutes!

That is definitely not a conversation I would have had on Long Island.

Enjoy the rest of the summer. I know we will since we still have a few long weekends left up at the house.

P.S. In case you haven’t noticed, I love it here.

Posted in Cheese, cooking, Dessert, Flowers, food, fruit, Gardening, Garlic, Grilling, Renovation, Vegetables, Wine | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Beginning Of Our Eighth Red House Summer And A Shout Out To All “Bowling Bob’s” Wherever You Are

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Julie

This past June started our eighth summer at the Red House. Since this was the first summer that Lynn didn’t have to go back to work (hint: he retired last October), I managed to save a good chunk of vacation time from work so we could spend nearly six full weeks at the House with a few road trips to the Mid-West and Canada thrown in for good measure.

Since my last story (with its laundry list of “things still to do”), we have managed to finish at least a few of the projects.

But let us start with what happened in the spring. A really tall tree suddenly snapped and fell on our garage. Even though we want the garage to eventually go away, we weren’t planning on having it “go away” that way without a plan in place to replace it. Luckily, the way the tree fell, ever so lightly across the roof of the garage, and with a somewhat artistic flourish too (it was hanging off the side of the garage which gave a little piece of the property a sudden Italian trellis look), it caused no damage what so ever.

What prompted me to remember the tree falling on the house back in mid-April was the fact that now that 85% of the house is finished, we have had a slew of visitors (including Mom and Dad) which gives me lots of people with big ears (McCoys’ have big ears) to listen to “Red House” stories.

Apparently, I had never told them about “Bowling Bob.” But first let me get back to the tree.  The tree fell down in mid-April. In mid-May (yes, four weeks later), I finally got my “Tree Guy” to remove the tree from the garage and also cut down a bigger tree that we thought could possibly fall on the house (the kitchen, of course) which would be devastating.  I hate cutting down trees but we really had no choice.

The fact that it took the “Tree Guy” four weeks from my initial phone call to him removing the tree from the garage, is well, in my world, UNACCEPTABLE.

So let me now tell you the story of “Bowling Bob.” Back in 2011 when we didn’t have a furnace yet, we ordered one from Sears (I know, I know but they had a great financing plan). When the furnace was installed (incorrectly I may add) and water was pouring out of EVERY SINGLE PIPE IN THE BASEMENT, we called the guy, Bob, who had put in the new furnace (AKA “Sears Furnace Guy”) to apprise him of the problem. “Sears Furnace Guy” when told of our dilemma says he absolutely cannot come deal with our flood that weekend because his middle school age son was in a bowling tournament and that took precedence over our flood.  What????

Hence the moniker “Bowling Bob.” “Bowling Bob” has also come to represent many of the contractors we have been forced, cough, cough, I mean had the pleasure of working with in the Mohawk Valley.

Our current contractor Ron (who I do like a lot), understood that I wanted bathroom #3 renovated before Memorial Day weekend. He and I met early February to go over all the specifications and by April I was texting and calling him weekly asking for an estimate. When Memorial Day weekend rolled around, with still no estimate or bathroom renovation on the horizon, I started to get seriously pissed.  Since I mentioned that I had people visiting all summer, coupled with Lynn and I doing some much needed traveling, if it couldn’t be done by early June, it wouldn’t happen until mid-September since I didn’t want any of our guests to not have a bathroom. (Yes, I do want to make sure everyone has a place to pee, poop and even shower!) .

Guess what, he really didn’t care.

Back to our “Tree Guy.” When he did remove the tree from the garage roof and had a “Stump Guy” come and grind down all the stumps, he also promised us he would dig out a deeper trench in the back to deal with any possible flooding this summer might bring.  We had the conversation in May and after at least 10 text messages (maybe more) about when this could be accomplished, we set a Saturday date.

Saturday morning after assuming incorrectly he would be at the Red House at the crack of dawn, I finally texted him around 9:30. An hour later this was his response: “Who is this?”

I reminded him we had set up a “trench digging appointment” that morning which apparently he forgot about. Long story short, he showed up a day later with a back hoe and less than an hour later I had a trench.

It’s definitely not pretty, but we bought some of that landscape fabric that’s supposed to prevent weeds and new grass growth and once we line the trench with it we hope to throw in a couple of bags of rocks. In a funky color of course.

Before I move on to my current “Bowling Bob” story, let me show you what we have accomplished.

Escutcheons are up! Yes, I buckled and paid nearly $100 (!) for a box of them. And guess what they are not even real metal but plastic that’s been spray painted silver!  But in fairness, it does complete the look of the hot water pipes running through the house.

We bought the last four windows we needed for the attic and had them installed.

We painted the Bentwood chairs (and even a rocker) that had been lying around for some time in the bright colors we had wanted. I think they look pretty cool.

Notice how we somehow missed putting on a baseboard since it had been “hidden” by a really big picture we simply plopped there. (Big picture has been moved to another room, not yet hung up either.)

Luckily, we have been dealing with a heat wave with no chance of rain which has made perfect spray painting weather in the driveway with quick drying times to boot.

We also did some waterproofing of the foundation on a really hot day back in June (boy was that fun!). We decided to do the front of the house first primarily because we thought by now we would have a couple of stairs and some simple landscaping and didn’t want to worry about a foundation that wasn’t “waterproofed” when everything had been planted.

