84. Begone Ugly Windows

October 6, 2013September 8, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 5 Comments

We have a new window in the mudroom.

It is not like the gorgeous original kitchen windows that we spent three months painstakingly restoring.

Restored wood windows

No, this window is a bottom-line Andersen window, on sale from Home Depot this past week for $225.

American Craftsman window from Home Depot

We have spent the last year — on and off — looking for old double hung windows with real muntins that would fit this 48″x48″ square opening. No dice. No windows either.

This is a perfect example of the drafty, ugly aluminum windows — this one is going to be gone SOON as well.

The problem is that some of the windows in the cottage are original, and some were replaced in the seventies with aluminum frame windows that, uh, have zero charm. (Zero R-Value as well.) We are keeping the wood frame originals, but that leaves us with having to replace the others.

We just couldn’t spend any more time looking for old windows that we could re-do. It was time to upgrade that old aluminum window that was cracked and didn’t work. I could spend the rest of this post lamenting the loss of craftsmanship in the modern world. Why is everything affordable made from ~~plastic~~ vinyl? And as much as I’d like to put in expensive Pella windows that are, you know, historically appropriate? It just isn’t in the budget; we went with cheap, and on sale for even cheaper…But Energy Star Efficient! And Made in the USA.

On an unseasonably warm October Saturday, we carted the old window out to the edge of the road, where someone will most likely stop and take it for the aluminum.

We put all of our junk out here by the side of the road with a FREE sign next to it. So far everything we’ve put out has been taken: a ladder, old ceiling materials, an old light, a vacuum cleaner, orange louvered doors, and even the old kitchen sink…

Alas, the perennial problem is this: What does this particular project consist of? Are we just trying to get a window in for the winter, so air won’t blow through the kitchen? Or are we going to take our time and replace the siding now, because that is in the long-range plan?

After several rounds of discussion, we decided to take the cedar shakes off and put white cove siding on the front of the mudroom. Mr. H.C. isn’t exactly happy about it; we’ve still got the kitchen AND the mudroom to finish, and here we are taking an excursion to the outside of the house.

Mr. H.C. frowning at the level. He frowns at his level quite often.

Of course, nothing about the mudroom is level or square. This photo sums up pretty well the angst that goes with putting a level on any wall or sill or floor of the cottage. It’s always a bigger job than expected — Mr. H.C. had to take off the horizontal board and cut off the studs three-quarters of an inch on one side for the window to fit in the frame.

At the end of the day, the window is in…

But at the end of the day, the window was in; I relented and admitted that it didn’t look too bad; and the rest of the outside walls are (almost) ready for siding.

And we got to relax and enjoy the fruit of our labors for 10 minutes until it got dark...

And we got to relax and enjoy the fruit of our labors for ten minutes until it got dark…

83. The Mudroom Demolition

September 29, 2013September 8, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 13 Comments

The mudroom has some problems. Even its name assumes trouble — Mud Room.

But let’s not sugar coat it, or white wash it; it is the entryway into our beautiful kitchen from the muddy outdoors. No just walking inside from a warm garage — this here’s the country! And for most traditional houses, the mudroom is not the main entry into the house, but guess what readers? The cottage is not the traditional house…

This is just one short five foot wall on the left side of the entry way into the kitchen. It just about shows perfectly the hodge podge that the mudroom is…The gray shadow on the siding also showed us where the original door was.

The mudroom was originally the front porch to the cottage; when Joe and Clara renovated in the seventies, they enclosed it. But being a lowly front porch, the concrete floor is on, well, the ground — no footers, no basement, maybe some gravel, although that’s doubtful. So the concrete floor has some serious cracks. No Problemo! We just put down some rebar, pour some concrete, smear on floor leveler, and tile over it! :-)

Cedar shakes used to cover the walls

And the floor has some serious level problems!

Not only does the floor have a level problem, there are also some serious cracks.

Joe and Clara used cedar shakes to cover the walls. This means that under the cedar was a mishmash of old siding, holes where doors used to be, holes where an air conditioner used to be, and just plain holes. On the plus side, we now have six boxes of cedar shakes just itching to be a glamorous cedar chicken coop!

Plywood door and electric panel add to the interest!

Cedar shakes just waiting to be…

this glamorous chicken coop!

Did I mention that the electric panel box is out there too? Joe ingeniously made a hidden door of cedar shakes to cover the box and all the wires, but now that we’ve taken off the shakes, there is just an ugly plywood door that isn’t acceptable for much of anything. Well, maybe for a glamorous chicken coop…

The cedar is gone and so is the plastic ceiling

The ceiling was ~~plastic~~ vinyl wainscot panels that Mr. H.C. made short work of taking down. Clara put twenty dozen hooks in the ceiling and hung her baskets from the ceiling. It had a certain charm, but I was always afraid a bird or a squirrel would jump out from one of those baskets and land on my head…

The outside of the house into the mudroom. Aren’t the flowers in the planter pretty?

