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.

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.

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!

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.

Yes, there is still some painting to be done and insulation needs to be put around the skylight and we need a towel rack or two and a toilet paper roll holder would be awesome but the toilet flushes, the sink works (HOT WATER TOO), and no one drowned in the Jacuzzi.

Considering that we started this project on June 19, 2016 and it’s now September, the only thing I can say is that luckily it’s not our only bathroom!

Here are a few shots of the transformation.

And the finished tub!

We also did the floor in what looks like “distressed” wood but is in fact simply tile. I didn’t think it would look as good as it does so I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.

When we sold our Long Island house earlier this year, we also gave up access to a convenient washer/dryer. (Our apartment has neither.) Which means one of us (usually me because I have a shorter commute and thus home earlier) is doing laundry at the laundromat. Not the worse case scenario actually. What I didn’t realize with these new machines (ours in our previous house were really old) is that 1) they do laundry in half the time and 2) they do laundry in half the time!

So to take you back, this is what the “laundry room” looked like.

And this is what we have now! (I know it IS very exciting!)

Yeah, they’re not fancy front-loaders in designer colors. They are simple white. They were mid-range in price and they will probably last forever.

Since we have TWO other bathrooms to renovate going forward (the one that I dare not mention again until somehow magically it’s done), and the icky white bathroom we are using now, I can say I’m feeling most optimistic since this one turned out so well.

Bathroom done we are moving into the fall season with a huge list of projects.

1. We still have NO dining room. Exhibit 1A.2. We still have NO bedroom. Exhibit 2A.

3.  One of our staircases is still HALF PINK/HALF WHITE! Exhibit 3A.

4. What should be the “living” room is filled with “boy toys” to help do all the renovations! Exhibit 4A.

5. What should be the “family” aka TV room is filled with boxes from our old house. We can’t store anything in our basement since it has a tendency to flood (!) which leaves us with the attic. Unfortunately, we have some stairs missing so can’t physically get up to the attic until the stairs are put back. Until that happens, all the stuff that’s here will unfortunately have to stay here. Exhibit 5A.

6. We are most definitely not hoarders but even the staircase landing is filled with stuff! Exhibit 6A.

7. Did I mention the driveway is totally ripped up and an eyesore, too? Exhibit 7A.

8. We still have NO siding. Exhibit 8A!

9. Not to mention we need a new garage! Exhibit 9A.

I know at this point everyone is thinking  – WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN DOING THE LAST 6 YEARS!!! The answer is fixing everything else!

But let me continue.

10. We also don’t have any stairs to get into the front of the house. Yep, we need some landscaping, too! Exhibit 10A.

Compounding the lack of stairs and siding is the problem we face every winter in that the rain simply pours off the roof when we are going through the side entryway. (Shower anyone?) Also when it gets really cold we have very large icicles that form and drip off the roof onto the deck making an entrance into the house somewhat perilous.

To end this story on a happy gardening note, (yes, the thought of the cold and pictures of the icicles did frighten me), we did manage to harvest most of the garlic (we think) that was growing. The cloves were especially large this year and most likely the German Red variety. (Truthfully can’t really remember what we planted!)

Our bamboo is flowering and growing so well it has managed to create a “privacy” fence for a good portion of the property.

Our marigolds also did much better than any veggies I planted (except for the aforementioned garlic). Ditto for the geraniums.

So for now, summer may nearly be over but somehow when I look at our garden gnome I don’t see a smirk on his cute little face but rather a really really happy smile! Perhaps he knows there might be a cold spell but then an Indian summer that will grace our garden or better yet, at least maybe one of the ten projects we want accomplished will happen BEFORE next summer.

Here’s a couple of photos from my visit to Munich’s “Markt”in July 2014!

