Thursday, July 29, 2010

If anyone out there knows of someone who wants a winter rental in Bayside, please steer them my way. Sunnyside is a wonderful, cozy winter rental with even more view after the leaves are off the trees. $1000 a month plus utilities.

thanks
The last four days have been wonderfully unproductive. I haven't even cleaned out my car from all the stuff I threw into it from Sunnyside. We have been out on the boat almost every day and I happened to snap a few photos of the house from the water. Both times (well, OK, the three times) I've powered past the house, there have been people on the second floor deck. The last time we went by, we did trade waves.

I find it interesting that 1 Clinton Lane, the house directly in front of us on the water is on the market for $700 and something thousand. Good luck with that I say and I hope you get near the asking price. True that the house is on the water, but there is no property to speak of and the balconies on the water side are small and not so useable. Clinton Lane cuts almost right under the drip lines of the house. I am tempted to put Sunnyside on the market as a competing property for a lot less money than that. But, we have to finish it first!

Monday, July 26, 2010

An email from our first renters:

"Kudos to the two of you for pulling off this fantastic redo! You've succeeded in holding onto the obvious charm, style and grace of this antuque cottage while adding a sprinkling of modern touches here and there. I can't tell you how pleased we are to be here, and, according to my husband, will be returning here from now on. We've stayed in several different places in the past, and it was always part of the adventure, but you have charmed him with the ambience here.

Bruce and I are planning on building a new house in Rockport in the coming year, or as soon as our present house sells, and it's great to see some of the things we've thought about doing,actually here, like the small tiles in the bathrooms, I wasn't convinced that's what I wanted, but I am now. It's like taking a shower while being in Aladdin's cave, surrounded by jewels! I, for one, am glad your gay gene kicked in!"

Saturday, July 24, 2010

We finished the house at 10 minutes to five last night...just before people started to arrive for the open house. We must have had a good 40-50 people through and everyone was so nice. It was a very good time. I had to leave around 7:45 or else I was going to fall asleep standing up. The day before had been an 18 hour day. Our first renters check in today at 3pm and I still have some things to get and do. We hid a lot of things last night that I have to go around and either throw out or take home. So here are the photos of the "finished for now" Sunnyside.

Enjoy!



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Thursday, July 22, 2010

OPEN HOUSE

FRIDAY JULY 23RD

5pm

SUNNYSIDE

COME ENJOY A GLASS OF WINE ON THE SECOND FLOOR DECK

Monday, July 19, 2010

I will have pictures after today, I promise. The boys are coming today to finish the front porch railings and perhaps the kitchen. After 12 hours of painting and doing things like putting up the shower caddies, etc., I was bushed last night. I missed a great night out on the boat with friends because I wanted to get a coat of paint on a few things. So, around 10pm, after a good long hot shower (water pressure here is GREAT!) I toddled off up to the second floor deck to sit in one of the new Zero Gravity chairs and have a bit of a break before bed. Greg got home and joined me and the two of us spent an hour up there gazing at the stars and the lights across the bay. It was total heaven. And while there is the front porch to sit on at night and watch the world go by, I much prefer the privacy of the upper deck and the view it affords!

Got to get back to it!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

spent our second night in the cottage last night. I was in bed by 8:30 after having not had much sleep the night before because of dogs and friends. The dogs barked at anything that moved outside the cottage all night long because they are terriers and unused to having lots of stuff going on around them. Bayside certainly hops well into the evening. Our friends from California didn't get to our house until 4am and Greg went over in his bathrobe to welcome them.

So, last night was much better. Slept on and off until 4, when I had to take the pups for a jaunt around the hood. Thought I would stay up and start to work, but I got back into bed and slept soundly until 7. We have the bare minimum here for furniture, and it is good that we are living here to see what works and what doesn't. We need some hooks and some shelving in the bathrooms and some major window treatments!