This is the back side of the planter outside — it makes for concrete block and brick under the window…

and there’s a chimney too…Note the holes in the walls!

The front wall under the window is a mixture of concrete block and bricks. It is the back wall of the brick planter that is out front. I planted some test flowers in it this spring, completely sure they would die and I could say, “See, nothing will grow here. It doesn’t get sun, it doesn’t get water. Let’s take it out.” And of course, the white impatiens and red coleus thrived. (We did have a wet summer…) So the planter is staying for now. Oh, and there is a chimney. It takes up one corner, and it looks like someone who didn’t know how to mortar bricks together did the mortar job. Probably my grandfather…

This is from the website contentinacottage.com. We aren’t painting it aqua, but maybe Blooming Grove green to bring a little kitchen out into the mudroom…

We hope this thick tile will help cover the cracks.

These French doors, $70, from Construction Junction, go into the kitchen from the mudroom.

We have big plans for this small, narrow room: a wood stove on an elevated platform, a rocking chair, French doors that will lead you into the kitchen, and this lovely DIY combo of bench and coat rack. We already have the floor tile and the French doors; we purchased them both eons ago at Habitat for Humanity Restores. The wood stove will be coming down from our city house basement; the ceiling will be the same beadboard as in the kitchen. But first things first:

82. Plus ça change…the circle of life

September 22, 2013July 1, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 13 Comments

Life in August and September has been lively: anniversaries, birthdays, the start of school, funerals, a wedding, and two houses that compete for our attention.

The start of school means back to work — organizing books, planning lessons, and this year it meant re-organizing the main section of the library after a flood last year.

Our good neighbor died suddenly in early September, and my beloved aunt died a few days ago after a long, well-lived life. A sudden death forces us to think on priorities and the preciousness of life; the other brings unexpected memories and reminds us of the preciousness of life…

Bride and groom My son married his love on September 14th, which would have been my Dad’s 92nd birthday. He would have been delighted! My granddaughter Olivia turned 11 on September 18th, which was my Mom and Dad’s anniversary. August 18th is our own anniversary. Our August and September calendars are circled heavily with red-letter days, both present and past. Red-letter days remind us of the preciousness of life…

And those two houses? One soon to be for sale, one soon to be lived in full time… Oh my, they are such time-suckers. We went into this adventure with our eyes wide open. We knew it would be hard, time-consuming, and detail-oriented. But I’m not sure we knew just HOW MUCH time is consumed in the redo of a house. Now it is already started, we are in the middle, and I am reminded of the preciousness of life and how easily it can be wasted by the details and busy-ness of living…

*****

It’s been two weeks since I sat down to write a blog post. Life, and the busy-ness of living have gotten in the way; as posts have churned around in my mind, I realized, “Oh, I wrote about painting the house last fall” and “Oh, I took that exact same photograph of the sun rising behind the tree last fall” and “Oh, I wrote about harvesting walnuts last fall.”

Sun rising in Autumn of last year,

Sun rising in the mist, First day of fall, 2013

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

I took five years of French, yet my knowledge of the language is now limited to passable pronunciation. But this French idiom has always stayed with me. Literally it is translated, the more it changes, the more it is the same thing.

Some people put a depressing slant on this phrase, meaning that nothing changes, no matter how different outward appearances are. I’m told the French themselves use this phrase in a rather cynical fashion.

I suggest that this is a hopeful thought. That the circle of seasons, births, weddings, anniversaries, yes, and even death, are put in our lives by the Creator God to give us stability and to remind us of the preciousness of life — our own lives and the lives of those who surround us. These things that don’t change? We need to be grateful for the sameness. Grateful that the sky is always blue; grateful that the leaves always turn glorious colors in autumn; grateful that school always starts in the fall and there is important work to do.

Painting the cottage, one side last year,

Painting the cottage, one side this year,

one side last year…

Painting the house before winter sets in, gathering walnuts before the squirrels — these are all part of the pattern of life that God sets before us. The sun rising behind that same tree is part of the cycle of the sun and seasons that God gave us. Circles, cycles, predictability, patterns…those are what allow us to see also the unpredictable surprises of life and be blessed by them. No matter how much time goes by, we are all part of the amazing cycle of human life — from beginning to end, great-great grandfather to great-great grand-niece, Genesis to Revelation; no matter how the outward appearances change, the natural life that God created us for, stays the same.

The cycles and circles of life bring the stability that enable us to fully live in the present, to fully engage with the people who surround us, and to celebrate the spectacular — both the ordinary beauty and the extraordinary beauty of our lives.

hibiscus