Cottage renovation

The birds have flown, the kitty is skittish, and the lazy days of summer are almost gone. Work on the cottage will continue, I know, but probably not with the same freedom of coming here each weekend, working, dreaming, and sitting on the porch.

One of our favorite things to do in the mornings and evenings is to sit on the porch watching and listening to the birds. Our identification skills have improved greatly, thanks to my well-thumbed bird book, Birds of North America . We have seen bluebirds, orioles, finches, wrens, woodpeckers, thrushes — we have watched a mockingbird do a song and dance routine on the nearest telephone pole — we watched baby robins get pushed out of their nest one morning and soon they were hopping around the yard looking for their own worms — and we’ve watched the barn swallows soar and dip, eating insects at dusk. Learning to identify their songs has been such a pleasure. This weekend the bird songs have been replaced by the constant hum of cicadas, and the birds are missing. Not a single robin in the grass; no flash of cardinal red; no wood thrush calling its haunting song from deep in the woods; not even any mournful dove songs. All weekend the only birds we saw were two fat crows walking on the grass, and three unidentifiable birds sitting on the wire. I hope they are all just enjoying a week at the beach…

Friend Beth came to visit on Saturday evening and brought another suggestion for a kitty name — Moe. We’ll have to see if this one sticks… He seems very skittish, especially in the dark. Last night we were looking at the stars, and the shadow of a fox ran across the yard beyond the apple trees. “Look, there’s the fox!” I said excitedly to Michael, and the very same second the kitty took off running for the safety of the porch. There was fear in his eyes. He stays very close to us when we are outside, and he won’t go out on the back porch after dark by himself. He sleeps on the bed all night and snores! All this is most unusual behavior for an independent (ex)tomcat! The wounds on his face have almost healed, but he doesn’t seem to have forgotten. Now we are feeling very responsible for him, and it no longer feels okay to just enjoy him when we’re here. We are thinking he will be our indoor house cat in Pittsburgh this winter…

A face only a mother could love…

We picked and ate our first apples this weekend:

The red ones are Red Delicious — which is disappointing as they are no one’s favorite! The green one is as yet unknown; it wasn’t quite ripe and was a bit sour, but definitely edible. We’re thinking a yellow cooking apple — maybe Grimes Golden.

We went out later today and picked a few more.

They don’t look or taste too bad for an old, unpruned tree.

We aren’t the only ones who think they aren’t too bad…These are two twin fawns we’ve been watching for a month or so; they’ve only recently started losing their spots. There is a groundhog who comes around also, but he’s too fast for my unskilled photography. As long as they don’t start climbing the trees…

Sorry for the blurry shot–I guess National Geographic won’t be calling me for a wildlife photo shoot anytime soon!

We also have about a dozen pears on the young trees we planted this spring. Yes, this is gratification!!!

There were just small projects done this weekend. (It was just too hot for Michael to work in the attic!) I sanded and painted the back porch steps:

I kept thinking of my grandfather’s phrase — like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Oh well…the entry to the back porch isn’t high on the priority list; I was just trying to keep the steps from decomposing over the winter. (Notice that I only showed you a picture of the nicely painted steps — the rest of the entry is just too horrible to photograph.)

And we now have numbers on our mailbox post — can’t have the pizza guy passing us by!

Michael sanded and hung the door we found at the ReStore for ten dollars. This is the door that goes down four steps into the pantry/laundry room. (Clara’s pantry sign will hang at the top of it–see 10. Clara’s Kitsch.) I primed it, and now it will have to wait for its color until we choose red or green. I’m seeing this door as Red Delicious red. Somehow, I just can’t picture this door in Lime Twist… Anyone have thoughts?

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer everyone. I hope the birds get back safely from their vacations, and everyone gets to enjoy a sunset like this one in these last precious days of August…

We were a bit hesitant to tear out walls.
Dusty, everyone said.
Old Plaster, Mr. H.C. said.
What will we do with it? I said.

I was a bit hesitant to write on this topic of walls. So metaphorical, walls are. Especially tearing them down.

I could wax poetic, except I’m an unexceptional poet.

I could philosophize, except I’m an unexceptional philosopher.

I could spout theology, except I’m an unexceptional theologian.

I’m even an unexceptional photographer–it’s especially difficult to take pictures of walls that aren’t there any longer.

Wikipedia tells me that the word wall is from the Old English word weall and it is a vertical structure, usually solid, that defines and sometimes protects an area. In fact, if walls divide and separate us, I could discuss the new trend in houses that opens up kitchens to the living areas of a house. So do we want an undefined and unprotected kitchen? Yes.

