Tag: Historic Rehabilitation
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Icehouse Haiku
Recent months have been busy with rebuilding and advancing plans for further rebuilding. Soon I’ll share an update on our summer 2022 deck rebuild, and I promise that it’ll be worth the wait. Until then, I’ll tease out another potential rebuild on the horizon. But first, by way of introduction, I offer you an icehouse…
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Mighty Winds
Early evening, maybe 6:00 pm or so the skies darkened prematurely. I mean, really darkened. And the wind whistled then whipped. I blasted around the house battening windows and doors, cranked the shade umbrella contraption (what’s the proper name for those?) over the dining table on the back deck, and lowered the roman shades in…
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Demolition: Rosslyn Dedux
When it was built it was just right for the times. But it didn’t adapt… Rooms were shut off and fell out of use. Neglect left the paint chipped, with bare wood and brick showing through… rehabilitation fails with no sustainable plan for use. ~ Stef Noble (www.stef.net) I don’t recollect how I came across Demolition, a…
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Carriage Barn Renovation: Stall Walls + Floor
We’ve been slowly working forward on the carriage barn renovation. Yes, a looong time ago our historic rehabilitation morphed into rehab ad infinitum! Our most recent focus is rebuilding the floor in—and in between—the stalls, and the “floor-door” that allows access to the hay mow. The project may never end. This afternoon, instead of a detailed…
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If You Lose Your Purpose, It’s Like You’re Broken
Everything has a purpose, even machines… They do what they are meant to do… Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me so sad, they can’t do what they are meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken. ~ Brian Selznick (spoken by Hugo Cabret…
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Boat Lift Blues I
There is a musty old adage among boaters: “A boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money.” And time, I hasten to add. It’s not only boats. It’s everything that has to do with boats. Boat lifts, for example. “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing –…
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Hail Storm & Apple Tree
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNMPDFK5xPw&w=600&rel=0] An ancient and neglected apple tree. Actually some sort of crab apple tree with fruit the size of golf balls. Large golf balls that were tart but delicious. Griffin loved to scarf them up when they carpeted the lawn in autumn. For six years I pruned and nourished the crab apple tree back to…
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Rifle & Eggs
“Mornin’,” Wes said as he pulled the pantry door shut behind him and greeted Griffin with a scratch behind the ears. “Good morning,” I called back from the kitchen where I was scrambling eggs. “You don’t want me to run that thing on the tennis court, do ya?” he asked, referring to the lawn aerator…
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Orchard Rumination
Lately I’ve been reflecting on all the trees I wish I’d planted in the fall of 2006 and the spring of 2007. We’ve been adding new trees for a year now — a half dozen or so each spring and fall — and yet I can’t help but imagine what might be today if I’d…
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Rosslyn Featured on Emmet Carter Green Design
A major upgrade to the Emmet Carter website incorporating recent green design projects prominently features Rosslyn. I’ll excerpt a few descriptions and some of photographer Nancie Battaglia’s interior images in the post below. Welcome to Rosslyn Rosslyn is a stately Federal home on the shore of Lake Champlain in Essex, NY. This circa 1823 property, includes a turn-of-the-century Eastlake inspired…