Well, not entirely nothing, but not much in the way of bigger projects being worked on. We have locked down a contractor to help us remodel the bathrooms, fix some structure under the hearth room, lay new salvaged floors in the hearth room (most of ours are too far gone to save), and pull the paneling (which is hand-planed) off the hearth wall to restructure the framing behind it, while our mason re-tucks the brick above the firebox due to some settling/splitting. We are on his schedule to start in early November, as they want to lay the floor boards when the heat has been on for a while, and the boards have contracted as much as possible. The plank floors shrink and swell (more across the grain rather than with it, so they get wide and narrow, but not so much movement in length) with the seasons, but after a time, this movement is minimized. Laying down seasoned, salvaged antique boards, we should be safe laying them without a gap. If they do end up gapping over time, we’ll just do what the original settlers did, and push some twine or natural rope into the cracks. We’ll be meeting the contractor again soon to select the tiles for the bathrooms, and lay out what we will be doing ourselves, vs. what we’re expecting from him.
There will be a lot going on late fall/early winter this year, between the bathrooms being remodeled, the barn foundation being re-stacked, the barn leveled and strengthened, and new floors in the hearth room. We’ll also be remodeling the kitchen, and stripping the floors in the two parlors.
One of the challenges of an antique post and beam home is that you’re never sure if what you THINK you can do, you can actually do. Take for instance the gas range. It seemed like a slam dunk to install a gas range against the old summer kitchen fireplace, as it seemed wide open below to run a gas line, and we could take advantage of the old chimney to run an exhaust hood. Well, when the gas company techs came to install the gas line from the propane tank, there was actually a beam that runs exactly where we would have wanted the line to come up through the floor. So, we’ll utilize our developing yankee ingenuity, and cut out the back of this little curio we have, and slide it over the gas line, both protecting the line and providing more storage in the kitchen. Notice the yellow walls and red trim are now a less-festive, more Colonial, “Dove” and “Perfect Taupe.”
Speaking of Yankee ingenuity/New England frugality, we’ve also begun making our own kitchen table from boards we’ve found in our barn. Since receiving the great news that the shed addition (102 years old) on the back of the barn doesn’t need to be pulled down, and can actually be used to stabilize the back bay of the barn, we’ve begun setting it up as a wood shop. We need to update the lighting, and create some hinge-mechanism to open the windows (there are three windows on the left side, just out of the frame of the picture below), but it’ll be a really nice space.
Cutting into these boards was a surprise: all different densities, and aromas. The board on the far left smelled distinctly of cinnamon! Was it apple wood? Used in making spiced cider? Anyone know?
This week, we did take a day to drive over to coastal Maine. We stopped in Kennebunkport for lobster rolls and a bit of shopping, then hit a couple of sites along the way to Woolwich/Bath, where we had dinner on a wharf in a beautiful little cove. It was a great little getaway.
While we enjoyed our day in Maine, the purpose of the trip was mostly to check on the condition of a house with which we’d fallen in love, before we found our house, but we were not able to close that deal. It was, however, purchased by someone else, and thankfully, the new owners are restoring the house beautifully, and it is clearly being “loved,” so for that, we are thankful. These antique houses are far bigger than we are, so it’s far more about someone loving and caring for the house than it is about us owning it. We see so many antique homes around here just going back to the earth, and it’s really sad to lose them. These homes were built at the same time as our country itself, and they were built by hand, with love and care, and they were expected to be passed down from father to son, so they were built to last.
Our neighbor recently loaned us a couple of books by Eric Sloane, which we devoured so quickly, we ordered all we could from Amazon. Eric Sloane, while being a meteorologist and weather geek, fell in love with early American history, and his books are full of first hand accounts (from journals and diaries) of early-American life, and are accented by Eric’s illustrations that really bring it to life. The early settlers were far more in tune with their surroundings that I had ever known. They understood the weather patterns, the stars, how to work wood and iron to do exactly what you wanted, how to move boulders weighing more than a ton with ease (using ramps, fulcrums, and an ox), as well as every day things we don’t even think about. If you have any interest in life in early America, I highly recommend you check them out!
Less than two weeks from now, and we’ll be taking Allie over to Durham for her first year at UNH. We’ll certainly miss her, but she’s ready to take on the world and bloom, plus she’s been traveling most of the summer, so we’ve gotten somewhat accustomed to her not being here. She’ll only be an hour-and-a-half away, so we’ll still see her easily.
That’s it for now. Thanks for following along!
Leave a Reply