The new carriage house garage doors get installed today and that will make all the difference in the outside of the house. As soon as that is done, I can order the stone for the floor of the garage and check that project off my list of things to do.

Scraping the outside of the house today.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Partly furnished the house today in prep for our moving in for the week.

I think we did it.

Enjoy.









Sunday, July 11, 2010

Raining cats and dogs in Maine today. Bad day for exterior painting, and the humidity didn't help me inside! But, the stairs are primed and painted, the bathroom ceilings have finish coats on them, the living room floor has a first coat of dark green on it, and the main counter top has two coats of clear poly.

Tomorrow we have beds and a couch to fetch at Mardens while also returning the broken washer and the white Whirlpool side by side fridge just cause we got a black one instead. We are moving into the cottage on Tuesday and I understand from our contractor that he and his boys are coming on Thursday and Friday to finish the exterior of the house!! I hope that means we'll have kitchen cabinets too.

I think we might finish the place with days to spare...not too bad!
Installing the Jenn-Aire downdraft stove. It took us a while to level the stove out because the cabinet and thus the counter top are not completely level. As Greg says, we should rename the house "Shimmy-shim cottage" for all the appliances we have had to shim up!

OK, so the stove is a bit fancy, and I have oven envy. If I can't rent the place in the winter, I want to have Thanksgiving here.


So, this is the main kitchen counter with room for stools. It's hard figured maple and will have a clear poly finish on it. I think it is just beautiful with the stove.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Final coat of green on the kitchen floor



Friday, July 9, 2010

Before and After Photos.....new stairs!

I love these before and after because it shows me that we really have done remarkable work in only a few short months. This first photo shows the living room just as it was when we bought the cottage. The stairs were a bit rickety to say the least.

mid construction with a view of the temporary stairs that were in place until last week! I wasn't even freaking out at this point.

Greg's beautiful stairs, ready to be primed and painted. Notice that this staircase is a bit longer than the original, which was a really scary ride to come down because they were so narrow and steep. A tiny closet awaits a door under the stairs.


My new routine seems to be: "get up, try and straighten up, chug Ibuprofin, and go to the cottage."

Greg and I are moving into the cottage for a week starting on Tuesday. Our friends from California who are coming for the week were supposed to stay there, but the house is not kid friendly yet and I was worried that with a 2 year old and a 5 year old there and no balcony railings, things could get a bit ugly. This way, we can work on the house 24 hours a day too!

We worked until 9 or so last night, after taking a two hour dinner break to go home and spend time with the dogs. Greg got his newel post and hand railing in for the stairs and I got the first coat of the floor painted in the kitchen....when I left, I really thought the floor looked amazing.

Yesterday morning I got over there around 6 and almost finished staining the last of the walls going up the stairs, but I ran out of freakin' paint with about 10 more boards to stain! Ain't it the way.

Hooked up the washer dryer, only to find out the washer doesn't work! My great bargain at Marden's, a rehabbed Bosch front loader for $200 and the thing doesn't even turn on! Back it goes, along with the fridge we bought there last month. The fridge is great, but because we bought a Jenn-Aire stove in black, we wanted a fridge to match, which we bought yesterday. It works beautifully and the dark green floors look really well with the black appliances.

Pics as soon as I get to the cottage

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

7am on Wednesday the 7th.

I haven't hurt this much in a loooooong time. Yesterday was another banner work day where we got a lot done.


Can you see the smile on my face? All of sudden, this cottage is coming together and I really like the outcome. It is completely different from the way I envisioned it looking when we bought it, but in an amazing way. The downstairs has become a very tranquil space. I wasn't quite sure about painting it all one color, but it works very well.


. The downstairs ceiling is finished, and looks incredible, gone is the peeling bright yellow ceiling in the kitchen as well as the bluish white ceiling in the old living room that had drips of what looked like nicotine staining the underside of the beams. In it's place is a pure white beamed ceiling that really unifies the space.