However, while our contractor Ron thought he could tackle this project too, he simply was swamped with work and gave us the name of yet another “Bowling Bob.” In fairness, this landscaper who also builds things was quick to meet with us, but then his father took ill and he simply couldn’t put an estimate together or commit to an install date. (Update: we now have an estimate, which I had to negotiate down, but the install date is still pending.) Which is why the front of the house still looks like this.

Meanwhile back on the farm, I mean the garden, we were proactive this year in putting up at least 1/2 of some rabbit-proof fencing material in hopes that “evil bunny” wouldn’t be able to get into the garden and eat all the veggies we had planted.

That’s when we discovered the fox. We have to assume the fox has “taken care” of the bunny so to speak since we have vegetables that are finally growing. We have peas and more beans than I know what to do with. Our tomatoes are starting and the lettuce is absolutely amazing. (It really is.)

I’m having the same problem I had with the zucchini as last year (all blossoms and no bodies, even after trying to help fertilize) but my beets are growing strong and I planted radishes that remind me of the spicy ones we would eat at many a Munich beer garden.

And we have the flowers, the day lilies and Stella D’Oro are particularly pretty this time of year.

We also discovered tiny clusters of raspberries that we had never seen growing before (thank you birds for dropping berry seeds there), and the sumac which had been golden yellow has finally turned red.

Meanwhile, we have definitely started to make the Red House a “real” home and threw out most of our old furniture (most of which we “appropriated” for free from the streets of Long Island). Thank you neighbors for hauling away all the furniture we put on the curb (including the church pews) within two hours, we love you! We bought some new stuff and even added some artwork from a local artist in Syracuse.

To say we have made tremendous progress this year is an understatement. So, even with all the “Bowling Bobs” out there who give me “agita” when it comes to trying to finish the Red House in a timely manner, I know eventually they do show up and do a pretty good job.

We are thankful for them.

And so begins the season. Enjoy the summer. I know we will.

Posted in cooking, Flowers, Gardening, kitchen, Renovation, The Property, Vegetables | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Is It Done Yet?

Posted on April 7, 2018 by Julie

I have been asked this question more times since the beginning of this year then I can count.  Let me just say, renovating a house that was built in 1850 is not like baking a cake – so no, IT’S NOT DONE YET!

And although we have been spending much more time up at the Red House (weeks off for vacation and multiple weekends), it’s the seemingly endless small projects that just constantly slow us down.

Take for example the following list of “small” projects.

1. Door Knobs. Even though we started replacing most of the glass door knobs with “fancy” metal ones, the fact is, we still have 3 or 4 left to do. While it may seem like a quick and easy task, inevitably there is drilling involved (removing the old door knob), spackling over what was drilled because the new doorknob is higher, and finally painting around the new one.

2. Radiators. Since we first painted the radiators nearly EIGHT YEARS AGO, some of the radiators are already peeling and look like crap.  So until we can get radiator covers, quite a few of the radiators need to be redone.

3. Escutcheons. (I do love that word!) Besides the old radiators, we also have old plumbing pipes in every room on the first floor of the house that bring hot and cold water to the upstairs. They are all badly in need of being “finished” off with escutcheons, also known as split flanges in the plumbing world. And after repeated attempts to find them online as well as roaming the aisles at two different big box stores, we haven’t been able to locate the exact size we need.  Plus they are ridiculous expensive. See here we kind of finagled one at the top, but are missing the second one.

4. Door Hinges. Another thing that took a lot of time was trying to get the moulding to fit around the patio door because of the hinges. Lynn had to painstakingly cut the moulding to fit but even with the help of at least three power tools and a handsaw, the cut still came out kind of messy. He tried to spackle around it but still has to paint. (This “little” project by the way took nearly 6 hours.)

5. Moulding And More Moulding. All of the moulding around the entry ways and doorways in the dining room has yet to be completed.

And even though the moulding around the front door to the house was finished YEARS AGO, (well at least two if not more) it was never painted.

Speaking of the front door let’s go outside for a bit.

6.  Steps. A couple of steps would be nice if anyone actually ever wanted to come through the front door. We are still waiting for a contractor to connect us with a mason who can build us a set of stairs. This year.

7.  Attic Windows. We also need at least four new attic windows since those were never replaced.

I particularly like the old vent on the left and the duct-tape-held-together screen on the right. (As in not.)  But let’s continue.

8.  Siding. Remember the siding that was done last year? A piece already fell off.  Luckily it was still under “warranty” and the siding contractor came out to fix it.  Yesterday. This is what it looked like before that happened.

Granted, it was not a big deal, but a piece was missing! But let’s go back inside the house.

9. Threshold. Going back into the dining room, wouldn’t some sort of threshold be nice leading into the kitchen? Unless you, unlike myself, like the idea of a trip and fall every time you are going from one room to the other.

We’ve also started to bring up some furniture that had been in our Long Island house in the hopes of renovating (or at least painting) them too.

10. Chairs. We have a lot of chairs. These green ones we picked up at a garage sale for $25.00. (That price was for all four, not each!)

And then these Bentwood-style ones that we recently had re-caned (the seats that is) but now want to paint the frames.

In funky, hip colors, of course.

11. Pictures. We have also started to hang up some pictures! Hip Hip Hooray! But with Lynn you don’t just hang a picture on a wall and hope it’s centered. You measure the wall (at least 3 or 4 times), then the picture (at least 5 or 6 times), and then hope to find a stud that will support the picture. Then you try to find a pencil that has a point so you can mark EXACTLY where the picture will go, and then when the pencil breaks you spend a really, really long time trying to find a pencil sharpener. (Ours just happens to be in the shape of Big Ben.)

