This Old Purple House

Front & Center-ish

2014-10-29T13:15:00.001-04:00

The BEFORE pictures: Drafty, leaky, creaky, hard-to-open "vintage" (not sure which) front door with single-pane leaded sidelights and arched transom. Front steps with nice bluestone on tread and top, but otherwise uninspired.

"Simple" jobs in old houses are never-ever simple. And, after (over) thinking through a few never-ending, endlessly-tangential potential projects, we were... gun shy. We admit it. We've been pecking away here and there, but we've been a bit nervous to take the next bite out of TOPH. What if we open things up and rip things out and find things we can't (afford to) fix right now? Do we have a Plan B (through Z) if things go sideways? What about diagonally? Decidedly wide of plumb? Seriously shy of square? Those thoughts become manic, you know? And paralyzing. So that's my (our) excuse for not posting. People only want to see the highlight reel, right? OK, wrong. We now realize that you DO want to see the devastating discoveries and tragic tangents. And, truthfully, that's why we bought this place and embarked on this great adventure anyhow, right? Anyone can go to Home Depot with a handy-dandy measurement of a rough opening for a front door, buy one, and pop it right in? Um, not so much.

So, here goes!

Rough Opening
We love the guys at Exeter Lumber. They laugh at us AND with us -- always reassuring.

Jamie Murphy: "OK, so you're looking for a front door. What's the rough opening?"
Me: "Um, what are my options?"
JM: "You know, the measurement between the studs that the door unit will fit into."
Me: "Yeah, um, there isn't really anything structural in the wall itself. It's sort of a box."
JM: "Right, what's the measurement between the studs?"
Me: "There aren't really any studs. There are 2x4s that hold the current door in place."
JM: "Right, that's the rough opening. What's the measurement?"
Me: "Well, those 2x4s are kind of middling old and eaten and optional, so we want to keep our options open. We can peel back all the way to the posts."
JM: "Posts... Like a timber frame?"
Me: "Exactly. Eight-feet-on-center-ish."
JM: "Ish?"
Me: "Ish."

So, we established that whatever "studs" were in the wall were expendable so we were somewhat flexible as far as width. As long as we stayed between the posts, we could build a "rough opening" to support and secure the door in place. (The other guys at Exeter Lumber LOVE when I come in. And, yes, grown men do titter.)

JM: "OK, so what height are you looking for?"
Me: "Well, we've got about a hundred inches from the first floor to the ceiling and we're guessing the beam is in the ceiling, not below since the current arch transom goes pretty much to the tippy-top."
JM: "The first floor. Of course your front door is on the first floor. It's a colonial, right?"
Me: "I meant the first OF the floors. That you walk on."
JM: "How many floors are there?"
Me: "No idea. At least a couple. Not sure which one will be the final floor, or if we will rip some or all of them out and put in slate. Depends on what we find."
JM: ...
Me: "At some point under there, there's a sill timber. And the floor and the door jam will be somewhere north of there."
JM: "OK, so 96 inches it is!"
Me: "Did you just pull that number out of your ass?"
JM: "Yep!"
Me: "Perfect. Now we're talkin'."

Jamie Murphy @ Exeter Lumber
ALWAYS Smiling, that one!

So, we established that we had some flexibility. And then we got down to the business of choosing a door. Suffice it to say, there was considerable frustration (and Jamie-patience) over the multi-variable flexibility of our space. We knew we wanted a 36" door with sidelights and a transom. We were taking a flyer on a transition back to a non-arched transom, mostly because we wanted to gain as much light as possible in the East-facing cave that is our front and center hall. And a flat-topped transom was still squarely within the realm of potentially authentic. (See later post, when I get around to it, re: repurposing the old leaded sidelights and transom as something elsewhere... decorative.)

We finally found and ordered a Simpson "unit" that would fit overall, and had mullions that lined up somewhat proportionally. (Why is this last item met with such incredulity by manufacturers? Yes, sir, I would like it to be symmetrical and not completely out-of-whack looking.)

Once it arrived, I commenced to oiling and priming various parts in remote regions of TOPH, while hubby started the demolition. The steps had to come out first. They were snugged up to the house and sill in such a way that we couldn't see what we were dealing with, and suspicion was mounting about sill condition. How were we actually going to frame this thing in?

Four Discoveries

Discovery #1: Hubby asked me one day, after he made rubble of the steps, "So, what do you want to put there instead."

I answered, without hesitation, "Just a cool slab of granite. I'm sure we could find something around here."

An hour later, hubby calls me out, "Hey, you may want to come out here. I found something."

Under the edge of the steps, he found something contiguous and solid. Granite. A week with an air chisel later... and we had a four by six front step. How cool is that??? Further digging, chipping, jack hammering, and general making-of-rubble resulted in the discovery that this slab was, at one point, used as a front step, but before that was actually a central piece of foundation that was displaced from a vertical position directly adjacent to its current resting place. They either couldn't figure a way to lift it back into place and secure it, or they just liked the step (we do too!) and filled the foundation void with brick. The brick, however, made an excellent conductor of moisture and pestilence. The sill under the door -- originally at least an 8x10 timber -- was mostly rotted or eaten away and sistered and faced with untreated lumber to support the floor and door in the hall.

Hubby did an amazing job (with ample and able phone support from family-friend Jess Dowd) of puzzling out how to fill the voids and gaps of stone and wood. And, perhaps MOST challenging was figuring out how to establish well-supported straight lines, in relation to.... whatever.

Discovery #2: Door demolition revealed a pencil notation on the part of the door's millwork "Shurbuck Job", which solved the vintage question. The Sherbucks, a family of bakers from Portsmouth, owned TOPH from 1940 up until 1951, so the last front door replacement was their project.

Discovery #3: TOPH does indeed have salvageable wide-plank pine floors -- in the center hall, at least. We had given up finding them. The view from the basement looking up showed a network a knot-missing, holes-cut, gaps-gaping planks. But, that is apparently a sub-floor or decking for a second (shocker) mostly whole floor, as far as we can see now. The wheels are turning re: how to get back to that "level" of floors. At this point, every door in the house has been cut to swing over later layers of maple hardwood and other materials.

Discovery #4: Colonial homes were vastly overbuilt. The sheer weight of materials and the quality of hidden and ingenious joinery is staggering. So many people look at old houses and see dilapidated and broken and dirty and "old"... whatever. Houses today are NOT built like this. To attempt to meet the standard they set would be cost-prohibitive in this day and age. But, we can try to restore and repurpose and appreciate what we do find.

The sill is a bit rotten in one area? That's OK. The posts are supported adequately (plus what we can add/amend/sister/fill for good measure.) And there is more than enough "good" beam left to support a square-ish and plumb-ish frame for the front door, since that's all that is supported there.

Check out the single-piece wainscot, apparently milled from a very large tree... Take that, PVC tack-on chair rail!

Are We There Yet?

OK, so this project took a little longer than expected. And we did find some things that were at-first horrifying. But, on the whole, we found much more good than bad. (I'm not going to talk about wiring for the front and hall lights. I'm just not.)

We are just about to order the crosshead and trim. I promise to post "after" pictures with those in place, and the lights rehung, and the effected clapboards fixed. I'm going to paint a little bit of the "future" color, just so we can start getting there in our minds. We are already there in our hearts.

As for "the rock"... Well, we need a piece of heavy equipment to move it into its proper forever-home under the new door. And do some "light" grading. We've decided to TRY and take out the cement boxes someone poured around the basement windows. They did that instead of fixing the grading at some point. The "boxes" reach outside the drip edge so they just catch water and funnel it into the basement (or fill up with water like aquariums if we actually put the windows in place...) It's kind of sad-comical, actually. So it's not just about "the rock"... Nothing is simple in old houses.

Living and Learning... About Goats

2014-10-28T13:44:00.000-04:00

Learned: It takes three goats about six months to selectively clear about an acre of rough scrub and woods. They did an amazing job on poison ivy, brambles and prickers of God-knows-what varieties, trash tree saplings, invasive plants, and annoying burrs. And they left the more mature white oaks and sugar maples and hickory and elms alone.

Learned: Foraging goats with only supplemental grain and hay will grow and thrive faster and fitter than barn and pasture raised goats. You should have seen the difference between Coco (Stella's buckling) and his cousins at Riverslea. He looked like a Greek-bred God compared to them. His horns were huge and regal. His coat was thick and rich. His eyes were bright and alert and animated. A testament to whole foods and clean livin', when you think about it.

Stella and her kids Coco and Violet in Spring 2013.

Three of Stella's FOUR NEW KIDS from February 2014. Our "keeper" Mikaela is on the far right.

Stella says she is swearing off kids altogether.

Honk, our 2014 season buckling frmo Riverslea. He was the DUMBEST GOAT EVER.

Slackers & Angles

2014-10-28T13:27:00.001-04:00

First and foremost, let me apologize for not posting anything recently. I have to admit to a little despondency in the neighborhood of our to do list. We are pecking away on so many things that it is hard to see (or feel) any progress. But, we have made some academic discoveries. (Can I get a glovey clap?)