The stairs have come a long way and now all the treads and risers are cut out and placed. Today, Greg should screw everything down and then start on the banister.

I had lots of neighbors stop in yesterday to have a looksee. I have given over to self-guided tours because we need every second to get the house in some condition to be habitable for our friends and their kids who are coming next Tuesday. A really nice neighbor stopped by with warm fresh baked bread last night and I gotta tell ya, I like the ritual! We like lemonade, diet coke, and fruit too.....just sayin'.

Though I have no photos this am, I spent yesterday priming two sides of the first floor exterior and was all set to keep going when the flash rain storm started and kicked the humidity levels into high gear. I put my brushes down and took several hours off and then came back last night around 7pm and decided to paint some more window trim and prep and prime the kitchen floor for a top coat. You can see the primed floor in the last photo above. What I thought might take me an hour or so, took 3 and a half. I swept, vacuumed, and scrubbed the floor of all dirt. I then taped the outside of the floor and began by tinting the primer. The floor took a load of primer and the thick goopy primer filled in a lot of the floor's imperfections. I was amazed at what it covered. Of course, by this morning, the primer had settled between the boards in the floor and so the floor doesn't look as good as it did when the paint was fresh. I got done by 10:30 and made it home soon thereafter.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Great shot of dawn over the Bay from the new deck on the back of Sunnyside. This is the million dollar view!

The deck after two days. My contractors are on vacation this week, so progress on the deck will be nil until next week. We are going to take the "Victorian" spindle railings from the first floor and use them up here on this deck. The new square spindle railings for the first floor are sitting on the lawn and ready to go on the house.

Monday, July 5, 2010

T'was a day for getting stuff done. I am amazed at the progress for this week already. I got to the cottage around 5am and did some sanding and some trim painting. Tim, the painter showed up around 7am and finished sanding and priming the ceiling of the first floor

Downstairs ceiling is primed and ready for painting tomorrow.


Stairs are going in nicely!!
Lots of progress here.

The front and side of the first floor exterior are scraped and sanded and ready for priming.
Looks like we are on track for the countdown to renters.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Before and After, The Old Living Room

This first photo was taken just after we bought the house, and probably the day I took the old couch out of this room and finally opened the front doors for the first time in 10 years. If any of you have been reading this from the beginning, you might remember that under this piece of old cut rug, which covers the whole room, there was a layer of roofing felt over the original wooden floor boards. The room was painted a very interesting shade of Pepto pink, but note that new framing is already in place as are new windows.


Here is the room after we cleaned it out and added finished the new framing around the door and the other side of the room where the stairs are. You can just see the framing for the downstairs bathroom in the left side of the photo.

A long time coming, but the room is almost done. Ceiling and floor will be painted by the end of the week. (I hired a painter for the next seven days to catch us up). There will probably be a pull out couch here by the end of the month.





Friday, July 2, 2010

The decking was put on yesterday afternoon and, though it is a fantastically big deck with lots of room, I worried all last night that it was too big. I asked a friend for his advice and he told me that no deck was too big. When I talked with Greg on the phone before bed, he concurred with me that having the deck run all the way to the perimeter of the new addition roof might be a bit of overkill.

I woke bolt upright at 5 am thinking that I had to get over there before Larry and the Boys arrived at 6:45 so I could suss out the situation. I walked around the square and went upstairs to really take a look at how big this sucker really was. It is obscenely big, bigger than practicality dictates. I could still have a table and chairs and a couple of loungers and still have room for a group Yoga session if I lopped off about 6 feet from the side of the deck.

So, all of you who are awakened this morning by the sound of drills working away, know that the Boys are working a bit backwards this morning and taking off a good portion of the deck they built yesterday.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Took the day off yesterday in order to take care of some other business and to just decompress a bit. Today starts deck building off the master bedroom, which should be done by tomorrow afternoon. I am going over this am to continue scraping and sanding the outside of the house in prep for painting next week.