These are just some of the smaller pictures, photographs and postcards that need to be hung up most of which we’ve collected over the years from traveling together. And yes, since quite a few of them are laid out on the ping pong table, this has curtailed our “tisch tennis” playing indefinitely.

Here is one piece that was successfully hung! And a shout out to my Uncle John for letting us buy his artwork at a reasonable price.

But let’s continue the list, this time noting the bigger projects.

12.  Guest Bathroom. We have one last bathroom to remodel. This means the tub is being replaced with a shower, and a new vanity, mirror, lighting, and walls need to be installed. We are still waiting for an estimate on this project from our contractor and need to decide on what kind of tile we want on the floor.

But let’s go back outside.

13.  Dead Tree. In addition to the “last bathroom,” we also have one last big tree that needs to unfortunately be cut down. Every time the wind blows, we are afraid it’s going to fall on the house; it’s been dead for years and at one point was one of two trees that held a  hammock between them that was ideal for napping and listening to the sound of the wind and the birds.

14. Stump Grinding. And although we have a “tree guy” who has cut down other trees on the property, he does not in fact cut the stumps down, so we have to get a “stump guy” to do that. (We have four stumps the last time I counted that need to be “stumped” so to speak.)

15. Foundation. We also need to chistle off the spray foam we put into the holes in the masonry a couple of years ago (yes, it does in fact look like orange vomit spilling out of the house), and figure out how to patch the stone foundation. (That’s a really fun project I’m so not looking forward to but it absolutely has to be done.)

16. Garden Fence. We also need a totally new fence around my garden to keep the rabbits and deer out so they don’t eat everything I plant in the summer! This will be a very big expensive project unless I veto some of Lynn’s very lovely but overly ambitious design ideas.

Did I mention the crappy weather we’ve been having? So absolutely nothing outside can get started until it stops snowing and turns warmer.

Let’s go back inside.

17. Staircase. In my last post in January, I had thought we were going to redo the stairs with a vinyl floor tile that looked like wood. When we discovered however, that EVERY SINGLE STAIR TRED WAS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SIZE (and would need to be cut accordingly), we realized we would have been working on this one project probably for the rest of our lives.  Therefore, we quickly switched gears and decided (for now at least), to just paint them, add some moulding on three sides, and have them professionally redone down the road.

So, at least we have one down and one staircase to go. (Lynn informs me that on the second staircase (shown below) he is definitely not taping them first – way too time consuming. )

18. The Deck. Yes, we do in fact want to extend the deck and wrap it around the back of the house. And add a gazebo. And maybe a giraffe or two. Just kidding.

When our son Nicholas was small, I would always make him a chocolate cake for his birthday and put a plastic train (complete with a track) on top that you could wind up and it would circle the cake. Both he and I thought it was pretty cool. Our daughter, Rachel, got the same cake but her cake topping of choice were usually those little paper umbrellas (in pink of course.)  If I had to compare the Red House to my favorite kind of cake, it would probably be fairly simply (although the renovations we’ve endured have indeed been kind of complex.) Perhaps a lemon or orange-zest flavored pound cake with tiny strawberries and some delicious whipped cream?

So, friends, the Red House like any cake, is still “baking”. And yes, all my cakes were always made from “scratch.”

Posted in Construction, Gardening, Renovation, The Property | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Believe It Or Not…

Posted on January 13, 2018 by Julie

Our kitchen is done.  Well, except for a single windowsill that needs to be painted.

The goal this past fall was to have contractor #3 do “indoor” work during the cold snowy winter months. It wasn’t like there was a huge amount of work that needed to be done in the kitchen but it was the annoying little projects (many of which required a very large ladder) that Lynn and I were simply not capable of doing. (#1 we don’t have a ladder that long and #2, I hate heights. More than that I hate being the girl that holds the ladder for the boy to go up and hope he doesn’t fall.)

So we had a “stop sign” window that had been installed roughly 6 years ago that was never finished or painted.

It was annoying to look at and even more so since no one could reach it!

Because we couldn’t just have one annoyance in the kitchen, on the other side of the wall, same height but different shape, we had another window that was also unfinished! This we named the “Juliet window” because technically if you stood in that room (a bedroom that will hopefully morph into a closet), one could lean out and look down into the kitchen.  No one knows why we named it the “Juliet window” other than it kind of reminded us of Juliet’s balcony in Verona.

Consequently, a few weeks ago, both these windows had proper moulding installed around them and were painted as well.

We also had the proper high hats finally installed in the ceiling (you can see one above the stop sign window).

Last but not least, we had a range hood installed above the stove which required yet another trip to Ikea to get one last kitchen cabinet. The range hood we originally bought was high end with a fancy glass top which our contractor told us would need to be ducted outside thus costing millions of dollars to put up (well not millions but you get the idea). It’s sitting somewhere in the garage if anyone wants it.

We also bizarrely now have a light above the kitchen stove. I know that’s not strange but truthfully it’s taking me longer than I expected to acclimate to actually being able to see the food I’m cooking!

Besides the kitchen, the other major project this winter was to paint the “pink” staircase.  I’m assuming the previous owner was trying to match a pink bedroom that was on the second floor because the color was exactly the same. One summer, I attempted to paint some of the aforementioned staircase.  This resulted in a staircase that basically looked like this for nearly 7 years because neither Lynn nor I wanted to tackle it.  Yep, it was pretty ugly.

I particularly like the couple of pieces of duct tape I must have stuck on many years ago trying to cover the holes in the wall.

Besides the pink staircase, the walls were also a mess as was the ceiling on the landing.