When we bought our first condo on Long Island, I reluctantly planted some tomatoes on our balcony in pots that didn’t grow and basically didn’t think about any true gardening until we bought our first house in 2001. There I had a sizeable yard – enough to grow rose bushes that bloomed without me having to do anything at all, hostas that would come up even if a certain husband ran over them with the lawn mower and herbs (sage, parsley, chives, and rosemary) that would come back year after year even after the coldest of winters.

Now I have 4 acres – a lot of it forest – along with some bamboo and sumac trees. When we planted the first garden a few years ago, we first had someone rip up the sod so we could throw down some gardening soil, cow manure and peat moss.  Basically anything that came in a bag that said “organic” on it and bragged that it could help grow crops as tall as the Empire State building and cause flowers to burst into bloom and be worthy of an appearance in Macy’s annual flower show, I would use to get my garden “ready.”

I know about crop rotation and about not planting certain plants next to each other. What I didn’t have in my Long Island garden that I have Upstate New York are 1) deer, 2) many many rabbits and 3) groundhogs. This meant that even with the fence Lynn put up, the deer managed to nibble on any large flowers that sprouted above the fence and both the rabbits and groundhogs dug holes or simply wiggled their way through openings in the fence.

See? Here is Mr. Bunny waiting to get into the garden after lounging around all day in the grass!

Consequently, much of what I planted was eaten before it even had a chance to grow! This year, unlike last year, it seemed I would have a bumper crop of zucchini! I had never seen so many blossoms and even made some fried zucchini blossoms for dinner one night that I stuffed with goat cheese from a nearby farm.

Problem was all I had were blossoms, there was no actual zucchini attached.

After a little bit of research, I found theveggielady.com who walked me through the process of hand pollinating female zucchini blossoms with male ones to result hopefully in baby zucchini!  Although I was skeptical that this Australian lady could help me, she also had really great pictures that made it seem easy and doable.

Since anything science-related was not my strong point (when we had to dissect a frog in 10th grade bio I decided skipping school and risk being expelled from the National Honor Society was a better option than having to deal with a frog), I decided to try and focus on what I was doing and maybe it would in fact work.

How difficult could this hand pollinating thing be? Strangely, I can handle blood and cutting things up and dealt with many a messy poopy diaper from both children but I absolutely cannot deal with vomit. Case in point: my son Nicholas threw up in his car seat one morning, the vomit rolling down his winter jacket and literally enveloping the entire jacket zipper. I was so grossed out about touching the vomit-laden zipper that I simply cut the jacket off of him!!  (Nicholas, I don’t think that traumatized you that much did it?)

So, last week I did what theveggielady told me to do, although I must admit that the inside of a female zucchini blossom didn’t look much different than the male ones! (I was never good at doing those stupid tests where you have to find 3 of the same or figure out which one is different than the other.) I gently snipped off the male stamen (sorry, Mr. Zucchini Blossom) and gently rubbed the stamen onto what looked like a Ms. Zucchini Blossom.

Afterwards, I decided that this experiment is the true meaning of “food porn!” Okay, foodie/chef friends, you should really be laughing and not groaning at that statement right now.

Like any “Mom” who wants to have a baby, I waited and waited and suddenly yesterday, I saw a tiny little zucchini actually growing from a blossom. Holy shit!

Okay, so I’ll never get an honorary Horticulture degree from a college for this revelation but it did work and was kind of neat.

I have quite a list of projects I would like to be completed by the end of the year. Not being a total pessimist, I’m hoping we get at least half of them accomplished.

This past spring we finally got a new roof for the main part of the house. The shingles on the house were so old that while I thought they would simply have flown off at the touch of the tool the roofing guys were using to remove them, instead they held on as tight as can be so stripping the roof down to the rafters was a struggle.

Here’s our shingle delivery as well as the start of the project.

There was a ton more debris than I anticipated but then again the main part of the house has a huge roof so what did I expect?

And then of course it started to rain.  It took about 1.5 weeks to finally finish the roof because of the rain delay but now that’s its done, the roof looks quite nice.

