Little Colonial Garden Shed

Dave is smitten with this little 8 x 8 Colonial garden shed in Wiscasset Maine.  We have looked at it every year for 3 years.  Every Christmas he asks me if he is getting it as a present.  Every year I disappoint him.  Maybe someday he will have a little Colonial garden shed to call his own.  Probably not this one but maybe one even better!  I hope so since we have a little wheel barrow now that would look perfect in this shed. 

Car Talk

 

After months of looking, I was officially over the novelty of the hunt.  Was I going to have to settle for a compromise situation?  The cottage still hadn't sold and what would eventually become of my little house.  It needed work- who else would love it?  Would we have to virtually have to give it away as a "fixer upper"?  I could not bear the thought.  There is too much of my own history in that house.  My pets buried in the yard, memories and stories of fun times and life changing events.  My heart is there and I just didn't want to break those ties.

One afternoon I was going through the bookmarks on my computer and saw Gulick and Spradlin.  It had been months since I had looked at that site and really could not remember what it was.  I clicked and up popped.... "the contractors of that house!"  I went through the site and saw yet another house given a new life and magical transformation.  This one called the Shelley House.  See more about this house at The Shelley House.  By now I had seen enough to know that I needed these guys to come and see our little wreck and tell us if there was something we could do or should we run really fast away.  I would have to deal with telling Dave after the contact was made.

Now, how do you go about introducing this dilemma to a total stranger?  You can't really say, "want to come over and see my messy house?  And by the way my husband has no interest in meeting you but..." I decided that a novel approach was in order.  I sent the following e-mail.  "This is kind of like when some one calls into Car Talk on NPR to settle a marital issue. This does not involve our car but rather our home in Essex We own a small cape that is sort of a mess..."  A while later I got an e-mail in return saying that they did indeed handle marital disputes and that they would be happy to set up a time to meet and look at what we had to work with.

That evening I called Dave up to the computer to show him the pictures of the Shelly House.  He was impressed by the pictures which was a relief.  I added quickly that I had sent that e-mail and would he please be willing to at least talk to them and maybe see their work.  He agreed and I set out to make the appointment.

Cooking 101: What would Julia do?

Part of the fun of this whole project is to find the stuff that will go inside. To research each decision and hopefully make the right one.  To me the stove is the second most important decision to be made, after the contractor of course.  And I wouldn't have started the blog if that wasn't already done (but not yet discussed in detail).  I knew I wanted a professional stove but I was not sold on which one.  I went to the Internet and started reading the reviews of the most popular ranges on the market- Viking, Wolf and Blue Star.  I read about the Aga too- it looked the part but was it going to play the part as well???  I am not a conventional person by any means.  I usually do not follow trends and get what everyone else has.  Instead I tend to seek out the more esoteric products.  When I comes to picking out a stove that I will most likely cook nearly every meal for the rest of my life in it is going to have to be a work horse.  It was in one of these reviews I discovered Lacanche French ranges.  My heart lept with joy.... That's it!!!!  These beauties are hand built in Burgundy France and shipped over just for you!  You can read all about the variety of ranges, see their wide selection of gorgeous colors and options at  http://www.frenchranges.com/main.shtml.  But where could I see one in person?  I could not possibly make that kind of investment sight unseen!  Would this range allow me to cook the way that Julia taught us in her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking?

The people at Art Culinaire could not be nicer or more accommodating.  They are aware that people like to see and touch the stove, open and close the doors, turn the beautiful knobs before they plunk down their cash.  They have set up what they call an "Ambassador Program" where Lacanche owners in your area will let you come over and see their range.  These stoves have a cult like following and owners are eager to talk about them and show them off.  Dave and I went to visit a family that have owned a Cluny for 10 years and love it.  We were treated to the best blue berry buckle that I have ever had- the top was crunchy and cinnamony it tasted wonderful and it was cooked to perfection.  Based on the buckle we were sold on the stove!

Metamorphosis

 

I spent a lot of time looking at the before and after pictures of the David Field house.  I read the story about how it was saved from being a "practice event" for the local fire department.  The painstaking details that went into restoring the house to it's current state.  I liked the fact that even though the house looks old, it has many green and efficient aspects hidden within.  An old house with insulation- a novel concept.  The use of reclaimed woods and locally sourced clapboards.  Read more and see more pictures of this amazing transformation at the following link Field House.