OK, so apparently we have a problem with lead paint in an old house. Really? Our contractor was hemming and hawing about it but I went into denial mode even though I understood EXACTLY what our contractor was telling us. This resulted in an up-charge for all new sheetrock and special paint that would somehow magically “contain” the lead.

Let me just say, it cost me as much to paint this one frigging staircase as it does for me to pay the landscaper to mow our back 4 acres FOR THE ENTIRE SUMMER SEASON.

Yes, thank you I will take a deep breath.

So, in the end the staircase came out quite nice and contractor #3 did in fact even paint the doors.

Really now that I look at the before and after, it turned out very nice!

Right now that both staircases are done we need to figure out what to do with the steps. These stairs, like the stairs we had when we owned a house on Long Island, are in pretty bad shape and were simply painted over and over again.  A few weeks ago we tried to sand one of them. 20 minutes later we gave up realizing it was a project that A) wasn’t the worth the time and B) would come out crappy whether we painted or sanded. So, basically a lose-lose scenario.

Because we’re trying to save some money (we still need the guest bathroom totally renovated by next summer and hope to expand the deck), we thought we’d try putting down some vinyl floor planks ourselves over the existing treads and see how that looks.

Truthfully I can’t tell the difference between the vinyl and the “real” floor below. Between both staircases (14 stairs each), I’m thinking this might be an affordable alternative.

On the weather front, we drove up to the Red House Friday night in 59 degree weather, hit some rain and a 20 degree drop in temperature, only to wake up to about 6 inches of snow (if not more). Luckily, our neighbors across the street and next door were extremely kind and snow plowed the sidewalk and lower part of our driveway so we could get out. And yes, come the spring, we’re finally going to buy our own snowblower and hope to snag a discount for an end-of season sale. (Thank you guys, you know who you are!)

Finally, we are still winding down after a whirlwind Christmas holiday with our kids and family and a week-long FOODIE road trip to SC and NC. (Note to young chefs we met, we appreciated everything you cooked for us but NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE GRILLED.)

I’m hoping 2018 will be a good year for us and the Red House. So to my readers I send  best wishes for good health, much happiness and love, no parking or speeding tickets, great wine, real farm to table food and lots and lots of money.

PS Our daughter Rachel, gave us this cutting board for Christmas and we LOVE it!

 

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The Final Floor

Posted on September 23, 2017 by Julie

It’s now shortly after 1 p.m., the smoke alarm has gone off twice and we’ve already blown the same fuse (upstairs bedroom where all the big boy toys are apparently being used simultaneously) twice as well. Did I mention I have to listen to country music in between the sound of a painfully high pitched saw as wood is being cut, an electric nail gun is being used as well as the hissing of a large compressor. (I don’t actually hate country music, it’s just not my preferred genre.)

Yes, thank you for asking, I do, in fact, have a headache…

It’s Thursday, the day we’ve been waiting for nearly 3 months to get our bedroom floor installed.

Three months prior, this is the image that greeted us early in the morning. Boxes of wood flooring that had simply been dumped in our driveway. How they were getting up to the second floor bedroom appeared to be a mystery.

When we had two other bedroom floors done 3 summers ago, I don’t remember it being such a big deal. All the supplies and the wood got delivered IN THE SAME DAY and the installer came and did BOTH rooms in 2 days.

Now, we have one room, a narrow hallway and two small landings and it’s become a project that became impossible to schedule let alone have all the required materials delivered. Did I mention that this one room and above mentioned spaces is also costing roughly $500 more than both bedrooms combined?

Three guys and 8 hours later, we had half a bedroom and the hallway done. In fairness, they actually weren’t able to start until 10:30 a.m. even after showing up by 9:15 a.m. because even though the wood has been here for nearly three months, everything else they needed (plywood, matching wood thresholds and tar-like paper that is making the whole house smell like we put in a new driveway) was not and one of the installers had to go pick  everything else up himself at the BIG BOX store.

Obviously, this is no way to run a business!

The installers were concerned they were not going to be able to finish the job in 2 days so I had to give them the reality check that they might have to work on a Saturday (imagine that)! Christmas Eve I said would work for us too. (A small lie as to when we would next be back up at the house, but effective.)  Their response was they would be here by 9 a.m. tomorrow and bring a “fourth” guy.

In case you’re wondering, this is what the bedroom floor looked like prior to the installation.

Plus a hallway that was still covered in what looked like old snake skin patterned linoleum circa 1964.

And two very dreary landings. Here’s one of them.

Day 2.

8:56 a.m. The two original guys show up. No word on third guy (the boss) and the mystery “fourth” guy. The compressor goes on right away as does the radio where they’ve managed to find a station that’s playing Lynyrd Skynyrd. I can live with that.

9:59 a.m. Third guy (boss) shows up by himself.

10:20 a.m. “Fourth” guy shows up. He’s actually the guy who came out in JUNE to do the original estimate. We spend a lot of time complaining about BIG BOX store and how they don’t have anyone working there in flooring who knows anything about flooring. Really? I remind myself they are subcontractors and tell him this is our very last project with BIG BOX store.  Well, at least I hope so.

1:34 p.m. “Fourth” guy leaves to go do paperwork for another job and says he just came to “help,” and make sure they would finish today. We tell each other that we hope to never see one another again (in a nice way) but then I mention we were thinking about putting some carpet in one room and bingo – he does that too.