In earlier posts and discussions we had been puzzling over the "lines" of the house. We want to respect her bones, but we need to make some decisions about restoring/ignoring some of the changes that previous owners have made over time.

For those of you who would like to review:

Since those earlier posts, we have discovered a bit more about the house through research, demolition discovery, and crawling around in odd places. Specifically, the slope of the roof and the overhang are not original to the house. The roof used to be steeper and it didn't used to have as pronounced an overhang as it does now. How do we know? Well, I don't know what they are called, but the VERY long beams that stretch across the attic back to front are no longer attached to the house. They are still in place, but just laying there -- too big to extract, I imagine. The ends of said beams are short of the outside edges of the roof/eaves by several inches. Also, the angles at each end where they used to match up with the roof structure are significantly steeper than the current roofline.

Credit where credit is due: ArchiDorks Nicole Rauzi and Tobias Sullivan (and Christina Gutierrez, I think), you were RIGHT! And thank you to Chad Mathrani of Vermont Natural Homes for making this discovery of loop-closing mysteries.

Goats and Kids and Chicks

2014-01-30T15:01:00.000-05:00

I owe you. It’s been wa-ay too long since my last post.

First some updates. (Wrote this in June 2013, but forgot to post!)

Got goats!

Meet Stella, Violet and Coco!

Finally. We have three. Stella is the mama goat. She’s lovely, for a goat. She, unlike most goats who view humans as primary predators, was bottle raised in the home of the Conrads at Riverslea Farm several years ago when she was born and orphaned in the early Winter. She’s a bit needy – she likes her peeps. She keeps tabs of all of our comings and goings and looks forward to visits. And she “talks” a lot, for a goat. Purely conversationally, of course.

Her twin kids Violet and Coco round out our herd of three. Violet is a little more cautious of her human family and visitors, but friendly enough. Coco is all boy. Growing like crazy, horns and all. He’s a bit of a spaz, really. But the girls keep him in line.

Hubby built them a sturdy and practical goat house that can be moved around the property. (It’s built on 2x10 skids.) And we now have 4 x 164-foot sections of movable electronet fencing that keeps goats in and predators out.

Stella in the foreground and her growing kids foraging
and playing balance beam on fallen trees with our human kids.

The plan is for them to stay until the forage is gone for the season and take them back up to Riverslea, where they have large over-wintering herd and a big barn. It is our hope that Stella and her next kids and Violet and her first kid will come back to us in the Spring. Not so sure about Coco. Depends on how full of himself he gets, and whether the Conrad’s like the look of him for breeding or eating, and whether Stella and/or Violet have a buckling...

In the meantime we are enjoying our little goat family immensely and they are doing a great job clearing what used to be the southern pasture nearest the house. Poision ivy, wild raspberries and bittersweet are favorites, but the garlic mustard, buckthorn, and young Norway maples are disappearing too.

Chicks, too!

Our kids just graduated Kindergarten. And one of the classroom projects this Spring was watching eggs hatch in an incubator.

Bits & Pieces, Sweaters & Fleeces

2012-11-05T09:57:00.002-05:00

As Winter approaches, we are pecking away at lots of projects. It's ever-frustrating to not have more complete, but progress is better than nothing, right? [Sorry, no new pics to post. They are trapped on my phone. Mac and Android are NOT getting along. Couples therapy required. I am confident they will work our their differences for the benefit of the kids. Sigh.]

Here's our progress report:

1) Charles's room is STILL not finished (started in July), but I finally finished painting the walls and trim and ceiling. There are no straight lines and no smooth surfaces in that room, so it has been a real challenge. A few touch ups will be required once the floor is painted, but it looks SO much better. And hubby has been wrenching away at the endless number of staples in the floor. We are SO close to having that horrible task finished. Furniture and finishes are ready to go.

We finally had to turn the heat on November 1, and we keep the Tavern and Bunk Room zone at 54, so Charles has moved over to the day bed in his sister's room (main house zone is a balmy 62) to avoid cold toes. He has been so patient through this process. Can't wait to have him move back into his own room again!

2) The window replacement project is coming along. We acquired, painted and replaced the five front windows on the front of the house. And the four for the first floor in front are primed and waiting for exterior paint today. Nice to have the later-kitchen/porch as a no-need-for-drop-cloth painting space! Hopefully, hubby will have time to get those installed early this week. It only takes about 45 minutes each, now that he knows the drill.

We also splurged and bought three replacement casement panels for the old kitchen. Those windows were literally falling apart, and we faced the potential of wide-open breezes this Winter if we didn't do something there. They too are primed and waiting. Hubby needs to seat the hinges before I paint, but we'll have those in before the weekend. He did a great job reglazing the massive three-panel interior "storm" window for that space.

There is a chronic problem of high-velocity roof-run-off in that corner so those windows get blasted. Architectural changes are needed, but we have not gotten our heads around a solution yet. All in good time.

We've also been puzzling out ways to reuse panes and storm windows elsewhere in the house where updates are "futures". Whatever we have leftover, I am hoping, will come together into some sort of a cold frame for my gardening habit.

3) Not one japanese knotweed went to seed on or near our property this year. It remains to be seen what comes back or shows up in the Spring. Here's hoping all of our efforts made a dent. And that the goats can polish off the stragglers in the Spring.

4) The big dig worked! The basement is tolerably dry and the portion of the pieced-granite foundation adjacent to the new grading and hardscaping is noticeably more stable. The stepping stones have settled into the walkable gravel surface, the setting sand has done its job around the bricks, and the second round of grass seed is busy germinating on the slopes and in "the hole". Temporary mostly-Fall plantscaping is pleasant and surviving the stress of planting just prior to first frost. All good there.

5) Firewood won't be a problem or purchase this year. Our selective clearing has left us with a relatively seasoned supply. And we succeeded in budgeting to fill two oil tanks to brimming last summer when the prices were lower, so we are starting with both barrels loaded, as they say. All told, we are in a better place as far as budgeting BTUs this Winter.

Again, we are keeping one zone at 62 degrees and one at 54. The latter has the benefit of a convection fireplace for evening warm-up. When the sound of the furnace firing up literally sounds like CHA-CHING, you learn to wear more fleece and sweaters. I can think of so many other things to spend money on than fuel that burns. Like more new windows and future insulation!

6) This Winter, we will be giving serious, definitive thought to what form the new kitchen, mudroom (old kitchen) and old-yucky bathrooms will take. Lots of variables and not much common ground between hubby's ideas and mine aside from basic locales and progress imperatives.

Perhaps we will put out some new polling questions soon?

The Big Dig: Fearsome Firehose > Tolerable Trickle

2012-10-01T01:10:00.002-04:00

You may remember last Fall when I gave two very large Rhododendrons significant haircuts in preparation for a move this past Spring. Well, mud season came on fast and furious this year so no heavy machinery was recommended in close-quarters with our possibly-piercable pieced-granite foundation.

And our friends who make a living with said heavy machinery Fat Cod were busy making hay while the sun was shining this summer. So, as Fall rolled around and I made and off-handed query as to availability, I was somewhat taken aback when the answer was, "How about Friday?"

I immediately said, "Um, OK." And the rest was, well, it's still happening, so not quite history, but there's lots to tell! I don't have pics yet of our newly finished and landscaped dooryard featuring all sorts of reclaimed materials pillaged from deep holes and lost corners of woods and barns here at TOPH (coming soon!) But, I will share a couple of the exciting experiments, achievements and milestones.

Here is the before picture of the large Rhodies, at-grade sills and negative grade on the west side of TOPH. In anything but a passing shower, water regularly ran down the top of the parking area, across the dooryard and into the corner by the backdoor where it combined with the runoff from three roof directions and poured into the basement at a volume that was washing the mortar out from between the stones of our foundation.

And here is the pic taken just after the Rhodies were relocated to their new home in the south woods . You can see where the grade has built up to the sills over the years. And where the moss is growing on the siding where the bushes held moisture up against the house.

Here is a sneak peek at the new grading. Although we had a pro from Fat Cod do the big digging , we were able to get in ourselves by hand and dig out up agains the foundation and reset the grade. Stabilizing the drip edge with gravel and slate reclaimed from a mostly-overthatched patio was an afterthought, but proved to be key in the grand scheme. We've had a couple of days of steady rain and the "breach" in our foundation (four feet below that sill cock by the window well) has turned from a firehouse volume to a trickle at the height of a downpour. Huge improvement. I know it sounds wierd, but we can live with trickle! A river (well, maybe a small stream) runs through it. That's par for the course in olds houses like this.

Here you can see a pile of reclaimed granite curbing (for water diversion) at the top of the slope and the beginning of a hardscaping and landscaping plan that had largely been in my head (as translated by Matt Gunn from Fat Cod with some handy pastry flour.) We graded and shaped the walkway area by hand and then added nine tons of stone/gravel for good measure. The walkway is not quite finished, but very, very close. I've only rearranged the bricks four times... (Pics and details soon.)