I looked up Gulick and Spradlin's website http://www.gulickspradlin.com/.  To see what other magic they have performed?  I bookmarked their site for future reference thinking "someday I may have Dave to the point where I can contact them".  It takes time to carefully sway a spouse to your way of thinking.  It's a subtle art that I have managed a few times with Dave (he knows it now but at the time I don't think so).  I knew patience was going to be the key.  We would have to look at a lot more "not quite right houses" before he would be ready.

House Hunting: You can't always get what you want.....

We looked at that "lovely house down the street" that Sunday and a number of times thereafter.  There were so many wonderful period details that were restored in the home. The paint was matched, corner cupboard reproduced and had a hearth that you could really cook a meal in!  The kitchen was stunning although I thought not practical for a real cook.  The tiger maple counters were like nothing I had ever seen before.  We went home and dreamt about what it would be like to live there and Dave made sketches of where the gardens and chicken coop would go.  My letterpress studio would be in the basement and Dave's work shop in the garage.  It could all be happily ever after...... We also thought it was an omen that the same ship weathervane that haunted me in my mom's back yard since my childhood was also at this house.  We pulled out the old weathervane at our house for good luck.  Dave arranged to get the cottage we owned put up for sale and we kept our fingers crossed.  But nothing happened......

As time progressed I kept thinking about the "dream house" and the 2 flights of stairs to manuver.  When you enter the house there is an immediate flight up to the kitchen (unless you use the front door literally onto the street).  I thought that was not wildly practical for a couple with 3 dogs who run in and out all day long.  How would I take food down to eat outside?  We are indoor/ outdoor people.  I like to bring my coffee out to the patio in the morning to assess the day and oggle the chickens.  This fight of stairs was a bummer.

We continued to look at other houses for sale.  Had a second runner up in case the first "grand" house fell through.  All the houses we looked at were very nice and very expensive.  It also seemed that each represented a compromise from what we really wanted.  I could not get past the fact that we own a charming little antique house on a nice lot that just needs some love.  All these other houses had owners that put some dollars into them, why couldn't we?  Every time I brought it up to Dave there was a frowny face and the uttering of the words "NO".  Somehow I had to get this to change.....

Every morning since October I have gotten up and looked through the new listings on Realtor.com.  My eyes burned from this activity.  I looked at houses way out of our price range to see if there was anything at any price I could see myself living in.  I looked up listings of the Realtors that I knew to see if there was anything I missed.  One such listing was in Madison and wow, it was exactly what I had been searching for- although unattainable in our budget and too far from here, but at least I had seen the future.

Once upon a time.....

You think it's a good idea to create a blog for a particular project but then when it comes down to start writing it's hard to know where to begin.  How far back in time do I go with my dream to take a charming but structurally questionable little house into a better state?  Do I start at the beginning or somewhere in between?  Do I tell you how I came to own this house or do you not really care?  Why am I writing this anyway?  I can answer that one- I think mostly I am writing this to keep a journal for myself of this whole process.  It is far easier to write in this format and put in pictures than the old time journal and taping in inspirational ideas.  Renovating a house is unknown territory for me and how it ultimately turns out.... only time will tell.  I have always envied people who were able to take a falling down piece of history and return it to what it deserves to be.  Hoping to someday be able to do this I have spent years cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them into books for the moment they are needed.  I was not sure however that the moment would ever arrive.

I'll give you the brief history of how we got to rebuilding the little William Tripp house.  In 1999, I was engaged to a guy from Nantucket (no jokes please).  I was in the midst of my postdoctoral fellowship and we needed a place to live with our very large German Short haired pointer after the wedding.  Since at that time we were doing a lot of Revolutionary War reenacting and having an 18th century wedding, it seemed natural that we buy an 18th century house.  Sadly, you can't buy a period home in great shape on a postdoc's salary then or now.  So, I was going to do the best that I could given my limited budget.  I thought that since Dave had been working as a carpenter he could work on the house while we lived there for a few years.  My mother, who helped me find the house, was supposed to take ownership after I found "that job" and moved somewhere else.  The choices were extremely limited in my price range- one that sported a beauty salon connected to the back of the house, a tiny ranch that was inhabited by chain smokers with a penchant for green shag carpeting...  Listen, this is too painful to recollect so let's just say that the Tripp House was perfect given my choices.

We moved in and have lived there ever since.  Dave has done some small projects but could never muster enough enthusiasm to do much more.   Last fall he said he had an announcement...  I could not imagine what it could be.  He says, we're moving!  Huh?  I had no clue that we were going anywhere.  But but- I thought... to where?  He pulled out a listing to a very lovely home down the street.  "It's all done" he exclaims.  "We are going to see it on Sunday".