Meanwhile, when they’re working upstairs, I go outside to look at the garden.  This summer weather (oops, I forgot today is the first day of autumn) has resulted in very colorful wild flowers, lots of peppers and jalapenos and marigolds that look like they are just starting the summer season not ending it.

After the garden, I walk around the house and look at all the new gutters that we had installed Labor Day weekend which seem to be holding up so far.  Of course, it has barely rained in the past 3 weeks and even this weekend the temps are in the high 80’s!

One of the gutters is ridiculously long but we are hoping that the “pond” that collected on the side of the house after the last heavy rain storm won’t have a chance to form again if we try and divert the water as far away from the house (and down the driveway) as possible. The bonus feature of this gutter is that it actually flips up (so you can mow under it) which I thought was pretty clever.

Geez, it looks even longer in this shot!

2:55 p.m. One of the two original installers has to leave to go get a “haircut” since he has a second job bartending at a banquet hall that night. My reaction is why not just sweep your hair up in a”man bun.” He was already in his car before I could suggest that to him or even hand him a pony tail holder.

Now we’re down to two guys. I go back to the garden and look at the last remaining tomato still clinging to the vine, decide to leave it alone but cut the pumpkin since I figure evil bunny might eat it before I could at least admire it.  The pumpkin is heavier than I thought but I love its “wrinkles” and the vibrant shade of orange.

3:21 p.m. They claim they’re done and start packing up all their things. I go upstairs to look and yes, I am impressed, the floors came out really nice! But then I realize we didn’t pay for them to install any quarter round moulding around the baseboards so Lynn has yet another project to add to his very long “to do list.”

I happened to catch the sun shining in the windows after they left which made a pretty pattern on the bedroom floor.

The landing came out really nice, too.

But wait, why do we have so many boxes of wood left? FIVE BOXES to be precise. Did they totally overestimate the job? Yes, they did, Yes, indeed. We decide to put four of them in the car (the fifth box is broken and impossible to carry down the stairs) and return them to the store in the morning. Then, I think, we can relax for the rest of the day.

Relax? Oh yeah, I forgot, we need to put the bed back in the room so we can sleep tonight which means setting up the frame and dragging in the box spring and mattress and making up the bed. But before this can be done, everything in the room has to be swept, then mopped. Including the landing with windows and window sills that hadn’t been washed since we got new windows 6 years ago!

But wait, suddenly we realized that the installers had taken off all the doors – doors to the bathroom and bedroom and hallway – in order to install the floor, but hadn’t put them back up. And guess what, when we tried to put one of them back up, we realized it wouldn’t fit because now the floor was higher! So while we thought about taking the doors outside and shaving a bit off (as we have done for other doors in the past), the thought  of carrying 3 doors down the stairs, outside, and then back up again was daunting.

So Lynn brought the saw horses upstairs and we cut two of the three down so they’d fit. Then I made the bed – sheets, blanket and comforter – only to realize I had forgotten the mattress pad (!) so I stripped the bed and started all over again.

This final floor in our bedroom was our last project for the summer. Hip Hip Hooray!

I’ll leave you with a summery flower arrangement I put together from the Red House garden and hope everyone has a lovely fall and not too dreary a winter.

PS I just realized our new dining room table almost exactly matches the oak floors we put in the bedroom! Trust, me this was purely accidental.

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Let There Be Light (And Siding, Too!)

Posted on August 11, 2017 by Julie

Hard to believe we’ve been living with light bulbs hanging perilously from the ceiling, a bladeless ceiling fan that was begging to be updated and probably the ugliest “chandelier” that was ever manufactured. (I know someone probably likes the light in the third photograph just don’t tell me you think it’s lovely, it’s not.)

Along with the massive siding project, we finally broke down and hired an electrician to put up every light we had purchased in the last seven years for the Red House as well as a new fan for the ping pong room. Oh yeah, maybe someone who could even put real covers on all the exposed switches?

Yes, you can live like that for years and years when you no longer have any young children running around.

First to be capped were the exposed wires in the kitchen we had been looking at for at least three years.

Next was the dangling light bulb that was replaced with a soft glow “sputnik” and a funky new fan whose glass cover broke so we have to try and find one that size. (Initial research has revealed that this, however, will not be an easy task since it’s not a “standard” size. )

I was just happy I wasn’t the one who had to stand on a step stool (or more likely a paint-splattered chair) holding up a light fixture while Lynn attempted to install it and not electrocute himself.  There are just some things we refuse to do anymore and this has become one of those things.

Besides the new lights throughout the house, we have finally finished all the siding. The installers said it would take one week which I was skeptical about considering the size of the house and hence I took off 2.5 weeks from work to be here to make sure that all went according to plan. When all was said and done, it took them 8 days – they lost one day to rain, one day to “camping,” and one other day to do a window installation at another property.

Here are some pictures of the process.  We even got to see the original color of the house (dark brown) when they tore off some of the old shingles.

And yes, the Red House is still RED! And while I was skeptical about the color of the siding when I saw it online, I have to say the Red House looks really really nice. I was worried that the vinyl would look really plastic-y but it doesn’t.  It looks exactly like the color it should be. Watching people drive by the house, it’s been amusing to see people do double takes when they see the sudden transformation. Not so amusing is that someone from the post office took it upon themselves to stop delivering our mail because they thought someone else had bought the house and finally made it look “pretty”!) Can you even imagine that?  It took me two phone calls over two days along with a trip downtown to chat with the postmaster in charge to have this corrected.