And then came the big dig. It is our hope that this large rainwater collection area (now downhill from the house where the opposite slope used to be) will suffice to keep greater volumes of water away from the house and foundation, draining off naturally or with the help of suck-up plantings. The alternative is some sort of high-volume French drain or piping system, but the distance that would need to be covered to reach the sufficient grade to achieve positive drainage would make that a much bigger dig, potentially disturbing working grade elsewhere around the house and property. We will cross that bridge when (IF) we come to it. In the meantime we could also supplement this rainwater collection area with a sump pump and hose if it does not drain quickly enough, but so far we have seen it drain more than 2 inches and hour. And it has a capacity of about 2,000 gallons by my estimation. Here's hopin'!

That's all for now. More pics and details on repurposed treasures when walkway is (really) set and the grass is showing and the base plantings are in. There is even be some bawdiness in the finishes if you are of that mindset.

The One That Got Away: Over-built & Under-appreciated

2012-09-30T23:58:00.000-04:00

Three layers of leave-behinds, the oldest
of which was hand-painted.

So, about that floor... My son's room is still not finished. And it's not just my inept wallpaper removal that's holding it up. Although, for the record, the last three people to do wallpaper removal in that room weren't all that awesome either. There were all sorts of leave-behinds under there. Layers upon layers of fun!

Speaking of layers, the floor in there was faux wood linoleum. In a house full of ruined and wretched hardwood floors, what could be so bad that you had to cover it with faux wood linoleum?

One of the daughters of the previous owners recalled to us that there was carpet in there at one time. And by other evidence in the house, there had been some ill-behaved dogs. Hmmm. Well, we painted the floor in my daughter's room to cover old ink and water stains. That looks pretty cool, so we could always do that, right? Maybe I'll just peel up a corner and see.

Just peeling up a little bit... And there's a subfloor. Hmmm.

More tools required. Now, the guts to go
beyond the point of no return.

Yep, there's a maple hardwood floor under there.

So, there's a maple floor. Same as in my daughter's room. No apparent damage in this tiny little corner. But. There's always a but. Whoever decided this floor needed covering did so in an era when linoleum backing adhesives were very, very good. And whoever installed this floor also decided that staples are cheap. The linoleum-armored subfloor is attached to the maple floor at a project-rage rate of 37.4 staples per square foot. And these are not just any staple, they are 1.25"-long staples with super-tiny heads.

In short, removing this cheap-ass, installed-in-a-day floor is very hard work. And it's still not done. I, again, had to enlist the help of hubby to help me rip up the linoleum-enforced, staple-fortified plywood as I was honestly not strong enough. And, now that it's up, the staples are a back-breaking remainder. Removing the staples is sit-on-the-floor contortion antics at their worst. And the staples are finicky. Twist or wiggle them too much and the head breaks, leaving un-grabbable sharp thingies. Just what I need, a bed of tiny spikes for my little one's tootsies to walk on. Tom Thumb singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips Iron Maiden-style. But I digress...

The priming and painting (and painting and painting) is progressing in there, but it's no wonder there has been a procrastination factor on the floor.

Still baffled as to why the hardwood was covered in the first place. There is a dark stain and some minor mold on the floor near the former fireplace -- likely new from condensation off the chimney where our newly efficient, awesome furnace exhausts into and as-yet unlined flue (short list). And there are a couple of totally fixable water spots along the outside wall from old roof/ice damn leaks. But, seriously, this floor is totally OK.

It's times like these when you really wonder what people were thinking. Under-appreciated maple hardwood masked by completely overbuilt subfloor topped off with faux wood linoleum. Does not compute. At all.

I know, I'm just bitter about the staples. And we are headed into month three of my three-week project. And my poor soon is still sleeping over in the bunk room. This room just has to get finished before heat is requisite as we don't usually keep the Tavern/Bunk zone warmer than 58 in the Winter. Can you say son-sicle?

On a side note, said son is currently obsessed with The Wordsuckeruppernator (brainchild of The Electric Company) on PBSKids.org. And he wants to build/invent one of these contraptions himself. Wonder if this clever almost-six year-old could come up with a Stupidstaplesuckeruppernator?

The One That Got Away: Sticky Bits & Draft Dodging

2012-09-30T22:33:00.002-04:00

When you are living in an old house, the norm is for projects to take longer, cost more, and generally become way more involved than you anticipated. We've had plenty of that here at TOPH, but I must say there is one that is d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g. My poor son's room is still not finished.

Last year, I jumped right in on my daughter's room. The wallpaper was a willing participant in the removal process and, aside from the month of humidity we managed to bring with us from Annapolis, which made paint drying a bit of an issue, her room was done in a reasonable period of time. My son's room was slated for this past Summer. Specifically, I was going to get it done with all of my free time when they were at day camp for four weeks. Yea, right.

Before Pics of My Son's Room

Suspect Closed-Up Fireplace Here

Some Old Water Damage

Some Failed Lath & Plaster Marriages

First, I needed to get in the right mindset for the project. So, I flew to Maryland and went sailing for a long weekend (Thank you, L'Outrage peeps!), which turned into a week due to last minute while-I'm-here business meeting and the monster of all flight delays which resulted in driving all the way home in a shared rental car (shades of John Candy and his polka band in Home Alone)...

The bits and bits and bits...

Anyway, when I finally got back, I had three weeks to finish one room. Doable, right?

Well, the wallpaper in his room would not come off. At all. Except in little itsy-bitsy bits. I tried water and vinegar and orange infused vinegar. Nothing worked.

I went to Lowe's to buy a steamer and try that, but instead was led astray by a know-it-all paint-counter-chick at Lowe's. She offered up a "trick" her father used to swear by. He swore about it all right. I painted over one entire wall of already-permanently-adhered wallpaper with KILZ on the theory that it would somehow bond with the paper and react with paste and basically fall off the walls. Not. I ended up with still-permanently-adhered wallpaper, which was then impermeable to liquid, which, according to my husband (aka The Wallpaper Whisperer), was the trick all along.

The Wallpaper Whisperer

He took pity on me one afternoon and stripped the other three walls of the room with hot water and a dull putty knife. Which, of course, left me with "that" wall. Eight days later, with help from my mom, "that wall" was finally clear of bits of paper along with several chunks of the plaster wall that decided to go for the ride.

Really. If we just ripped off all the
plaster and painted the lath,
wouldn't that look cool?
OK, so it would have
been a bit breezy...

Midway through, I was absolutely convinced I could make painted lath look really good in a rustic kind of way. Hubby was morally opposed to that little bit of avoidance-DIY decorating nonsense. (I still think I could have made that look good.)

Anyway, enough about the wallpaper. It's over, along with six good-sized tubs of DAP Fast and Final spackle-product (like cheese product?) That stuff is like "Wall Meringue" -- super light and perfect for filling in the spaces in crusty, crumbly surfaces that won't hold up to much sanding. So, although the texture of my son's walls, like his sister's, is akin to a Mexican Mission, they are free of cracks and holes. Draft dodging achieved!

Now, I wonder what's under that faux wood linoleum floor?

PS Yep, there was a fireplace there.

I Have What? Where? Now What?

2012-05-14T01:11:00.001-04:00

I got a few questions offline about my last post, generally asking how and why I know about invasive plant species in New Hampshire. Simple answer. Last year, I wanted to know more about plants and growing conditions around TOPH -- a whole new climate zone for me. So, I applied to the NH Master Gardener program and attended a bunch of classes through the UNH Cooperative Extension. And now, brimming with this new knowledge, I am doing my bit (and tallying required volunteer hours) to spread the good word to you people.

Slight Tangent

Every state in the USA has a "land grant" university (UNH, U-Mass, etc.) And each one of these universities, as a part of their original "resources and economies" mission, has an extension service. Extensions services exist to share with the public what the brainiacs at the universities are figuring out about our natural resources and our economy as it relates to what we produce (agriculture, marine fisheries, forestry, etc.) Generally, county extension staffers are hired/assigned to work with commercial growers and fisherman and companies (as examples) to ensure that resources are preserved, overhead is minimized and profits/jobs are maximized (roughly, in a nutshell.)

And then there's John Q. Public. Some dude from NJ-Exit 5, who brings his own firewood to his cabin in New Hampshire, could easily introduce (any one of several) invasive insect species with no native predator into the north woods that would be it. Really. A large percentage of New England's forest (and all associated natural resources and industries, including logging, paper and maple syrup) would be wiped out within a year or five. Really.

So, in an effort to educate the general public about best practices and threats to our lives and livelihoods, the extensions services also have "outreach" programs that educate advocates and educators in communities throughout their respective states. New Hampshire, for example, has Master Gardeners, Natural Resource Stewards and Marine Docents.

And, in addition to the advocates and educators you may find in your community, most extension services include an office where questions from the public may be answered in-person, on the phone (NH: 1-877-EXT-GROW) or by e-mail (answers@unh.edu). Finally, cooperative extension web sites (http://extension.unh.edu) are treasure troves of useful information.

