Drizzle, Rain and the Majestic Ocean

I've been sucked in by the clever name marketers at Sherwin Williams and Home Depot. There is no way that I cannot use the colors drizzle and rain in the paint scheme for Sunnyside. How can one pass up the chance to use beautiful colors with names like that . I just hope that I don't find a fantastic soft gray with a name like "fog horn" or I will just have to paint the outside of the house using fog and something like "beach foam" for the trim.
In the photo above, the Home Depot glass tile is aptly named "Majestic Ocean" which is what I consider the view out the back sliding doors. Greg and I went and bought out the last boxes at Home Depot yesterday. We have 73 square feet of tile for the bathroom, so we hope not to mess it up! The color chip on the right is "drizzle" and the one on the right is "rain" I love these colors and am thinking of painting the walls "rain" and the ceiling "drizzle."
I have painting on the brain since we extended an offer to Greg's family members to come up in June and paint their little hearts out for free airfare and accommodations. Two of Greg's sisters and his niece have taken us up on the offer.

I am currently in Charlotte North Carolina for an auction. After this spate of real work, which has lasted several weeks, I am the lead on team Sunnyside and will spend full time at the cottage for the next few weeks until we go to the Bahamas. Well, full time is relative, I was just contacted about another art project, of which I will learn more on Tuesday when I return home.

Wish me luck

This entry should be titled "What to do for five hours during a cold and rainy day" or "All this florescent light is hurting my brain!"

In order for our plumber to begin work, we had to go get the fixtures for the bathrooms. Sorry renters, but no designer fixtures here, we are on a budget! But we did want to find nice things for the bathroom. We drove down to Lowes in Thomaston and then to Home Depot in Rockland, and then back to Lowes. We were on a mission, but got sidetracked by all the twinkley lights and the 24 different stone tile patterns in varying shades of brown. Why no blue stone tiles or terracotta colored tiles, why just "faux-chateau" brown? Anyway, I digress. Who knew there were so many cheap toilets from which to choose??? All I wanted was a tall, oval bowled, low water usage toilet that looked halfway cottage-y and fit in with the deco cast-iron tub upstairs! Lowes had the best price on toilets and had the one we wanted, but it didn't have the right sink for the downstairs bath. But the slate tile was really pretty!....oh wait, we need to focus on toilets...but look at these light fixtures....no, focus on sinks!! Yikes, after two hours we went to Home Depot. We found a cabinet sink for the downstairs bath that fits in perfectly and allows enough space in the bathroom (which is long, but narrow) for it to feel like a room and not a closet. I kind of like the "antique" look of it too.

I was also on a mission to get a shower stall insert so that we could just put it in and voila, a shower! But, my gay gene kicked in when I saw how cheap they were and with that look from Greg that said..."you are not going to be happy with this" we decided to get the pressed fiberglass shower pan and then tile the walls ourselves. Building walls and tiling vs. a prefab plastic shower stall comes out to about the same price if one is doing the work one's self. But the resale value and the charm factor for a tiled shower are immesurable.

HD didn't have the right olde-time toilets we wanted, but Lowes did, and they had a better deal on a pedestal sink for the upstairs bath that really goes nicely with the deco tub we saved from the old bathroom upstairs. I am amazed that we didn't get sucked into the paint color department at Lowes, but after debating the relative virtues of which toilets had the best flush factor, I was tiring out! I cannot remember why, but we went back to Home Depot and ended up finding cool glass tiles for the bathroom for $4.99 a square foot. The colors in my photo didn't come out too well for the tile, which looks too gray and silver here, but is in reality more blue and green tile with silver. The tiles are less expensive than other glass tiles because they are clear glass tile with colored paper backing rather than colored glass. They'll do the trick and with a silver grout, will be quite smashing looking!

So, to update you. The plumbing is going in this weekend and part of next week and the foam insulation (yes, that's right, my man Glenn actually showed up to give me a quote) goes in the first week of April. Glenn has done some foaming for me here at our house and also at Little Bohemia . I was hoping to get a soy based foam insulation in here, but none of those guys got back to me. Glenn came and spent about 30-40 minutes measuring the house, telling me that we needn't foam the bathroom walls because pink insulation was a better sound barrier there. We are doing 3 inches of foam under the first floor, 3 inches in the walls, and 4 inches in the roof. He told me there was 8,100 board feet to cover and gave me a price, knocked off a good amount and rounded to the nearest thousand, which was EXACTLY what we had budgeted for the project. I like Glenn and am happy to give him the business. Incidentally, when he went upstairs and saw the view, he was blown away.

I originally wanted the foam to go in the last week of March, so this puts us only a week behind schedule, not too bad. (still have the seven week cushion at the end of the project before the first renters come in)

I am venting today. All these work guys are telling me that business is dead and that everyone is hurting, from plumbers to carpenters to insulators. So why is it that guys still are not calling back when I inquire about work? I am set to hand over cash for work....around $8,000 is my estimate for insulation...I have the check in hand ready to give it to whomever comes to quote a price and doesn't dick me around....Three foam guys, one never called back, one emailed, called, and then told me he had to check his appointment book...never got back to me. I called him and he dodged. The third guy has yet to call back to confirm today's appointment.
My moonlight plumber passed up the job of installing the plumbing for the house....again, I have cash in hand and he knows that. Easy money, two days of work and he tells me he doesn't want to work in the dark cottage at night. Isn't that why they call it "moonlighting?????" Anyway, I have that one taken care of already. But the foamers totally baffle me.
I am tearing my hair out here!