Meanwhile the other morning, there was an older gentleman taking pictures of the Red House while his wife was sitting in the car.  I politely inquired what he was doing and it turns out they are friends with one of the early owners of the house (that would be 1950’s not 1850’s!). They were going to visit this elderly couple and wanted to show them the “progress” of the house. When the wife got out of the car and joined in our conversation, she was eager to know if we had kept the third staircase in the kitchen. (I politely told her we did not.) But “what about those wonderful wood floors?” she asked. I told her they were still there but were in pretty bad shape and we were wondering what to do – refinish or totally redo.

It’s difficult to try and convey to people what the house looked like both inside and outside and now with the new siding it will be even more of a challenge.  Although I don’t think this blog and the tale of the Red House is quite over yet, ironically I am missing the look of the old beaten up Red House a bit.

So here’s her new look! (Of course the Red House is a she.)

 

And yes, we absolutely still need some front stairs, a new garage, a mason to redo the foundation and last but not least landscaping please!

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The Red House Gets A New Set of Clothes (And A Hot Water Heater, Too)

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Julie

A few weeks ago we came up to the Red House to start “prepping” for the siding that would finally be put on the house. I made the mistake of driving into Manhattan to pick up Lynn from work which meant our usual 4 hour drive turned into a 7.5 hour drive.  Consequently, when we finally arrived at the Red House at 10:35 pm after leaving Long Island at 3:35, I was not a happy camper.

Imagine then if you can that after a quick dinner and a bottle of wine, all I really wanted to do was jump in the shower and go to sleep.  Except when I turned on the hot water in the new bathroom, the water was barely luke warm. Ditto for the kitchen, the guest bathroom and the downstairs bathroom. I sucked it up to “old” pipes and figured we would deal with it in the morning. (Except most of the pipes have been replaced and therefore not “old.” )

In the morning, Lynn and I went down to the scary basement where we proceeded to stand and stare at the old water heater. Yep, there it stood.  Ironically, this is the first hot water heater we’ve ever had in any home we’ve lived in (not that it made an iota of difference in this situation) but the fact that there was this gizmo that made hot water like magic was impressive considering our history of being hot water heater-less for over 30 years.

After a suitable amount of time staring at the darn thing, we went upstairs and I started to call plumbers. Plumber #1 was on vacation. Plumber #2 was retired. Plumber #3 had to go to a wedding and a funeral in the same day and didn’t think he could swing by the house.  I called our contractor who said he would come out and “take a look,” but he had to cook a birthday/graduation meal for like 300 people (well maybe 30 but you get the idea) so could we just shower cold until Monday?

Since the sole purpose of visiting the Red House that weekend was to deal with all the  weeds and the vines that were growing around and up the side of the house (meaning we had to cut them down), in order to prepare for the siding installation, we figured lots of hot sweaty work outdoors would be just fine when faced with our cold shower conundrum.

We had lots of vines growing up one side of the house in particular that had the Red House been a stone cottage somewhere in the south of France or even Tuscany it might have been particularly pretty but here it just didn’t work.

So we pulled and we tugged until we noticed a big part of the vines had attached themselves semi-permanently to a heavy black electrical wire going out to the street. Deciding that we didn’t want to risk electrocution or take down the power lines for the entire neighborhood with a too hard tug to try and dislodge the feisty plant, we left it as is.

Then we moved onto the weeds. There were weeds that were nearly as tall as I am (that would be 5 foot 8 inches). Some were easy to simply pull out of the ground, others needed to be cut down with a knife and some really stubborn ones needed the weed wacker.

This was an incredible amount of hard work on a really HOT DAY which is exactly what we needed given our hot water situation.  It took us about 5 hours (who says Upstate isn’t fun?) but we did get it all done and while I did take a cold shower, I will admit that I washed my hair in the sink (less traumatic that way.)

Meanwhile a quick garden update. The tomatoes are bountiful this year, but the zucchini is just revealing blossoms no fruit.  But I’m excited we have our first ever acorn squash! I haven’t seen the evil bunny in a while, so I’m hoping he/she has left the property!

TEN DAYS LATER

We arrived Wednesday night (8:30! No traffic!) to find our new hot water heater installed AND WORKING.  Look how pretty it looks!

Yes, the water is sufficiently hot although it does take a while to get up to the second floor from the basement. (I’m not complaining.)

In the morning, the first of many boxes of siding and insulation and wood appeared in our driveway – the start of a very difficult and large job.

So far so good. The siding is nearly a perfect match for the exact color red we wanted. After all, the Red House couldn’t suddenly become yellow or green or grey!

Stay tuned.

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The Red House Basement Floods Again…

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Julie

This past July 4th weekend was spent unfortunately eerily similar to July 4th in 2013. Friday, before the long weekend, we endured a day of heavy rain only to find ourselves dealing with 4 inches of water in the basement and a “lake” on the side of the house.  We also had water pouring through a basement window and fissures in the stone walls that had we been at the Villa d’Este in Italy with it’s “fifty-one fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts and, 364 water jets” (courtesy of a quick look on Wikipedia) might have been quite soothing, but that much water in the Red House basement is really a nightmare.

Ironically, this was the first long weekend since we bought the Red House (yes, that would be seven years) that both kids and their respective girlfriend and boyfriend were coming to visit. That means that when they arrived right around cocktail hour when we should have been toasting the start of the weekend, we were actually scrambling for flip flops and rubber boots for everyone to wear and a wet/dry shop vac we could plug in without getting someone electrocuted. Did I mention we needed at least 3 brooms so we could take turns pushing the rising water towards the sump pump that while going was simply not keeping up with the insane amount of water?