We also ordered a granite counter top to finish our kitchen island. I’m reluctant to admit that the one piece of granite cost more than it did to install all of our kitchen counter tops! Even before we got our kitchen counters installed last summer, we survived nearly 4 years with a handy metal cart we inherited from our son.  It served us well.

In the meantime, leftover backer board comes in very handy to cover up the kitchen island until the counter gets here.

We also covered some kid’s cushions we got at Ikea with some red fabric to make the benches and backs of the benches pop a little more in a kitchen that’s primarily black and white. While neither of us can sew, we figured out a way to wrap the fabric around the foam cushion with some heavy cardboard. For now the fabric is in place although Lynn swears whenever he sits on the bench a staple is pinching his ass! (I think he’s imagining being pinched but whatever.)

This is what the cushions looked like before and our finished dining nook. (We had originally wanted a German “Stube” and even bought some church pews to try and make benches but the pews were too long and curved and simply didn’t fit.)

I’m reluctant to admit that we are currently in the process of hiring contractor #3. I promised myself that he will be the last one we work with and since he’s affiliated with a big box store that will replace him if he fails or bows out of the project, I’m pretty confident that at least this way the house renovation will eventually be finished.

Ironically, the project he is working on first was at the bottom of the list. What happened is as follows. If you remember, last fall we were left with a master bathroom that wasn’t finished, ditto for some odds and ends in the kitchen and a room that is totally gutted that I want to turn into a closet. These were the three projects I wanted to be finished ASAP.

As a reminder here’s a shot of the bathroom that can’t seem to get done!

But, big box store management wasn’t keen on finishing a project that someone else had started citing liability issues. They did, however, offer to work on the downstairs bathroom/laundry room since nothing had been started there.  That is how the last Red House renovation project suddenly got bumped up to be the first Red House renovation project for the summer of 2016.

We start in less than 3 weeks.

Lynn has spent the past few days working on the main staircase into the house. The plaster was torn off (actually it looked like someone at one point simply put their fist through it – the previous owners perhaps knowing they were being foreclosed on?).  He thought about sheet-rocking the wall but the angle was so strange and the moulding a bit weird, too, that we decided to try and put up some wainscoting.

We bought some panels that have a “wainscot” look. Was it easier than putting up drywall? Probably not since each panel had to be cut to size and then each of the primed 1×4’s had to be cut, too.

In the end, I think it came out really nice – it just needs to be painted, and the other side of the stair done too!

In the meantime, I’ve had a family of rabbits on the property who have managed to get into my garden and have eaten all of my green beans, peas and even my broccoli! They were good natured enough to leave me the Romaine, beets, carrots, cauliflower as well as the tomatoes. They also apparently don’t like garlic since my scapes were quite pretty and artistically shaped.

Although the weather has been beautiful, both the field and the garden desperately need some rain. We have a timer set up in the house that waters the garden every two days for about 20 minutes and that seems to be enough to keep my flowers looking particularly colorful this year.

Food-wise – I will be grilling this summer and frequenting as many farmer’s markets as possible. I’ve already made some delicious salads from the lettuce in the garden and pick the asparagus to throw in a pasta dish whenever I see a stalk peeking out from the ground. When the tomatoes are ready, I know they will be perfect with some burrata or oven roasted with a piece of fish.

Oh yeah, just as I was finishing this story, our counter arrived. It’s absolutely gorgeous! And perfect to roll out dough if I want to make pizza or Christmas cookies or Hungarian Kolach! Hint: Kids time to come visit Mom and Dad! Even though I hate baking, I love that they eat everything I bake.

First and foremost, although we did spend an enormous amount of time and some money planting a variety of vegetables and flowers in the spring, in the end only the flowers seemed to do well this year. Maybe it was the lack of rain even though we did have the sprinkler on a timer running every other day. Or perhaps it was the rabbits or the squirrels or even the occasional neighborhood cat that got into the garden and ate everything in sight. When we would arrive on a Thursday night for long weekends up at the Red House, we were initially very happy with what was growing in the garden. There were zucchini blossoms, cauliflower, broccoli and beets.

