Tag: Rehabilitation
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Return to Re-railing Boathouse Gangway
After a hiatus spanning many months — more than half a year — Supi and Peter return to re-railing the boathouse gangway, and after three days their progress is encouraging. And the photograph above Peter is installing the post sleeves that he fabricated offsite last autumn and early winter. The railings and balusters are fabricated…
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1st Floor Flooring Finished
Spellbinding sunset this evening, witnessed firsthand from Rosslyn’s icehouse where only an hour or so before Tony had added the final coat of sealer. At last I can celebrate: the 1st floor flooring is finished. Eureka! For the mixed species, ash and elm, variable witdth flooring we’re applying six coats with light, fine grit sanding…
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Coving Complete
More good news this morning: the icehouse coving is complete! It looks so seamless, so simple now that the woodwork is joined, the discrete elements have coalesced, and the paint has dried. Integration. Cohesion. Hurrah! Only a few months ago, this vision — more mirage than meaningful map forward — danced in my imagination. It…
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Start Over
Start over. Reboot. Reawaken. Rehabilitate. Revitalize… Peppering the pages of Rosslyn Redux, these references to revival and new beginnings are woven intricately into the DNA of this peculiar project. Juan Aballe opens Country Fictions up(as featured in Panorama,) by declaring that for years he has searched and imagined a “future in better places where we…
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The Past Lives On
The past lives on in art and memory, but it is not static: it shifts and changes as the present throws its shadow backwards. — Margaret Drabble I return today to a recurring theme, a preoccupation perhaps, that wends its way through my Rosslyn ruminations and my collections of photographs and artifacts. While the past…
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Durable Joinery
Joints. Joinery. Rejoinery. Durable. Dynamic. Durable dynamics. Durable joinery. Team dynamics… Consider that word parade fair warning for where I’m headed. From dovetails to team dynamics, in the twinkling of an eye. At least, that was my plan in revisiting a flood of field notes. Instead my errand evolved into a meandering meditation on admittedly abstract, fairly freestyle…
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Impermanent Perspectives
Impermanent Perspectives (a reflection on the protean process of construction, ephemeral POVs, and a hint at the overlap with creative writing.)
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Frosty Ferrying into Rosslyn
Heck of a homecoming my frosty ferry ride into Essex two weeks ago on January 25. Damp-cold. Socked in. Snowing. I was dropping in for team time, scope shuffle, timeline tuneup, perspective pivot, and a revitalizing dose of laughter with friends. Team Time As I’ve often touted, teamwork is the first, second, and third priority…
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Historic Rehabilitation
Once upon a time—starting in about 2005 or 2006 and concluding about a dozen years ago, if memory serves—I was on the board on Historic Essex (formerly Essex Community Heritage Organization, ECHO). Todd Goff, a fellow director, Essex neighbor, and friend, took it upon himself to correct me, differentiating for me “historic preservation” from ”…
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Are Icehouse Rehab Updates Achieving Objectives?
On October 18 I laid out some goals for my series of icehouse rehab updates. I’d already been posting for about two and a half months at that point, looking in depth at the summer’s deck rebuild. I intended to continue posting for the duration of our adaptive reuse project, transforming a late 19th century icehouse…
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Leftovers as Ingredients
Last night, I enjoyed Christmas dinner, the sequel. No, not the movie. The leftovers. Leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, roasted, butternut squash, all smothered under her blanket of gravy. And for dessert, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. And, as you may have predicted, it was delicious. Perhaps even more delicious than the first…
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Boathouse Repairs 3: Fabricating Post Wraps
It’s time for a progress report on Rosslyn’s boathouse post fabrication. Peter Vaiciulis and Sia Supi Havosi have been beavering away lakeside as autumn blurs into winter. Unfortunately, their decking progress has been stalled because the moisture content of the lumber is still too high. In contrast to the previous contractor whose work required extensive…