Why Should I Care About Invasive Plants?
Non-native invasive plant species have been introduced into your local landscape by any number of means (human "it's pretty" transplants, bird poop, nubby tire cast-offs, etc.) and they are now a cause for concern because they have don't have sufficient and present natural enemies here, presumably because the things that eat, kill or otherwise control them stayed wherever they were native. Thus, they can grow unchecked, stealing space, water, nutrients and light from native species that are integral to your local ecosystem.

Imagine how much damage three-year-old triplets could do in a Crate & Barrel if their stroller happened to deliver them without parental supervision. And now imagine they can clone themselves and move on to other Mall stores and all adults present were somehow powerless to discipline them, no matter how they tried. It's the stuff funny-at-first, scary-cliff-hanger-ending movies are made of.

Just as an example, here at TOPH we have four acres of mostly woods and weeds, but very few birds. The Norway Maples that took over the former pastures here grew very quickly, creating a thick canopy, shading and killing a bunch of native cedars that weren't as tall and couldn't grow to adapt fast enough. In addition, the Norway Maples are allelopathic, meaning their roots produce a kind of toxin that makes it hard or impossible for anything else to take root nearby, except for invasive species, of course. So, we have very little understory in our little forest, so no dapple-shade-loving, dense, evergreen and berry-producing bushes for the birds to nest in and eat. Just like that, habitat lost.

Weed Wrench pic from invasives.org

So, how do you recognize vexing vegetation? Try this Guide if you are in NH: extension.unh.edu/forestry/Docs/invasive.pdf. (If you live elsewhere, look for a guide put out by your local extension service .) There's also information in there about recommended control methods if you find some of these on your property.

There may also be some great money-saving resources available. We have a bunch of Buckthorn (along with a gazillion of the aforementioned Norway Maple saplings.) The Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve happens to be at the bottom of our road. And they maintain a kind of lending library of tools, like Weed Wrenches, which would be very expensive to buy, but are almost invaluable in the process of prying these buggers out of our land of good!

Trust me. I learned to recognize two of these too late last year and they went to seed. We now have a much larger and more expensive mess to clean up. And we now have less time and less money to spend on our dream landscape.

Invasion of the Invasive Species!

2012-05-06T17:13:00.001-04:00

I guess anyone one who moves into a house with a lot of history feels like an intruder and an interloper at some point. We've certainly had those moments here at TOPH. There was that a-ha moment last year when we decided to clear a trail through the woods in a direction we thought was logical, only to find we were clearing exactly where a well-travelled path/road had clearly been years before (The Road More Traveled, October 2011).

And then there was this Spring, when I truly started making plans for landscaping and gardening for next year and then all of these random plants started popping up around the property -- day lilies deep in the woods in the shade behind an old barn foundation, a sea of violets naturalized into the front lawn and a perfect six-by-six square of chives in the corner of an old, overgrown pasture. I will not be the first endeavor to make this property more beautiful, edible and sustainable. I guess it's easy to forget that.

There are also times when you feel like you are "bonding" with an old house. Particularly when protecting it from invaders. Last August, when I looked around the basement and considered vacuuming away all the cob webs, I stopped and realized that those spiders were serving a purpose (Clean Dirt & Spider Detente, August 2011). They were lying in wait for wood-iverous boring insects as they attempted to lay eggs in our structural beams and/or emerge after hatching to go propagate. I refrained and the important work of our eight-legged housemates continued.

In this small section of what used to be the lower field: Norway Maple, Common Buckthorn, Japanese Knotweed, Garlic Mustard. Elsewhere on the property: Oriental Bittersweet, Blunt-leafed Privet, Showy Bush Honeysuckle and Multiflora Rose.

But there's nothing like a common enemy to build a kinship between house and her steward. TOPH is facing a threat by several invaders at the moment. And we are stepping up to defend her (and the future of any successful, responsible landscaping plans!)

TOPH is besieged by invasive plant species. Last year, I would look into the scrub-woods and just sort of know it was going to take a while to get everything healthy and tamed and back in shape. But, I really had no idea..

Last Fall, I happened to walk through the Stratham Town Hall on the way to the Library (same building) with the kids. There was a poster on the wall -- a collage of identifying photos, really -- depicting all the invasive plant species to be on the lookout for in Rockingham County. Let's just say that it caught my eye because I recognized more than half. (The creator of the poster, Doug Cygan, also created this handy PDF with identifying pics and a description of habits, threats and eradication techniques.)

Our list is long and our methods many (see PDF for recommended approaches), but the ONE invader on this list that is truly scary (to me) is the Japanese Knotweed. If only I knew what I had earlier! Last year, we had two patches, about 10'x20' each. One was at the head of the driveway along the fence of the dog run by the garage and the old well. I saw it everyday -- just assumed it was some kind of elderberry or bunch berry weed that I'd get to when I had time...the other patch is down in the woods where (I think) the leach field is. Both are places where the previous owners would have had fill sand brought in over the last couple of years, so I am guessing that was the source.

The spread since last year is INSANE. It spreads by seed (millions of them), rhizome (long tendrils between plants just under the surface of the sand/soil) and every little bit that breaks off or gets mowed or cut can root! We unknowingly let it spread last year by all of the above methods. It's particularly hard to kill. I drenched it in hot saline one week this Spring. No result. I doused it in hot vinegar solution the next week. No result. On a roadside where you have a workable area, you can cut it at the base in May-June and cover it with heavy black plastic (for a YEAR), but the stubs can be sharp (like bamboo) and the rhizomes are sneaky -- any daylight peeping through it's all for naught.

In the UK, this "weed" has gone viral. There are now zoning policies in place there that make developers responsible for removing it (at huge expense) before land can be developed. And, if you have it at your house, you have to put money in escrow to treat it over time before you can sell. These policies are rooted in the potential for structural damage to foundations where the root balls impede. Yes, it's that evil.

So, against all my better judgement, and with a sincere felling of defeat, we resorted to a chemical treatment solution today. And it's going to take several applications as various phases emerege. I will NOT name the treatment here, as the brand name and manufacturer are my greatest corporate nemesis. Grrr.

I am not feeling victorious. But I do hope we have won some small degree of appreciation from TOPH. And, for the record, my compost is WAY on the other side of the property from "the areas" in question. And no food will be grown in those areas for as long as I know better... I'm doing the best that I can with this decision, folks... Sigh.

Taking a Page from The Heirloom Gardener: Starting Our Herbarium

2012-05-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Heirloom Gardener - John Forti (on facebook)
Co-Founder of Slow Food Seacoast
Curator of Historic Landscape at Strawbery Banke Museum
(formerly) Horticulturist at Plimoth Plantation Museum

I've met some some wonderful people since moving to the Seacoast of New Hampshire. Although, I would like nothing more than to embarrass my friends and neighbors online, I will refrain. However, there is one person who is something of a public figure, so I feel no qualms whatsoever about featuring him here, and spreading a bit of his gospel. No, I have not been evangelized or converted... Well, maybe I have.

John Forti is a person whose life we could all take a page from. His personal web page reads, "He aspires to plant the seeds of history and encourages a more sustainable future to bloom." I think we can safely say he is doing more than aspiring. He's doing it. He's one of those people you just want to follow around with a tape recorder to capture all the little bits of history and wisdom that sort of flutter off of him has he chats his way casually through the gardens and orchards at Strawbery Banke and the historic downtown of Portsmouth and the farms and foodie hot spots of the Seacoast.

By writing this, I do, of course, risk that John will now see me as some sort of a crazy groupie, but since I volunteered to coordinate all the volunteers for the Victorian Children's Garden this season and design and develop to the Discovery Guide for the same, hopefully, he will just role his eyes and smile in his enigmatic, diplomatic way and give me a pass. (Thanks, John!)

Anyway, since moving into TOPH, I have been plotting and planning what to do with the landscape and gardens here. At first glance, there are no "beds" per se. Anything that was a garden is now overtaken with scrub trees, weeds or half-assed hardscape demolition.

Here's a shot of the front yard as the purple "surprises" started to bloom. And there are the turkeys retreating down the driveway after feasting in my compost pile.

This is our first Spring here, so we are seeing a lot of things bloom for the first time. No question at all that the previous owner liked purple (as if we had any doubts here at TOPH.) The front "lawn" is awash in violets and forget-me-nots and some kind of dwarf broad leaf plant with a bearded (like an Iris), two-tone purple flower.

All the "dead" space around the pool is now blanketed in violets. There are purple phlox under the pool fence. There's about an acre of vinca spreading from the wall along the driveway off into the southern woods. There are scraggly lilac bushes peeping out of the brush on the north side of the front yard by the stone wall. And, of course, there are the purple rhododendrons along the back of the house. (See Roadies & Rhodies.) Yep, she liked purple!

Imagine my surprise when the bush I thought was an ugly old privet turned out to be a flowering quince!

The one and only non-purple remainder is an oddly-pruned, flowering (red) quince, which I mistook for a privet last summer. The only reason why I didn't pull it out (because they are my NEMESIS!) is because privet is so blinking impossible to eradicate. But, with a little pruning, I will happily live with this quince and hope there is something nearby that the bees will feel the need to cross-pollinate it with so that we get some edible fruit. Hmmm. Possibilities abound!