Most Friday or Saturday mornings I could be found weeding the garden, admiring the veggies that were growing as well as noting how pretty the flowers and sumac trees looked. But I was also worrying about how very dry the back meadow seemed.

However, as the days of summer grew longer and hotter (especially if we missed a weekend or two up at the Red House), we would come back to find that the lack of rain coupled with the heat had literally “roasted” the cauliflower on the stalk. And while some of the green beans grew, most of my tomatoes did not.

With very few vegetables to pick, we started visiting more farmer’s markets around the area to make up for our own feeble growing results. What’s even more disappointing this growing season is that this year not only did we till the soil first and both fertilize and try to water, we were also spending an enormous amount of time weeding the garden. (The weeds won.)

Speaking of winning (and losing, too), I had been thinking of getting a ping pong table for the Red House for a while. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Munich playing ping pong on a fairly regular basis coupled with the fact that my parents still have a ping pong table in their basement and many a grandchild was raised playing a game or two before a family meal. I researched buying tables online (too expensive!) and then started scouring Craigslist ads for garage sales. Low and behold, one Friday morning I saw an ad for a garage sale listing the exact ping pong table I was looking for up the road from the Red House!

It was in four pieces with a stand and a complete set of paddles and balls. I won’t mention how long it took Lynn to put it together (hint: nearly two days) but finally when it was assembled, we had a ping pong table to play on! (Eventually, it will be moved into our attic but for now it’s in the room next to the TV.)

Little did I know that Lynn grew up playing ping pong, too, and was EXTREMELY competitive playing ball with me. Even though I was usually the one who had to coax him into playing a game or two after dinner, inevitably he won. Here’s our scorecard to date – LOL.

Since our ping pong table also looks out onto the back meadow, I realized we had a dead tree in the backyard, in addition to two very large dead trees in the front of the house. I was seriously worried that one if not both trees in the front could possibly fall on someone driving or walking by the house so we had to get an estimate to have the trees taken down ASAP.

Another reason to have the trees taken down right away was that we were also in the process of getting estimates to have the main roof of the house redone.  I’m not one to cut down trees ever but unfortunately these two had to go.

So the day before the tree guys were going to take down the trees, they parked their “toys” in the driveway.

Let’s just say when they came to do the work Friday morning shortly after 7 a.m., they started up both the truck and the Bobcat at the same time in addition to revving up their chainsaws. Regardless of the incredible noise they were making, they did manage to get all three trees down in under 3 hours.

Trees down, we are trying to get the money together to get a new roof before the winter sets in, followed by much needed siding in the spring.

In the meantime, even the little projects are coming along. For example, Lynn put up some solar stair lights so now that it’s getting darker earlier, we are not fumbling in the dark to walk up the Red House steps.

Granted, they don’t shed a lot of light, but enough so I’m not tripping in the dark carrying bags and trying to find the house key. (A problem we wanted to rectify before going into the winter especially since I broke my wrist last March slipping on some ice in my driveway on Long Island after taking out the trash!)

Lynn has also taped around some of the ceiling light fixtures in anticipation of someday spray painting them.

Wow, Lynn what’s up with all that blue painter’s tape? Just kidding!

And even though some may be confused about labeling the purchase of a grill cover as a “project,” the fact is we have been grilling in the driveway for 5+ years. This may not be a big deal to some but our driveway (like everything else on the property) slopes which means when we want to grill we have to lift up the grill (which is pretty heavy) and place it on a part of the driveway that’s fairly even. This past weekend, I decided the purchase of a grill cover in addition to a grill “mat,” would enable us to place the grill on the deck and leave it there permanently.

Other projects include Lynn buying a bunch of clamps to try and get our kitchen cabinets to hang properly which is a really big problem since the kitchen walls and floor (like our driveway) lean more than slightly to one side.