I have read Jane Powell’s books extensively. I love them. I love her humor, I love her authenticity, I love her strict ideas against “remodeling.” Don’t do damage to your old house, she says. If you keep to its period, no one will hate you down the line in 50 years. No one will have to rip out the trendy 4×8 sheets of fake paneling that you have carefully installed in the family room. I especially liked Bungalow Kitchens, and yes, I read The Bungalow Bathroom too. I renewed them both until the library wouldn’t let me keep them any longer. She says, Never under any circumstances should one listen to an architect who suggests changing your bungalow to an “open plan.” (Not a direct quote, but pretty close…)

Two points are especially important here: 1. We don’t, technically, live in a bungalow. 2. We didn’t hire an architect.

1. We don’t technically live in a bungalow. Although it was built around the time of many bungalows, and it might fit the definition, as in being one story and a modest, affordable dwelling, it has no architectural presence. There’s nothing that makes it stand out except maybe the clipped gables (also called jerkinhead gables–I don’t know where to start with that one, so I think I’ll leave it alone…) No beautiful woodwork, no congruency–as Dad said, “Well, that house grew like Topsy…” (from Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe). The closest the cottage gets to architectural charm is a couple of built-in cupboards and a big brick chimney, all of which we are taking great pains to keep.

The outside of the houses look similar, but the floor plans don’t match.

I did find a lovely rendering of an Aladdin kit house that was sold between 1949 and 1951 called the Potomac. It was an Economy house and sold for around $1500-$2000, depending on whether you bought the pergola porch. The houses look remarkably similar. I’d like to use this as inspiration for what the house should look like on the outside when we are finished.

2. We didn’t hire an architect. No, we didn’t. Brother-in-law Jim is the closest to an architect we could find for free and he said, “Oh, take out this wall. Yes, take it down.”

Yahoo notes that, “The most important thing to do before tearing down a wall is to determine if the wall is structurally necessary.” Mr. H.C. is an expert on whether walls are structurally necessary or not. Daughter Maggie can attest to that! She hired a contractor who took out a structural wall. We happened to be visiting a week or so later. Mr.H.C. took a couple of looks and then they sped to Home Depot to buy studs to support the spot where the wall had been taken out. Then they had to hire a structural engineer to figure out what to do next. THAT contractor was sorry!

So Mr. H.C. climbed up into the crawl space above our bathroom, dodging cobwebs and spiders and checked out which way the joists and rafters run. Turns out to be safe to tear ’em down. Full Speed Ahead: Open up the room; Let in the light; Make the kitchen bigger; Cook with your friends!

Walls are human made things. There is nothing (that I can think of) in the natural world–in God’s creation–that was the prototype for a wall. They were made to define, to protect, to separate, to divide…. That’s not to say I’m totally against walls — walls around a bathroom are a fine idea :-) — but mostly God wants the walls around us gone.

It’s scary taking down walls. What if you take a support wall down and the structure starts to crumble? What if you expose what’s underneath? Let me tell you, it’s guaranteed to be ugly and it’s also guaranteed to be hard work, and there will be surprises. So why even try?

This is a picture of the floor where the wall was–yep, it’s ugly!

And this was the surprise. A real hole that was never finished. Now we know where all those bugs come from…

Why try? Because when that wall is down, it opens up the room that is your heart; it makes the room bigger; it lets light into your life; it allows for true relationships, both with people and with God. So Full Speed Ahead, let the walls come crashing down!

Let in the light!

The walls we took out are still being supported by studs until the beam goes up, so any pictures posted here, will not look as if the walls are cleanly gone. But I can’t resist–Something there is that doesn’t love a wall / That wants it down. / I could say “Elves” to him, / But it’s not elves exactly… (The Mending Wall by Robert Frost.)

No it isn’t exactly elves. Here is Mr. H.C. taking out a piece of the wall. (We actually took out pieces of three walls.) It wasn’t wood lath and plaster, which is what most people think of as old, dusty plaster. This was plaster board coated with plaster. Mostly it came down in chunks. We researched it (it’s organic); tested the paint (no lead); and then wheelbarrowed it down to the hillside and tossed it over. We’ve since covered most of it with dirt and weeds, although I must admit, it was hard to throw those first few pieces. It just didn’t seem ‘green’. (But neither is Wasp Killer or Mole-Away…) Just think of it as fill.