So, now that these little specimens are cropping up, how am I going to keep track of them all? And how to memorialize (and teach my children about) all of these horticultural finds? We are going to "take a page from" John Forti and start an Herbarium (or three.)

This is the first page in Emily Dickinson's Herbarium. You can dedicate a page to each specimen and add lots of notes, or collect a bunch and arrange them in a more artistic fashion. Whatever strikes your fancy. There's no wrong way to do it.

An Herbarium is a kind of journal for saving pressed plant materials and any information you might have or find about them. They were very popular in the Victorian era when kids knew more about botany than they do now about corporate logos. It doesn't have to be an engraved, leather-bound affair. It can be a 3-ring binder or a school notebook. There is a replica of a Victorian era Herbarium on the Strawbery Banke web site that they use for teaching in the Children's Garden there.

You can help your kids to identify their finds in books (or on Google -- look for .edu sources, please!) Recording when and where things are found can help kids to start to see the difference between plants in Spring and Fall, when things bloom and when seeds emerge, etc. If you travel and don't want to take the whole book with you, a pencil and an old paperback is a good way of saving things until you get home and have some craft and research time. A small kit of tweezers and a magnifying glass will make it all very important and official -- perhaps a reward for filling their first 12 pages? Modern technology also affords the use of things like pictures, but I find that what I take electronically, stays electronic -- I have yet to sit down and scrapbook all of the lovely pictures of my children I've captured on my various phones and cameras over the years, let alone roadside botanical finds... Sigh.

Keep it simple and enjoy some time with your kids, building a vocabulary of botany and natural wonders, perhaps even displacing some of the spoon-fed-by-osmosis corporate branding we are all surrounded by.

No Regrets

2012-04-30T16:08:00.001-04:00

This personalized luggage was our gift to the kids during the big move. It made a huge difference for them to be able to pick the PJs and outfits and special toys and items that would be with them during limbo.

It's been a year since we packed all of our worldly goods into suitcases, boxes, tubs, crates, PODs, trucks, boats and busses and moved out of Annapolis. At that time, we had sold our old new house, but we had not yet convinced the owners of our new old house (TOPH) to accept our very reasonable offer. So, there we were in limbo.

We are very lucky to have family with summer rental properties in Wellfleet that were as-yet unoccupied for the season. So, we "camped" there. Hubby had an internet connection, so he was working. I was able to get the kids into school there for the few short weeks that remained until summer vacation. And I earned our keep doing odd jobs painting and gardening and cleaning and generally sprucing things up around there.

The view from the Lodge out over the Herring River, Great Island and Cape Cod Bay to the West. It's one of the few places on the Eastern seaboard where you can watch spectacular sunsets over water every day.

As places to "be" go, we really weren't hurting. It's really quite beautiful there. And there is something about the combination of changing tides and manual labor that clear the mind. We made some pretty big decisions in those few weeks and truly have no regrets. In short, it was a pretty amazing place to be rootless. (Rentals available May-October at Friendship Cottages & Lodge.)

It wasn't all staring at the sea and rearranging heirloom perennials, though. We spent countless hours online on Realtor and Zillow looking for our new home. (Although, we had already found it. The previous owners just didn't know it yet.) And I made quite a few whirlwind round trips to the Seacoast of NH to check out houses and neighborhoods and the lay of the land.

When our patience and perseverance finally paid off and we landed a contract on TOPH, we were well into June. We had been displaced from the Lodge when the rental season started and had been hopping between vacant cottages. With the summer season entering its prime weeks, we were again headed into limbo. My mom was good enough to "take a vacation" from her house in Harwich and let us get organized there before closing -- about two weeks. (If she only knew how many loads of laundry we did there! Well, I guess she knows now.) And then hubby left for Europe on business, leaving me to camp in the new house with the kids a couple of mattresses on the floor, a patio set and some kitchen basics until the PODs and moving trucks arrived -- almost a month before everything had finally caught up with us.

Looking back now, it really was hectic and chaotic and stressful, but it was all for a purpose and we knew it, so that made it OK.

So, now we've been at TOPH for ten months. We have completed some significant physical plant upgrades (boiler, water heater, some wiring, some plumbing, etc.) And done some planned livability projects (a place to put a couch and TV in the same room, etc.), but, in general, we have stayed pretty true to our plan. Live in it. Don't make any major changes or decisions for a year. Stare at it and get to know it. Don't plant anything permanent for two years. Be still and breathe. Don't spend any major money (aside from the initial, planned and pending physical plant stuff) for three years.

So far, so good. I promise not to take so long to post my next... Installation of small (moveable) herb garden and blow-by-blow of our attack on the resident invasive plant species are coming soon.

Hyper-variable Marionettes + Applied Campaign Strategy = ?

2012-02-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

It's almost the end of February and I have almost nothing to report vis a vis progress at TOPH. The truth is we have a massive, steaming pile of stuff to do. We are way past the "to-do" list phase. We have arrived at a point where all things left to do impact some or all of the other things that need doing. And they all need money -- some a little, some a lot. So, here we stand on the precipice of a domino-effect adventure. And it's VERY hard to take that first step, however little, because the chain reaction may just be out of our league. For now. So we haven't.

We inhabitants of TOPH are marionettes with too many joints, plus the constriction of natural and unforeseen entanglements. Sigh.

And then there's that marriage thing. The hubby is a impulsive projecter with big picture deficit disorder and I am compulsive planner with eyes-bigger-than-stomach project completion disorder. There are those rare occasions when his technical talents intersect with my plans... And those unforeseeable sweet spots most frequently occur exactly six and two thirds minutes before one or both children are tired, hungry and/or bored. So, yeah, we're not getting much done.

In an effort to increase the number, frequency and predictability of these instances of promising team effort, I am now on a mission of variable reduction -- essentially I am planning, which is my "fairy talent" as my daughter would put it. This is a tact both hubby and I have employed in taming chaotic political campaigns. If you can get a strategy on paper and get buy-in from all the stakeholders, you are essentially eliminating noisy variables from the equation. And you are creating a trajectory for future tactical planning, a framework for decision-making and a means to plan time, money and people effectively.

So, I am trying to get a plan on paper, with a little help from my friends, perhaps. If we know what it's all going to look like when we're done, then maybe we'll see the best way to start. I must say that this process is WAY simpler to apply to other people's stuff. I am certainly seeing for the first time why candidates paid us the not-so-big-bucks to do this for them.

There is probably some witticism about doing things for yourself or knowing when to hire a professional I should be applying here...

Just Don't Look Up

2012-02-26T07:34:00.000-05:00

We were marginally successful in creating actual living space for the holidays. I can't tell you how amazing it was to have our comfy couch and chairs out of storage (sunroom) and arrayed in proximity to a fireplace and a TV. It was like our own personal family decompression chamber. For the first couple of days we were delirious and oblivious, which was nice.

The ceiling is still wide open to the upstairs joists and subfloor, which is fine. It's a tall "ceiling" -- 10+ feet -- so it's not as obvious And we're planning to put in some radiant heating (Ultra-Fin) for the bunkroom (later to be our Master), move some plumbing around and play with the positioning of a whole bunch of recessed lighting. I also want to play with some gel-stain products to lighten up the super-dark, creosote-tone beams (and not have to mask while I'm doing it.) Essentially, the room looks great, as long as you don't look up. Or down. I havent' finshed the floor yet. But I am going to need a week of kid-free, well-ventilated time to do that. Maybe this summer sometime? No biggie. See, I can picture what it's going to look like in my head. The color of the floor. The tone of the light once there is a ceiling and a floor in place... The reat of y'all will just have to... not look up... or down.

There's A Hole & A Bucket

2011-12-11T22:35:00.000-05:00

I just couldn't stand it anymore. I had to know.

There's this space. It's completely inaccessible from all sides. Solid field stone and granite foundation on the outside all the way around. Solid wall-to-wall pine flooring on the inside. And there's this infuriating poured-cement reinforcing wall (about 5 feet tall under the corner of the 3 feet of exposed field stone and granite foundation) where it adjoins the main house in the basement. There's a "1962" painted on it.

Those four digits mock me every time I do laundry. I look at that wall and wonder what got sealed in there. And, seriously, even if it was a crawl space above grade, shouldn't they have left some access to it, for plumbing or electric or maintenance or whatever?

So, now that hubby has finished all the key elements of demolition in the "tavern", as we call it. I am finishing up the sorting of all the barn board (the two floors that came out of the ceiling). Because of the way everything was put together, the only way to get it out was in 36-40" sections. I am planning on repurposing a good bit of it as pieced-together horizontal wainscot, but that project is for later -- after painting and floor and perhaps some beam reconditioning.

I decided to stack the usable barn board sections in the closet under the stairs up to the bunk room. It's about the size of Harry Potter's first bedroom at the Dursleys' -- not huge, but semi-climate-controlled and out of the way. A perfect place to put things we'd rather not see for awhile, while keeping them handy to their eventual destination.