Meanwhile, even though our kitchen is slowly coming together, we keep making more and more work for ourselves! While we originally were going to buy more cabinets to fit next to the stove, Ikea discontinued the cabinets we already had and the replacement cabinets were an entirely different size. So we talked about putting an eating area near the stove, a “Stube” as the Germans like to say, but had to build it first.

So back to Ikea we went after seeing a picture of someone who had built such a “Stube” by using a couple of kids benches. Lynn put the benches together in an “L” shape but then realized there was still space between the two so he used a piece of wood from an old desk to bring the whole thing together.

And here’s how it’s going to look with cushions although I’m going to recover the cushions at some point with a different fabric. And, of course, we need a table, too.

The biggest news at the end of this Red House summer is that nearly 13 months after thinking about getting a kitchen counter – we finally have one. Here are the before and after shots!

It came out pretty nice – a sturdy black laminate with a grain pattern that actually gives the counter a wood look. We also were finally able to put the remaining drawers into the cabinets and Lynn spent nearly an afternoon attaching the handles, too.

Unfortunately, to make room for the counter installation we had to move everything out of the kitchen into the dining room.

So while one project is seemingly done in one room, we often create a bigger project in another room.

And even though it’s nearly the end of September, the flowers are still blooming and we are still putting shrimp on the grill with lots and lots of homemade pesto with basil and garlic we grew here.

We always enjoy these last few days before the leaves turn and the cold weather sets in. There will be more projects to do inside since everyone knows an old house renovation is never ever done.

On a final note, two weekends ago we spent a few days in Manhattan celebrating Lynn’s birthday and our anniversary. We had lunch at Bouley (!) and one of the dishes was fresh asparagus. I was bewildered since normally asparagus herald in the start of spring. Up at the Red House however, I realized that we, too, had a second crop growing and we weren’t here to reap the benefits of one of my favorite vegetables.

Here’s a shot of one of my many asparagus plants! So in addition to an overabundance of asparagus (which we’ll definitely be looking forward to when spring arrives once again), the fall will bring us a ton of brussels sprouts to eat with many holiday meals.

But for now, it’s the bees that grabbed my attention as we were about to leave the Red House this weekend. They are still drawing the sweet nectar from the flowers in the garden – enjoying every last minute of this very lovely summer.

So when all was said and done, or picked to be more precise, I was left with barely enough strawberries to fill a ramekin. (Truthfully, there were many more out in the garden but it was difficult to get to them.)

Besides the strawberries, everything else in the garden this year appears to be growing nicely. Last year we were lazy and didn’t properly till the garden or even set up a sprinkler to keep things adequately watered. This year we did both and used new top soil and fertilizer because I was determined that everything I planted would grow. So the zucchini is doing nicely as well as the spinach and basil, too.

I’ve also been picking asparagus since the end of May and have managed to get at least 4-5 stalks to eat with nearly every Red House meal. Like the strawberries, they are perennials which are exactly the kind of vegetables I like to nurture. You buy them once, plant them and they just keep giving you food year after year.

This asparagus obviously grew way too high but the dill-like fronds when the asparagus is trimmed down will make their way into the soil for more asparagus to sprout next year.

On the home front, I’ve been remiss in writing about the Red House renovation because right now we’re in a holding pattern. Our current contractor has been trying to put in an upstairs master bathroom for nearly a year. Why this has taken so long can only be attributed to his working infrequently on the project coupled with him undergoing some major surgery in the past few months. Unfortunately, a lot of what we want to do (finish the master bedroom and build a huge walk-in closet) can’t happen until he finishes the bathroom.

I am, however, encouraged when I see things he has labeled indicating at least there is the possibility of a shower and lights, too!

I also like the fact that he randomly leaves “boy toys” lying around which also gives me hope that eventually the bathroom will be done and we will have one more room finished.

In November this is how the shower looked.

And as of June, this is where we are now. (In other words, we’ve got a long way to go.)