70 degrees yesterday and I got the Spring cleaning bug. The truck was filled to overflowing with debris and old unworkable things from the garage in the cottage when I took it to the dump. I am getting the place organized for the next phase: plumbing and the phase after that: insulation. The plumber told me it would be a two day job, though that is what the electrician told me and it took him two weeks! (a testament to him though, I didn't pay any more than his estimate for the work done).
I am surprised at the insulation guys, one of whom emailed me and then called to set up an appointment and never called me back. Another of whom just didn't return my repeated phone calls, even though I told him it was a referral job. My regular foamer is coming by tomorrow to give me an estimate, though I hope he remembers as I think he is a bit of a stoner.
Anyway, I finally got rid of the big pile of scrap lumber that I thought we would use in the framing job. A lot of the wood was so dried out that the 2 x 4' boards broke in half when I chucked them out over the balcony! I ended up cutting most of it up for firewood, but did store a few pieces in the garage wood racks. So, the downstairs is now free of the large 2' tall pile of lumber and I cannot believe how big the open space looks right now! I have it in my craw to get the place totally clean by tomorrow. The electricians did a job when they drilled through the framing to set in the outlets and switches and things, there are wood curls and sawdust everwhere!!!
The great weather here has me in a panic because mentally, I'm starting to think June is next month and that I better get cracking on this place. I am not going to take any more reservations until the project is more complete and I have an idea of how long it will take us to put up the walls. I always have the fall back position of getting a crew in here to finish up the interior while I work outside on the scraping, sanding and painting of the exterior.
A nurse friend told me to email Waldo County General Hospital HR department and let them know that I have a cottage for rent over the winter months for visiting nurses and doctors. The cottage for rent at the bottom of the hill had a Nurse in there most of the winter and their bills are paid by their employer. That would be a coup for me for renting through the winter.

The Bayside Historical Preservation Society (BHPS) Spring 2010 newsletter arrived today, complete with the brief article I wrote about Sunnyside. I read it and thought of all the things I left out and all the things I could have said about the cottage. One of the big goofs in the article was not mentioning that when we cleaned the house out of its contents, most of the good period pieces went into storage at Little Bohemia to be used again once we get the house up and running. I did manage to give several pieces to the BHPS for their cottage, including an aesthetic movement settee with its original crushed red velvet upholstery and wood frame complete with carved dolphins! (The chair and ottoman went to a local Bayside personality) I also handed over a 12 foot long American flag that was stuffed in a drawer upstairs. I wanted to keep the flag, but didn't know where to put it or how to work it into a rental house. Anyway, lest anyone think that we did not honor any of the furnishings, this entry is here to tell you that we did!

Speaking of furnishings, I was able to buy a number of things at auction the other night that will be perfect for the cottage, including two really nice wooden rocking chairs for the front porch, a great modern Gothic side table, and a funky farm cupboard in old paint.

This weekend will be all Sunnyside all the time.

I spent the previous 36 hours on the road. Monday morning I left at 4am to make the 10:45 Wood's Hole Ferry to Martha's Vineyard. I had to pick up a colleague down in Massachusetts on the way and we missed the early ferry by about 2 minutes. We went over and back and I made it to a friend's house in Salem, Massachusetts Monday night before I passed out in my pork loin!

Before I left, I went before the board of overseers of the Village of Bayside and got permission to bury my own power line. I had to get their permission because my contractor will have to dig through a Village owned path that borders Sunnyside's Northernmost property line. This will get the largest power line out of the view. Small steps...small steps....I did mention the village, though I do not think it registered with them, that three of the four houses whose electricity comes from that pole, have lines coming into their cottages that are not to code.

The weather has been so nice here that I am itching to start work on the exterior of the house. I started the other day by scraping and sanding down the front doors. I originally thought that the doors were grain painted, but I was wrong. There is a lot of scraping and sanding to do and so I'd better get started. I also want to replace the porch posts. Right now, the posts are laminated and turned "Victorian" posts and the laminated boards are starting to separate because they were never painted. We always planned on replacing the posts and going back to the original intent, but every time I see one of the posts cracking and separating, I just want to go right out and do it that very minute.

The foam guys are coming this week to estimate for insulating.

Another beautiful week in paradise! It is supposed to get up in the 60s this week!