Before I started stacking in, it occurred to me that this would be the perfect place to pop up a floor board and peek at what was underneath. The stairs wrap around the northeastern corner of the tavern -- same wall, opposite corner from the 1962 on the other side in the laundry.

I just happened to have a hammer, a long-handled pry bar, a reciprocating saw and a flashlight handy. I do not have one of those little fiber-optic spy cameras with the screen and SD card video capture, or I would be sharing this great discovery with you! (HINT TO SANTA)

So I pried up a floor board and found... another floor. Why am I not surprised? Broad plank pine. I am not and expert, but there are marks on it that appear to be made by hand tools. No circular or straight patterns from milling.

I checked for nailing patterns to avoid cutting into anything structural below, and found... another floor? It looks almost like lath, but thicker and wider. It's a mystery. Did they have subfloors back then (when?) And did they lay them parallel to the floor? Does not compute... Or maybe it is lath? For a ceiling?

So I cut deeper into my peep hole. I'm feeling some serious draft now.

And I can reach into empty space. I am just a little bit heebed out about something biting me or grabbing me at this point. Given the displacement of all of the mice and squirrels from ceiling, they had to go somewhere, right?

So it's about 30" down to a level, silty-sand "floor". I can't see farther then about a two-foot radius in the area under my hole. My hole is two small to get my fat head through. Sigh.

Well, there's a bucket -- possibly galvanized, fluted sides, with wire handle. I can see a few large field stones stacked inside a repointed portion of foundation. I can see some older, modern 2x4s, apparently shoring up the floor under the stair structure. So now we know that they got in and under this room and did some fixin' here and there, so that's something...

We know from early twentieth century pictures of the outside of the house that the stairs were likely in the northwestern corner at some point (odd square window at odd height, now absent.)

So now I am dying to see the rest of what's under there. There are some tantalizing hints on the "outside". The southeastern corner of the foundation is enclosed in our present-day basement, around the corner from the 1962. There is an old iron/lead pipe coming out of it at mid-wall over a granite block on the floor. The adjacent are of the main house basement closest to the well (still in use today) has the remnants of pre-1820s lath and plaster with some odd brick work and the remnants of integrated wall supports for shelving. Summer kitchen? Laundry area (did they have those)? Dish washing area for tavern upstairs?

I seriously need fiberoptic spy gear. I can't risk a bigger peep hole where I cut today without cutting something structural and/or load-baring. Aside from my burning curiosity about what the space might have been used for, I really would like to know that the floor and underpinnings look solid before I spend too much time and money on the room above. Although, there is no shaking or wobbling in the floor and it's probably the most level, square and plumb room on the property. Perhaps I should consider my curiosity sated with a hole and a bucket. And get back to vacuuming, sanding, painting and finshing so maybe, just maybe, we have have finished living space for Christmas. Sigh.

And, Behind Door #3...

2011-11-27T15:33:00.000-05:00

Just when I thought I'd seen it all, in terms of odd color choices... It seems the Care Bears may have had a little known colonial influence...

In our travels through the many and various basement, attic and garage hiding places of TOPH, we have found a large collection of windows, doors and screens. Since we moved in this Summer, and the house was still largely "winterized", we made quick, if amusing, work of matching each port to its appropriate ventilated pest barrier. And we attempted to store the take-offs in a way that made sense. But, let's just say we had some left over parts.

When the drafts of first frost came, we learned quickly where stop-gap measures were needed. And, as luck would have it, our match-making skills proved generally successful. The many-doored passages to the outside suddnely made sense. Although, I must say it is cumbersome to navigate multiple knobs and latches in a cramped space with groceries and children, I do get the yankee-logic of an air lock.

However, there are doors in the house that open directly into living spaces. It was our intent to shun those passages in the Winter months, but, even closed, they were radiating cold. There was just no way the previous owners lived with them like that... Ah. Spare parts!

In the rafters of the garage hubby found a solid tongue-and-groove door with some old hinges and thumb-latch hardware on it. It fits the outside of the tavern door jam perfectly. It swings out. The old hand-hewn panel door swings in. Clearly it's been there before -- the hardware matches up perfectly, although some pieces are missing. No biggy. We will likely figure out a way to secure it and not open it again until Spring.

The kicker is the color. Now we have a purple house with blue doors and a bright green (we're talkin' verde gris) "over" door. This just keeps getting better. I feel like I'm in a colonial Care Bears movie.

The Chill is Upon Us: New Community, Old House

2011-11-24T14:46:00.000-05:00

Our world is a little bit upside down. When we lived in Annapolis, Spring was the busy time of year. Weekends and evenings (and quite a few sneak-away-from-work hours) were spent getting boats ready for the season. Tedious hours were spent getting logistics sorted for the sailing season. But it was all worth it. The more prepared we were for the season, the better we were able to enjoy our hours on the water.

It was a busy time when the community shared information on new products and processes they were using. The talk about the coming season centered on new sail plans and purchases, new crew line-ups, ultimate strategies for long-distance races and tactics for the all-important race to the dock/bar.

Now that we have moved North, the sailing season is shorter and Fall is longer, but (apparently) way too short to complete all of the many Winter-prep projects required to keep us warm and safe at TOPH. The to-do list for Fall included tree trimming to keep branches away from the house, replacing five basement windows to replace some of the the old, rotten ones (removed earlier in the Summer), ceiling demolition in the tavern to allow for plumbing repairs and some window replacement in the main house.

The tree trimming has been slow-going. Hubby has been pecking away at it over the last six weeks, but our chainsaw has proven unequal to the task, requiring multiple sharpenings over the course of an afternoon. Plus, tree work with the kids "helping" is slow-going with constant checks of their giggling-proximity to every given projectile and cutting tool.

The basement windows are more a financial challenge. This is perhaps on of the only areas of "investment" in TOPH where were were willing to go with the cheapest, effective measure. However, the window sizes are not stock or common, therefore either significant reframing efforts or expensive custom windows are required. Sigh. In the short term, hubby built two "hutches" to match the three contraptions already here. They look like 3-sided dog houses that sit over the window wells. Under those, I have used "found" materials to affect some protection from the colder temeratures. The flat-frame screens I made to lay over the window wells for pest protection during our fully-ventuialted Summer have been covered on both sides (with air pocket in between) with several yards of painters' canvas I had lying around. Hoping they will provide enough of an insulating barrier to protect window-proximal pipes -- we'll be keeping a close eye on those.

The ceiling demolition is more of a mental-physical barrier. It sucks having yards of dust, debris, frass, feces and fodder fall on your head. And working with power tools over your head is rather taxing (and death-defying.) it's not a project you can work on for more than two hours at a time, yet the prep and clean-up take a good hour. Finding time and motivation has been the greatest factor. On the other hand, not having a living/family room for five months has posed its own challenges. The critical mass of willpower (directed at Couch + Fire + TV/Book) is building a decent head of steam!

And finally, we took forever to make a decision about windows for the main house. Then it took 6 weeks for our "sample" to arrive. Truth-be-told, it took hubby less than two hours to install it. And we like it. A lot. Now we just have to line up the pecking/ordering order for the rest. Each one is about $325, so we figure we can do 2 each month without breaking the bank. Some rooms have only one window and some have three, so it should all come out in the wash. Although we'd like to do all nine on the front of the house in one go. In the meantime, there are several that are "breezy" shall we say, so we have made a stop-gap purchase of shrink film, which is actually quite invisible to the naked eye when installed properly. And, that is how we are spending our Thanksgiving.

So, back to my sailnig analogy. Hubby and I have both remarked that it is a little tough embarking on projects in an old house in a new community. Our community of sailing/Annapolis friends was always willing to lend a hand or opinion on a wide variety of boat projects. Most folks we've met here, though, are not old house people. So, although they find our house "charming" and projects "interesting", we have found very few with affinity or experience. And, perhaps it's becasue we barely know them, we have been reluctant to ask for help when tasks require more hands. Mostly we miss the commaraderie of the boat yard (and The Boatyard Bar & Grill) in terms of group-think and the inevitbability of drop-by helping elves.

Don't get me wrong, we LOVE living here and we are meeting new folks every day, but community takes time to build and we are freshmen. We are thankful for all of the new folks we are meeting, but honestly, we miss (and look forward to) the sophomoric comments and sage-senior advice that come from old friends.

So, on this Thanksgiving, we hope you'll join us it toasting friendships new and old. Here's hoping the former grow finer with time. Cheers and warm, homey hugs, all!

From the Outside Looking In...

2011-11-06T07:05:00.000-05:00

From the outside looking in, it isn't quit right yet. It isn't quite right looking from the inside out either. But overall it looks way better than I thought it would and it was much less muss and fuss than I would have expected.

After enormous loads of research, great debate and considerable consternation, hubby ordered and installed the first new window at TOPH. Kudos to him, because, in a massive paradigm shift, he left me in the dust of indecision and an epic damming of impetuous energy. I don't know what it is about windows in an old house. Or maybe I do.