Since we spend a lot of time outside in the summer at the Red House, I can’t complain about what’s not being done inside the house. The rabbits living on the property have been gracious enough to not eat everything (so far) I’ve planted which means the lettuce (usually their food of choice) is amazing and the flowers are absolutely gorgeous.

The deer, too, seem content to nibble only at the grass and wildflowers around the property. Isn’t he/she adorable?

Going into the start of the summer season which is my favorite time up at the Red House, I’m trying not to fret about how things have crawled to a halt on the Red House renovation because of time and money. It’s no good worrying if the very old roof on the main part of the house will make it through another Upstate New York winter or the fact that we really need to get new siding! Since we’re half way through our anticipated completion of the project (yes, we’ve been here five years!), I have to take a step back and be happy for all we have accomplished.

I know there are quite a few people who think their dream home has to have a water view. With the meadow that we have and all the peacefulness it inspires, we can only be very, very thankful for the Red House.

Oh yeah, and hope the tree that’s dead in the foreground doesn’t fall on top of the kitchen roof that is new! Happy First Day Of Summer!

In the winter months whenever we’re driving up to the house after work, I usually leave all my electronics (camera, laptop) and booze in the car. In the summer however, I’m afraid things will “melt” and thus, drag everything into the office with me. This past Friday, therefore, I carried into my office and back out – a laptop, a camera, two bottles of wine, my briefcase and a purse. I piled everything into the car (or so I thought) and started the long drive. Five hours later as we’re unpacking the car, I realized somewhere along the way I lost the cooler! Which meant we had no dinner, which meant we had this:

Somehow I had left a pound of very expensive Florida shrimp (jumbo-size), hand-sliced smoked salmon, a variety of cheeses, and sausages sitting somewhere in my office. Oh and the pork cutlets Lynn had so lovingly made the night before were in the cooler, too.

Luckily I had packed the brioche rolls and some salads in a separate insulated bag so with the tuna we did have some salad and of course wine.

What annoyed me the most (besides the expense) is that knowing I have no food up at the Red House, the cooler should have been the first bag on my shoulder, but it wasn’t. As I was dwelling on this Friday night (and trying to slice a brioche roll with a very sharp steak knife at the same time), I also managed to cut a very deep gash in my thumb which then bled all over my new tile floor which resulted in this:

At this point there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to forget that what should have been a pleasant start to summer was turning uglier by the minute. So, I just went to bed.

In the morning I remembered what Lynn had started last weekend. He decided after four years of not being able to find any tool he needed quickly, to simply organize everything on a shelving unit. So now all his stuff looks like this:

I then opened the door to what will eventually be the master bedroom and remembered he had started taking off all the moulding so the room now looks like this:

While we had really wanted to expedite renovating the bedroom, what became a bigger project was assembling the kitchen cabinets and putting them in place. We ran into a problem with one of the corner cabinets however, in that while it should have technically just slid into place, the corner it was supposed to fit into still had one of the original beams of the house. So, after much planning on how to make this work, Lynn simple cut the cabinet so it would fit around the beam making the cabinet look like this:

I went outside. There I found the beginnings of my tomatoes growing as well as the asparagus I had tried to chop down last weekend.

There were also some really pretty flowers that looked like this:

And the first crop of snow peas when picked looked like this:

(PS I love this shot, it came out really neat!)

Anyway, we’re actually going to be away from the Red House for a couple of weeks but know what we have to deal with when we come back. Electrical issues that look like this:

Radiators that need to be painted since we’re having two new wood floors installed in both guest bedrooms.

And a real good cleaning and organization of all the stuff we’ve had to push from room to room to hallway back to room!

On a final note, we have finally brought up every single kitchen cabinet that we need to finish the kitchen. (Yeah!) So hopefully the car will never look like this again!

And eventually the kitchen will resemble something like this:

Just kidding! But it was the only picture I could find in this mess of a Red House.

Happy Summer!