Tag: Historic Rehabilitation
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Every Wall is a Door
Soon I’ll reveal photographs of Rosslyn’s west and north elevations in their new incarnations, hardscape and landscape complete, sunken courtyard and deck arranged with furniture, vision and plan achieved at last. Soon. Spring is still early, and conditions remain premature. But soon. June, perhaps. Until then, a pensée, as our francophone friends might say. Every…
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April Oasis
Meditating on the lakeside sanctuary that seduced us nearly two decades ago (and with which we remain smitten even as we begin let go…)
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TMB March 10, 2008
Let’s follow up last Friday’s “take me back” post — a glimpse at the pre-addition west and south elevations — with another time warp, this time to March 10, 2008. In the spirit of recent retrospective posts remembering early days at the outset of our Rosslyn adventure, I offer you a chillier, snowier version of…
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TMB March 8, 2007
Flashback seventeen years to the first winter of discouraging setbacks as we tried desperately to advance our dream of revitalizing this old house into our new home.
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Boathouse Restructuring
Today we turn the calendar back 16 years to Rosslyn’s boathouse restructuring. Some eighteen months or so into our rehabilitation project we had already sailed past our most generous timeline for completion. And the end was far from near. In fact, the finish line continued to retreat the more we advanced upon it. And, as…
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Lumbering Home
Hymn-along a song ofhomegrown timber,harvested within sightof the renewed icehouse.Hum, drum, and struman anthem hailinghyper local lumberloved, labored, arrayed.Felled and milled on site,then stickered and stacked,courses upon courses,a dozen years cured,between hemlock floor,and fir paneled walls,ceiling stained from fivequarter centuries.Once towering ash,elm, and poplar treesreborn as flooring,balusters, newels, railings. Canopied colossimetamorphosed intostair treads and risers,door…
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Tom Duca’s Sunburst Gates
If Robert Frost was correct that “Good fences make good neighbors”, then experience has taught us that sunburst gates make neighbors into friends. And so today I doff my proverbial hat to neighbor, friend, and carpenter, Tom Duca. Tom was one of the first people we met when we moved to Essex in 2005, and…
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Gangway Gang
After another marathon day stonewalling with Tony, I headed down to Rosslyn’s boathouse to check on the gangway gang’s progress. Peter and Supi were just beginning to wind down for the day, taking extra steps to protect their materials and equipment from yet another round of incoming rain. I know, it hardly seem possible! This…
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Column Flanked Vestibule
Tucked into the folds of the icehouse rehab scope of work some accomplishments stand out more than others. The garapa paneling in the bathroom, for example, has been a long, slooow labor of love many months in the making. Many stages and many hands have shaped this initiative, so anticipation has been building for many…
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Backlit
Reinventing Rosslyn’s icehouse as a hybrid home office and recreation/entertaining space has taken center stage intermittently since last summer (planning board and permitting) and continuously since last autumn (deconstruction and reconstructing). In fact, it sometimes feels like the icehouse rehabilitation has eclipsed just about everything else. This evening’s snapshot, our icehouse backlit by setting sun,…
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66% Done, 33% To Go
This is my 243rd Rosslyn update in daily succession. It completes an 8-month streak of daily old house journaling, the 2/3 mark in my quest to post every day for one year. I marked an earlier milestone — six months in and six months to go — with a summary of the aspirations guiding these…
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Vernal Equinox: Barred Owl Sighting
Welcome to spring! It’s currently 43° at Rosslyn, on target to hit 46° shortly. Sun is out. Snow is melting. Bulbs are bursting. So many remarkable signs and suggestions that the vernal equinox may indeed have marked the transition from winter to spring (daffodils and daylilies perking up, an auspicious sunset cloud formation, a handsome…