All the electric is in the house, though my electricians did find that the electrical panel was so corroded that we were only getting half the juice into the house that we were supposed to get. So, the panel has to be replaced. They left us with two working outlets. The electricians will return once we get approval from the Village to dig a trench and bury the power line.
My man Josh finished up his work...all the windows are trimmed out and though I haven't gone to look, he was working on the repairs to the exterior around the the sliding glass door. We found a pile of primed trim boards in the garage as well as primed tongue and groove boards for the exterior repairs.
I'm going over there this morning to clean again and reassess what needs to be done next. Still cannot get any foam insulation people to get back to me. I hear that work is dead in the region, and am wondering why no one returns my calls when I say that I have a 1300 square foot house in need of insulation!

I made plans to go down to Martha's Vineyard on Monday, knowing in the back of my head that something was going on that day....of course it just hit me that the 15th is the day that the NVC has it's monthly meeting. That's where I need to be to ask permission to dig to bury my power line. Oh GREGGGGGGG......Hopefully, Greg can go in my stead. I am going to the Vineyard for the day to see an Andrew Weyth Watercolor that was bequeathed to a local museum here.

A find from Sunnyside

When I was cleaning out the new house, one of my favorite finds was a watercolor signed Rockport on the back. I cannot find the artist listed anywhere, but the watercolor appears to be done in a 1930s style. The colors are still good and the image is strong. I ended up having it framed in a bronze powdered frame that I had stored in the closet. The frame and the watercolor are of the same period. I think they look swell together! The watercolor came to live at our house at the top of the stairs.

Sunnyside from the Side

I took this photo this morning while cleaning up the property. I didn't realize that so much debris had been strewn about by the wind! The upper windows and the lower center window need to be trimmed out. Just imagine this house a soft yellow color with bright white trim, where you now see the red (shutters included). It will really be charming. The second floor deck will go over the first floor addition and will be quite commodious.

Ok, well that was fast. The second floor windows have been trimmed out and await a coat of paint. We kept the old trim boards and just put them back around the new windows...I want to try and use as much original material we can. Oh, and yeah, I know about the porch support that is leaning a bit. We realized there was a small river that runs underground here before we bid on the house. Note the rock wall in the lower right of the photo.

Here is where the river runs through it, you can see where water has pushed the rock wall down on the right. It's actually fine since this is about where I want to put in three steps or so down to the garage. I also want to take up the walkway and handrail up to the house, and move the stairs up to the porch over to the right, more towards the new door.
The flat grass area would make a perfect terrace with a picnic table or a dining table and chairs.

This is the view from "the terrace" area where a picnic table and grill might go.

The Stuff I Kept.

I keep thinking in the back of my mind that we got rid of all the stuff inside Sunnyside. A visit yesterday to Little Bohemia to check on things put that thought right out of my head. Normally spotless and neat as a pin, Little Bohemia has become a storage shed for the winter. There is stuff everywhere. I keep forgetting about the pots and pans, the dishes, the boxes of tchotskis, and all the furniture. True, we got rid of the beds (one came to our house), but there is so much!! I think I can almost refurnish the whole place with what we have in our new storage barn.

Yowza, look at all this stuff!

The room of chairs

There are projects too...I want to make this great folk frame into a mirror. Its in really nice shape. I think I found it in a pile of frames and old prints in one corner of the cottage.

This lamp is very cool. I bid on one at auction a few years ago that had its original slag glass petal form shade. It is my goal to find the right shade for it.

Not too much exciting stuff happening at the cottage except for the ongoing electrical work. Greg and I spent a beautiful Sunday over there cleaning off the roof debris. My man Josh is coming back this week to start framing out the windows upstairs and cleaning up the damage from the bay window removal. (some of the exterior boards on the house got ripped off). It has been so glorious here in Maine that Greg and my thoughts turn to building the exterior deck.

I just found this photo on my camera and I kind of love it for some reason. Anyway, second floor front bedroom looking towards where the queen bed will go. They just finished framing the window above it.

First of all, we have to have the requisite photo of the view. I finally got a nice photo of the view through the house. I am standing at the windows in the front of the house and looking straight through the new double door openings to the sliders in the master bedroom. You can see Sears Island squarely through the glass. It really does take one's breath away.


OK, now for the fun photos. Two new floor joists and the new support beam in the kitchen were installed today. Also the framing around the staircase and for the fridge was finished. We'll put in good kitchen track lighting along the new beam so that 1. you'll never notice it, and 2. there will be a ton of light in the room.
I think the beam defines the kitchen space quite nicely

After last week's rain, the boys are back at it this morning. The carpenters are putting up the last two floor joists and the support beam for the second floor. I could just say that their boss is back from his two week vacation and so they have to get down to business, but I won't say that! I did go over there in this morning's wind storm to see if the cottage had power because we did not have it here in Saturday Cove. All was well in Bayside, and I was able to use my mobile office to do some work this morning.

Chatted with the plumber last night who might have given me the brush off with "I'll let you know if it's a job I want to tackle." I have another plumber in the wings who might do it if I bribe him well enough, but he is on leave from Maine until the snow goes away for good, or until St. Patrick's day, whichever comes first.

The carpenter's told me that they have been having a steady stream of curious blog readers coming down to have tours of the inside of the cottage. You know who you are. I am interested in hearing your comments, and I am sure other blog readers would be curious as well. So comment away....I sometimes feel like I am blogging to a silent few on here.