After a good hour of trying to keep up with the water flow, we decided to stop and luckily  at this point the rain stopped, the sun came out, and I was able to show them the garden and the FINALLY FINISHED MASTER BATHROOM.

We have lots of gorgeous looking lettuce.

And the biggest sage leaves I’ve ever seen.

Coupled with so many beautiful flowers…

As well as celery and some very green tomatoes.

Meanwhile after the garden tour, they got to see the newly finished master shower and the dining room table Lynn and I put together the night before although the dining room itself has quite a ways to go.

We picked up those green chairs at a garage sale on Long Island ($15 for 4!) and like the color so much that when we buy “real” dining room chairs they obviously have to be this exact shade of green. (I know, I know, this will be difficult but the “tastemaker,” aka Lynn says it is possible.)

But back to the flood. Even though the Red House sits fairly high up on a hill and when the bamboo dies in the winter we actually have a pretty view of the houses in the valley below. The problem is the house is also directly in the path of nearly 4 acres of sloping fields. So when the water runs down the field, we get a flooded basement and this time a “lake” on the side of the house.  Looking at all the water, we suddenly remembered a pipe that had been buried in the grass that we decided to dig out – thinking we could channel some of the water to the pipe.

This resulted in a ditch being dug the length of the property and more water than I’ve seen in our backyard. Luckily, the guys helped dig out the ditch which was a dirty muddy mess. (The girls decided to put up a volleyball net since after all it was 4th of July weekend!)

The theory was if we could divert the water away from the house, we hoped we wouldn’t be spending another 4th of July making sandbags. While we did manage to eventually stop the flow of water, we were worried that there weren’t enough sandbags around the new furnace and hot water heater. So after the kids left, I ordered sandbags online and we drove down to the Big Box store to buy sand. This time however, we carried the 50 lb bags of sand into the basement and made the sandbags there instead of stupidly making them in the driveway.

We also tried to shore up the basement window by putting a large metal window well in front of it but then got side tracked cutting down all the beautiful vines that were growing on the side of the house. (We rarely go on that side of the house so weren’t even aware how incredibly tall they had grown!)

Meanwhile, we finally have guest bedrooms for people to stay in, comfortably I think, as well as two finished bathrooms with one to go. Lynn also put back the railing leading up to the second floor and even spray painted the hardware! Whoops, this close-up reveals a spot he missed.

I also did some baking (blueberry muffins and zucchini bread) which as everyone knows I loathe (not the goodies but the act itself). And put out lots of good cheese from Jones Family Farm for everyone to nosh on before dinner.

Meanwhile, we started to clean out the TV room, dragging boxes of stuff up to the attic on the hottest day of the year (of course) a few weeks ago, but are still left with the church pews that we thought we could use in the kitchen but that didn’t quite work. (Anyone who wants them kindly message me – they’re free!)

Meanwhile, all this bad weather at the Red House has made us a bit paranoid about rain which is annoying only in that rain has never deterred us from doing any activity or road trip in the past.

Since we are still waiting for a date for our siding to be installed, we probably need to spend a day or two outside patching up holes in the foundation and maybe learning how to re-grade the slope around the house. Why do I already know this absolutely won’t be any fun at all. At least if we are working outside, I can look at the sumac that’s slowly turning red, just in time to (hopefully) match the new Red House siding.

Happy Summer!

 

Posted in Basement, bathroom, Family, Flooding, Flowers, Gardening, Garlic, Renovation, The Property | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Our Seventh Summer at the Red House

Posted on May 23, 2017 by Julie

Lynn and I sometimes can’t believe we’ve been working on the Red House for nearly 7 years. There are pros and cons to any project that takes this long.

First and foremost, if you buy something in the beginning and then decide further down the road you don’t like it or it simply doesn’t work, you can change your mind and replace it with something you think will work better. This, in my mind, is a plus.  The downside of this lengthy renovation is since you’ve had so much time to change your mind and do it differently, it inevitably will cost you more money than you originally anticipated.

Case in point. I’m afraid to even mention the upstairs master bathroom (recently renamed the “million dollar bathroom”) but I will. Okay, I know it REALLY didn’t cost that much but the fact that I paid a previous contractor a large sum of money to do the bathroom, but ultimately had to pay another contractor THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT to rip it out and redo it is why it has definitely earned that title.

Consequently, because I had to come up with double the amount of money I had budgeted for the bathroom, I had to eliminate something from our very lengthy “TO DO” list and that was (drum roll please), finish the kitchen.  I know, I know, it pisses me off, too.  I mean really, I would love for all the electrical work in the kitchen to be completed, the exhaust fan/hood above the stove to be installed as well as the “stop sign” window to be spackled, sanded and painted! Hopefully, by the end of the summer, this will move back up to the top of the list.

This is where the exhaust fan needs to go! Look the outlet is already there and waiting!

I guess the fact that we put up a decent looking metal back splash is a lot better than what we had before (that would be a very ugly black garbage bag and not even a good one, a crappy one) like you see below. This of course was before we got cabinets, and counters, etc., etc., etc. Wait is the stove on? Am I cooking something and taking pictures at the same time? Do you see the flame? I do! Obviously I’m just boiling water since there doesn’t appear to be anything in either of the other pans.