There is a quite a complex framework for decision-making. The following was ours, in no particular order (perhaps THAT was my problem?) We looked at cost, aesthetics, energy efficiency, modern-use festures and installation appraoches.

Google Image unearthed with search phrase:
Ugly Replacement Windows on Antique House

The product-alone cost of replacing windows, if you believe the hype, ranges from $150-$1,500 for a standard double-hung unit. There are "replacement windows", which are cheap and easy and vinyl, for the most part. They have wood-clad upgrades, but that sends them into the same price range as the others, so that was a non-starter. My biggest issue with them, though was aesthetic. They "fit" into your old window holes, but come in a smaller range of sizes than the other options. So they make up the difference with vinyl fillers in the form of coping and flashing and trim. The result is less window and more white crap to put it bluntly.

The other end of the spectrum is authentic reproduction windows -- the ones with single-pane, wavy glass in "true divided lights" like they were originally. Apart from being ridiculously expensive, notoriously energy inefficient and exceedingly difficult to maintain, it set the restoration bar a bit to high for us. I don't see us doing laundry in copper steamers over the fire on a regular basis. And, as far as I know, George Washington never slept here at TOPH.

In order to preserve maximum "lite" size and aesthetic we wanted, plus achieve the energy-efficiency and modern functions we wanted, we (briefly) considered using "new" windows (case, frame and all) as replacements. However, this type of window replacement would require major surgery on interior and exterior trim, in addition to repairs to plaster walls and latex-over-lead painted siding. On our budget, we are tackling one (or a few) projects at a time. This approach would just open up too many cans of worms at once without the time or money to finish any of them properly. And, as it turns out, the window sills are very old -- possibly original (clearly hand-hewn and planed) -- and in reasonably good shape. Why fix something (one of the very few things) that isn't broken?

One down and 53 to go!

So we had basically arrived at a little-known option. There are a few companies out there who sell replacement sashes in a wide range of sizes. Plus, they have these "balance kits" -- essentially modern-engineered, multi-track inserts that fit into the vertical sides of your rough-ish window opening. They allow for all the insulated, double-hung, tilt-in/out options of modern windows without disturbing existing trim and casing. The sashes themselves are argon-filled, double-pane, low-e glass. There are thousands of options for muillion sets which can be interior and/or exterior. Right now we have only the interior sets. When we get around to siding and painting the exterior of the house, we will add the exterior sets and paint accordingly.

NOTE: Very happy about using a product local-ish family owned company (BROSCO) and ordering through our local lumber yard (Exeter Lumber).

It took about 4 weeks for our made-to-order window to come in. Hubby ordered one for a not-so-obvious window in his office that we though would be representative of the scope and scale for the rest of the house. And, again, kudos to him. I just couldn't pull the trigger on this one. And now it's done. It took him less than 2 hours to take out the old and install the new. Just needs a coat of exterior paint to protect the wood surfaces while we get around to the others. Hmmmm. What color? Pink perhaps? Let's scare the neighbors! Hehehehe.

Message in a Bottle

2011-10-23T19:21:00.000-04:00

This will be a quicky becasue I am exhausted, but very excited to share.

We had a busy weekend of out-of-town guests and outings, but we squeezed in some outdoor work this afternoon. Now that we've identified "the road" we can peck away at clearing as time allows, so that's what we did today. There are a bunch of trash trees that have cropped up-- mostly Norway Maples 1-4" in diameter. All are very tall -- re-e-e-e-aching up to get some sunlight under the canopy of the more mature elm and oak and ash.

Interesting finds:

Several piles of dirt and rock debris roughly the size and shape of snowplow leavings. There are lots of flat patio-type pieces of slate and bluestone in evidence. Wondering if there was an outdoor living area or formal garden somewhere around or below the pool at some point. Thinking maybe we'll take up a collection and see if we gain critical mass for some future project. Happy to recycle!
Lots and lots of past-prime firewood dumped in the old barn foundation and in the woods. The bad news is the previous owners (and their family and neighbors and realtors and landscape-labor) did a lot of dumping in the woods. There are areas where the debris is too rooten to move and too big to chip -- basically a big mound of mess. The good news is that I have identified some older dumping zones where the grass clipping and leaves have made gorgeous compost. Happy gardener over here!
And, the pies de resistance, was more archealogical. Hubby found an old bottle on the ground. He was excited about the antique glass. I was excited about what was inside. There was a little bit of dirt and 3 or four different kinds of teensy weensy plants growing in there along with a small population of visible worms and bugs -- all in miniature. It reminded me of that scene in "Men in Black" when Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) found a universe in a train station locker. Truly a stop-and-think existential moment.

Hood's Tooth Powder, Lowell, Mass (circa 1880s)

Microscosm complete with soil strata, multiple plant varieties, plus worms and insects -- all in miniature. The weather in "Hoodville" was cloudy with a chance of rain today.

The Road More Travelled

2011-10-12T11:00:00.001-04:00

It's always a little intimidating moving to a new place. You never know who your neighbors are going to be. And, for us, since we have young kids and this is pretty small town, we could only hope for amiable neighbors with like-aged children. When we were house shopping, I will admit to reasonable attention to play sets and sandboxes and strollers in neighboring yards. There were a few in the newer development that wrapped around TOPH in the woods, but you never know if they are "current" or grandparents or whatever.

We totally lucked out. Not only do we have very nice neighbors pretty much all around us, but there are two families VERY close by with kids that will be in class with our twins. Yay!

The funny thing is, it was kind-of meant to be as far as TOPH is concerned.

When we were scoping out the upper pasture (now woods) for goats, we found that there were two gates in the old fence. One was roughly perpendicular to one of the old barn foundations near our garage. The other -- a straight shot North-to-South -- led directly into the back yard of a wonderful family, who brought us a freshly-picked-blueberry pie when we first moved in. We had joked that we should clear that path first so the kids could commute.

Our other neighbor -- across the street and down the hill toward Great Bay -- had made a similar suggestion. Why not make a path through the woods? Better than having the kids walking in the road, right?

So I set out with my skein of red yarn with the thought that we could identify a reasonable path and do some clearing as time-energy presented itself. The thing is, the more I looked, the more I found that the path was already there. There's actually a break in the wall (under a bunch of brambles and poison ivy) at the far downhill corner of our property. And, if you kind of squint, you can see the old trees vs. the new. And some evidence of tracks from vehicles (motorized and otherwise) along the way.

The funniest thing is that the paths on the upper pasture (woods) and the one through the lower pasture (also now woods) connect almost exactly at the front of the other (largest) barn foundation. There are pretty obvious swaths where the trees are younger and scrawnier since they grew up in hard-packed, more-travelled ground.

I strung my string, clearing a bit as I went, and found another cool surprise in the woods -- a meandering row of healthy American Elm trees. I've always wanted a tree-lined driveway. And now, it appears, we shall have one, albeit a kid path connecting friends and neighbors with the foundations and intentions of our forebears as landmarks.

Roadies & Rhodies

2011-09-24T16:40:00.000-04:00

I think I mentioned before that I joined the Master Gardener program through the UNH Cooperative Extension. It has been a great way for me to scratch my gardening itch while keeping my won't power intact here at TOPH. I have pledged not to do any serious gardening here at TOPH until Spring 2013. But, I will say that I am kind of enjoying living vicariously for awhile. I feel like a roadie. And I'm following this band of talented folks who are doing all that I can't right now -- just kind of soaking it all in and nodding enthusiastically.

In the meantime, I am doing a minor gardening project. I am getting away with it only because it pertains to grading and drainage and foundation-saving.

We have these two enormous Rhododendrons. They are on the west side of TOPH between the kitchen door and driveway. The trunks are 8" in diameter and they are each about 8' wide and 8' high. When we visited TOPH in the late Spring they were gorgeous. Massive, multiple blooms of a pleasant not-pink, not-purple hue.

Unfortunately, they were planted too close to the foundation and their root balls sit a little higher grade-wise than I would prefer for healthy drainage and sill-health. Sad, but they need to go.

Moving large bushes has its risks, but, the way I see it, these rhodies owe us nothing. We bought the house and they came along for the ride -- free parking as it were. Now we just have to figure out how to reassign their parking places without killing them.

We covered planting and transplantation in Master Gardener class, but I had a feeling that our well-established monster-Rhodies might require some more creative attention. I was right, according to Michael Garrity (Garden Works LLC & Blueberry Gardens Organic), an expert on perennials and ornamentals, we're "going to have break some rules and make it ugly, before it can be pretty. Patience is key."

His advice was to prune them hard, selectively stripping off all outer new growth and buds, then cut a trench in around the root balls this Fall, then finish digging them out and moving them in the early Spring, as soon as the frost lifts. Finally, once they are relocated and dug in nicely (with root ball flare safely above grade -- that's one of his big campaigns), then I am supposed to prune all of the massive (now-budless) growth off the outside and let the inner buds and branches go nuts. Sounds reasonable. That way all the inner stuff will be protected this winter and through the move. We shall see.

Pruning a Rhodie in the Fall is a no-no, usually. And doughnut trenching around bushes has some real downsides, but this is a special circumstance and Mike seemed to have a rhyme to his reason. Something about helping the plant to conserve energy, kick-starting some close-in root growth, and looking forward to a spectacular bloom (if they live) in the Spring of 2013 in their new locale. OK.

So, I have now selectively pruned all of their outer growth and extremities. The inner buds look very promising! OK, maybe that's wishful thinking... And I also took out all the dead twiggy stuff to eliminate harmful pest habitat. That was my idea, but it seemed like good, basic IPM (integrated pest management) practice to me.

I have to admit they look kind of sad at the moment -- sort of like a long-haired cat after a bath. I still have to do the trenching, but the weathers been rather soggy lately. I think I will wait until there is more dirt and less mud to slog though for that little task. The digging will be hard and I will have my bot cutters in-hand as the root system on these puppies is fibrous and thick and woody with no fine hairy stuff. Quite ingeneious, really. That's how come they are so acid-loving (-tolerant). No fine, hairy roots. Just the smart ones with uptake sensors. It's really fascinating. They are closely related to blueberry bushes in that way, you know.

In the meantime, I am chanting words of encouragement to the granite foundation wall nearest to these impinging root balls. I'm sure it will be fine until spring with the bushes can be safely moved and the small door yard there can be regraded and planted with some storm-water-sucker-uppers. We will be paying close attention to rooting distance and spacing relative to the house and driveway, as well as appropriate root-ball-to-grade depth assignment. Right-O! I'm thinking red twig dogwoods on an island in a drainage pond... Wait, the hubby is wholly opposed to the p-word. So we'll call it a kidney shaped sub-grade catch basin with appropriate outflow, landscaping and aeration. And frogs. Yep, that's it!

Recipe: Ginger-Pear Clafouti

2011-09-23T11:09:00.002-04:00

It was my turn to bring the snack to Master Gardener class. Thought I would share. Turned out SO yummy. A real any-occasion dish -- brunch, tea, dessert... Enjoy!

Ginger-Pear Clafouti (Melissa Currier 9/22/2011)

(Makes 48 servings in 2 lasagna-sized Pyrex. Scale at-will. Small scale will work in a 10" skillet -- start on stove like a frittata.)

8 T TJ's Organic Brown Sugar

1/2 C Ginger Brandy

2 t Cinnamon

10 Ripe Organic Bartlett Pears

________________

3 C Bob's Organic Whole Wheat Flour

1 C Organic Bread Flour

12 T TJ's Organic Raw Sugar

1 t Celtic Sea Salt

________________

16 Large Nellie's Cage Free Eggs

2 C Hatch's Light Cream

2 C Hatch's Lite Milk

16 oz. TJ's Greek Yogurt

4 t Vanilla Extract (bourbon-base)

________________

12 T Organic Butter

________________

Preheat Oven to 400 degress with butter in Pyrex

Prepare pear mixture, toss and set aside. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Beat wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour wet mixture gradually into dry mixture, mixing well as you go. Batter should be smooth.

Ladle a portion of the batter into your preheated baking pan(s) (1/2-3/4") and return to oven until it begins to set like the first side of a pancake. Remove from oven and spread pear mixture evenly into pan. Cover with remaining batter. Put the whole thing back in the oven, reduce heat to 375 and bake for approx. 20 minutes until it puffs up and begins to brown nicely. Toothpick stuck in center should come out relatively clean.

Serve hot or cold. Sprinkle with powdered sugar (optional).

Willpower & Won't Power

2011-09-16T16:57:00.000-04:00

When you have a lot on your to-do list, sometimes the hardest thing to do is stick to your to-don't list. That's when willpower is really more about "won't power". When we bought TOPH, we knew there was a very long to-do list, and we had to make a to-don't list to keep ourselves on track.

As a passionate digger of dirt (and soon-to-be-official Master Gardener), I would like nothing more than to focus on, and obsess about, our neglected yard and escapist landscape and grimmest-of-the-grim absentee gardens. But I have sworn off proactive gardening on our property until the Spring of 2013. I am limited to clearing brush, cutting firewood, preparing for goats and grading in some minor drainage-required areas. Oh, and some very selective transplantation and/or removal of "vintage" plantings that are impinging on the solidarity of our pieced-granite foundation and deteriorating sills.

My hubby is sacrificing too. And, honestly, he's fighting genetics to stay on the wagon, so I really can't complain too much about my clean fingernails. I married a tinkerer-packrat and the poor fellow will also have to wait awhile to have his dream: a barn. In the meantime he will have a workshop in the basement and disparate storage in hidey-holes around the house and some no-power, no-heat space in the too-small, not-tall garage, but it's not the same. And I get that.

I have to say that living without our nearest and dearest habit-hobbies is forcing us to really think and plan and mull over what we will eventually do. Time will tell if their absence makes our hearts fonder and goals sweeter. I'm guessing YES!

In the meantime, we are progressing on all of the many before-the-snow-flies necessities around TOPH. And we are available to consult on any of your yard and/or gardening projects and vehicle projects (land or sea). We are living vicariously through you. Don't be shy!

POD-crastination

2011-09-06T09:16:00.000-04:00

OK, we are officially in one of those cart-before-horse situations. We've got a lot of projects to do in the short term that require massive muss and fuss (and dust), so we've retained the PODs we used for our move to keep work- and our precious-few living-spaces clear. But these projects are taking longer than expected (shocker) and the PODs are costing us money, which cuts into project budgets.

Basic budget logic says, "Um, hi. You have a 4,000+ sq. ft. house with a bunch of empty rooms. Why are you paying to store stuff in the driveway."
POD-crastination logic says, "Why move things around a bunch of times? Your boxes of stuff are high and dry and dust-free. Out of sight, out of mind. Wait 'til the coast is clear."
DIY logic says, "Use sweat equity and repetitive-task-torture whenever possible to save the almighty DOLLAR."

SO, it's 2-to-1. PODs lose. Domestic open space legislation = FAIL.

We shall dedicate this rainy week to find (temporary, but remotely logical) places for everything and put everything in those places. And just to make sure we accomplish this, I have invited my mother to help. Nothing like inviting a task master to your own work party. Sigh.

Counting Our Blessings, Others Not-So-Lucky

2011-08-29T09:35:00.002-04:00

Basically the Irene experience here at TOPH was anti-climactic. We lost power for about six hours during the day yesterday, but, thanks to an energetic romp at the through-the-woods neighbors' house, the kids crashed for a long nap and we got some reading in. Excellent Sunday afternoon, by all accounts.

The power came back on in time to cook dinner. I hedged my bets with a pressure cooker. I figured as long as it got up a full head of steam, it would keep cooking even if the power decided to conk out again. Yummy barbeque pork.

So TOPH came through fine. No major roof leaks, no major basement flooding and no major tree damage. Unfortunately, some of our friends and family were not so lucky.

My hubby's aunt and uncle lost their dream home on Cat Island in the Bahamas. They've spent the last few years managing the massive logistics of building in that remote locale. Finding building materials and skilled contractors is not as easy as picking up the phone down island. Materials were brought in by horse and mule and brandless motorized contraptions. Managing opinionated local and migrant laborers from afar was even harder. Getting furnishings to a home there requires IKEA-like palette packing, generous relationships with customs officers and scarce-vehicle transport.

Formerly "Rainbow House" on Cat Island in the Bahamas.

They had painstakingly installed a whole-house solar power system there, transporting it piece-by-piece friends' sailboats as they came through over several cruising seasons. And it's all gone.

One of the major points of contention with the building laborers was cement. The house was constructed of concrete block, but they were stacked and fastened together with mix-on-site materials. The quality control when it came to the consistency and content was impossible. The challenges were either opinion or shear laziness -- it was never clear which. But, physics always win. A structure is only as strong as its weakest point. And Irene found it.

Not quite as dramatic, but equally devastating, our friend Dave was home with is dog Cyrus when a good-sized tree was uprooted in the yard of his rented cottage near Annapolis. Thank goodness they were not hurt! And here's hoping he is able to salvage some of his soggy belongings once the tree is stabilized or removed.

Dave's House in Edgewater, MD. As my hubby
put it: "You sank my battleship."

When you see destruction like this, you really start to think what might easily be lost. In the corner of the house where the tree hit was a curio cabinet stuffed with trophies and pictures and memorabilia spanning several decades of sailboat racing, his lifelong passion. We are truly grateful that he and Cyrus are OK, and hoping that much can be salvaged. There are some things insurance just can't replace.

And, some rays of hope, if you will. As we were all watching Irene make a slow-motion, full-on mess up the east coast, folks farther south were coming out of their shelters and things were looking up. The air was dry, the atmosphere "scrubbed" and the colors amazing. Thanks my to uncle and cousin for sharing. It was nice to have a preview of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sunset in Wilmington, North Carolina as the
final bands of Irene spin onward and upward.

We've heard from the folks down on the Cape and all appears to be fine, altough there is no power. No surprise there. No word yet from our friends in coastal Connecticut and Vermont. Hoping you stayed high and dry, y'all.