Besides having the exhaust fan installed, the “stop sign” window needs to be finished!Trust me, it looks a lot worse on the outside. Technically, it is centered so we’ll see how this really looks once the siding is done. In the meantime, we are almost finished with the upstairs master bathroom! Hip Hip Hooray! Yes, it looks much better than we ultimately thought it would and it’s the biggest bathroom we’ve ever had in any apartment or house we’ve lived in so I guess it was worth the wait and the money. We have to still install the shower door, hook up the faucet for the vanity and simply put the drawers in. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Remember, this is what we started with – a former nursery with no plumbing that managed to become a bathroom. The original thought was to put subway tiles on the shower walls and a simple gray tile for the bathroom floor. In hindsight, the subway tile looked a lot better when we laid it on the floor than the wall.

This was Round 1 of the bathroom. Yeah, it just didn’t work.

Ultimately the subway tile had to be ripped out and a whole new unit needed to be put in. And yes, they did throw out the piece of marble that cost us a pretty penny on the step you see here that I hoped could be saved! (Case in point: when you tell someone to demo a room and throw everything out and start again, that’s what they do!)

And this is Round 2.

Okay, in hindsight this looks a lot “neater.” And I do love the shelves although they will probably make me crazy trying to keep them clean.

And I think the floor tile came out nicely although Lynn is complaining the grout lines are too thick! REALLY?

Besides the master bath near completion, we also managed to convert a bedroom into what will eventually be a walk-in closet but more probably some sort of office. (I don’t really have that many clothes and would rather have a room to work and/or write in.) Remember we originally had six bedrooms (!) and are now down to three. Here are some before and after shots.

This shot actually looks a lot nicer than the space really was.  I hated walking into that room, it was really scary. We also originally had planned to have a skylight in the room (notice the plywood frame in the upper right hand corner where the skylight was going to go) but since then the wall has totally been dry walled.  Here are two pictures to show the process.

I think the track lighting to replace the single hanging light bulb is a huge improvement! The walk in closet also leads to the attic but a portion of the attic stairs had to be ripped out to put in the plumbing for the master bath.

Now that the plumbing is finished, the stairs have been put back.  This means I can finally start putting some of the many boxes we brought up from our old house up there in storage. Somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to throw out all the kid’s old toys and books and school certificates just yet.

Once that’s done, I can also focus on putting a new wood floor in the bedroom as well as new flooring for both landings. (Yes, we have two landings because we have two staircases.) Unfortunately, with all this construction going on (think dust and more dust), there’s a lot of clean up we have to do. Really, how is this going to become a bedroom one can comfortably be in! Courage!

Okay, I know the table saw, shop vac and garbage can, coupled with leftover drywall, plywood and tubs of spackle will all go away but really – this is a huge room to clean up.  Let me segue here briefly.  When my current contractor started the job and one of the stipulations was to throw out all the old iron radiators, he actually asked me if he could just throw them out the window.

See this radiator (yes, of course we did save some), well imagine this times 4 and you get the picture –  they’re old and weigh a ton. So no, throwing them out the window was not an option. My luck, they’d bounce back and break a window!

But back to the landings. Here’s one of the landings that’s big enough to perhaps accommodate a reading nook in the future. When I get rid of all the boxes and put a bookcase I bought the first year someplace else (along with numerous dictionaries), I think this will be a pleasant little space.  In case you missed the dictionary in the picture, it’s the big white paper thing with black tabs on it. Side note: Before anyone had an app that would help you spell and define a word, there were dictionaries! Besides English, I also have dictionaries in German, French and Italian! And they’re all really big and heavy! But more confusing is why exactly do we have so many blinds lying around? What rooms are missing blinds? Are there rooms in the house we haven’t discovered yet?  Just kidding!

Our biggest project this summer (money-wise, too) is that we are finally ready to do the siding. We also hope to install some much needed gutters over the porch. This should help to alleviate the “shower effect” we so often get when we’re trying to get into the house when it’s raining.  Yes, indeed the water just pours off the roof! And with new siding we’ll need new outdoor lighting since the ones on the porch are no longer a complete working pair since one particularly bad winter a heavy duty icicle smashed one of them.

We also have been working on the dining room. I say “we” but really Lynn has been doing all the work.  He ripped off some weird moulding and other strange material that had been put on the walls only to find some old floral green, white and gray wallpaper and what I can only describe as an attempt to stencil huge bows on the wall.  I do wonder if there were any family portraits at one point that had been put in these ornate “frames.”

Here’s a before and after shot.

Gearing up for the summer planting season, our garden took a beating this winter even though we were told it was a “mild” one.  “Mild” compared to what I wonder? This weekend I spent a few hours tilling the soil, thinking about what I would plant, trying to remember what worked last year (zucchini, beans, beets and peas), what the rabbits ate (zucchini, beans, beets and peas) and what didn’t grow at all (sage, eggplant and peppers).

We had luck growing basil in containers when we had our house on Long Island so Lynn suggested we try that this year. Luckily, we seem to have a nice crop of asparagus that seems pretty hearty (here’s a shot of a few very tall stalks early in the season).

The strawberries appear to be doing well, too, provided the birds and aforementioned rabbits don’t eat all of them. Dare I mention I saw a couple rabbits the other day and they looked really BIG! Maybe they’ll be too full to venture into the garden? Or maybe they’re large because they’re about to birth little bunnies! Hopefully they won’t eat a new rose bush I was just about to plant in the ground.

On that note, if you’re planting any veggies or flowers this Memorial Day weekend, think of me! And, don’t worry, I’ll have lots of follow-up photos and a story or two about the Red House and its new “look.”

And so our 7th summer at the Red House begins.

Posted in Construction, Flowers, Gardening, Renovation, The Property, Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment