The Beauty of Red Birch

Goodbye Carpet!

      

     The woman’s grey truck bounced down our rutted dirt road, overloaded with loosely rolled carpet and red padding. Chris and I stood watching in disbelief as the first raindrops fell. Ever since we had been back on the Cape we had struggled with the problem of how to get rid of the carpet that was clogging up our garage. There lay 1000 square feet of broadloom that had covered the second floor of our unfinished house.

      Chris’ initial thought had been to hire someone to haul it off. Then he considered cutting it into small pieces, stuffing it into garbage bags and gradually disposing of it at our local dump. I suggested testing the waters on “freecycle”, an online “clearinghouse” in the hopes that someone else would have a use for it. And with storm clouds threatening Jennie arrived with her truck, muscle, determination and a long length of rope.

       We had been living with pieced together wall to wall that had been salvaged from a home on the Cape for the last 2 years. During a trip home in December we decided it was time to finish the second floor. We fell in love with a rich red birch hardwood from Wisconsin and felt very fortunate to have Chuck Lacey and his crew available to install it on the week-ends. The floor finisher we contracted with agreed to use tung oil to seal the wood, more in keeping with my “green” fixation. I was so pleased with how smoothly this project was going while we tried to manage affairs from Chicago.

     Although Chris had spent all summer painting the outside of the house and I the first floor, we decided to hire someone to paint the hundreds of lineal feet of interior woodwork on the second floor. Then we could tackle the walls with a roller when we returned to the Cape in the spring.

      When the DePaul University quarter, and the coldest winter in history was over, Chris and I packed up our 1998 urban assault vehicle Volvo and headed south to Texas to visit our daughter Laurel. After a pleasant stay enjoying her company, warmer weather, Texas BBQ and the bountiful bluebonnets we turned north and drove home 2100 miles in the rain. Finally with the Bourne bridge in sight Chris suggested we stop at the “East Wind” for a cup of clam chowder and a lobster roll, the perfect welcome home dinner.

Beautiful Birch Ready for Guests

       Once we finally got back to the house we were thrilled with the new floors. Red birch had been a brilliant choice with the beautiful variation in color tone and the wood grain. It wasn’t until the next morning that we discovered that the brand new floor was covered with tiny paint  speckles. When the painter was summoned by Chris to explain what had happened he was as surprised as we were. He admitted to having subcontracted out the job to someone else while he was vacationing in Miami and it was obvious that the floors hadn’t been covered and the woodwork had been painted with a roller. This debacle  had to be remedied.  So for the next 2 days he and his wife scrubbed the floors on their hands and knees to try and remove the spots. And for 3 more days he did over the rollered woodwork with a paint brush.

      Now we are in the throes of trying to choose a paint color for our bedroom. Who knew there were so many hues of blue; gray-blue, green-blue, purple-blue, and black and blue. 

Decision, Decisions. Decisions

Looking Like New

A New Life for an Old Garage

In regard to house restoration,  as soon as you fix one thing up the adjacent features look very old and tired in comparison.  With the house looking great, the 50- year old shingles and trim on the garage looked very bad indeed.  My dad had the garage constructed between 1961 and 1962 and very little has been done to it since.  We did not think that we could afford to fix the garage up at this time, but Chuck Lacey, the framer who built the house gave us a great price so we moved forward.  So mid July Glenna and I started to strip the shingles.  Very hard work that left us sore for days.  The Lacey's then came in and stripped off all of the old trim and installed the new trim in a single day, on the next day they were able to install the vinyl Anderson windows we had saved from the house reconstruction, replacing the old rotten windows.  A week or so later one of Chuck's crew, Sack, went to work on the shingles and had them done in five days.  It is looking great.

Chuck also came up with a beautiful slat treatment for the bottoms of the front and back porches that really finishes and pulls together the look of the house.

The over all appearance of the property is really starting to look sharp!

Green Green Grass of Home

It has been exactly a year since Paul’s CAT scooped up the yard and deposited it next to the garage. There it sat all summer long growing weeds and occasionally providing a slalom run for our niece’s two boys.  When the exterior of the house was completed the CAT performed its last task and moved the topsoil back into place. I spent days raking rocks into piles and leveling out the soil until Chris arrived and took me back to Chicago for the winter.

Wild turkeys inspect dirt pile

Heavy equipment dig up the lawn

Three months later, I was back on Cape Cod and faced with the monumental task of starting a lawn. Most of my friends don’t know this about me, but I spent years attending HORT classes at Essex Aggie in Massachusetts.  However, my education failed me in the face of 5500 square feet of dirt.  It didn’t take long to disabuse myself of the notion that I could handle this project alone. So I called Paul and he arranged for a bobcat with the good-looking driver to help me on a Saturday.  We worked so long and hard that by the end of the day I could hardly stand up straight. Once Robbie the driver left for a dinner date with his girlfriend, I headed for a hot shower and a double dose of ibuprofen.

Re-spreading dirt for the lawn

On Monday I bought 50 lb bags of lime, organic fertilizer and grass seed. I rounded up all the old hoses that I could find and finally located the spreader under my mother’s house. Then I marched across the yard broadcasting pellets and grass seed all over the place. Regardless of how easy it looks to run one of these spreaders, I found that it took some technique.  Finally, I screwed the hose onto the faucet and turned it on.  There was water spouting out everywhere. My face was soaked as well as the side of the house and every hose connection was leaking.

 Furious, I called Chris in Chicago to complain.  Patiently he reminded me that the hoses had been used all summer by the construction crew and had probably been stomped on and driven over a few times. A new hose seemed liked a good idea. However, when I turned this on it also sprayed all over the place. Nevertheless I kept watering because I knew the seed had to be kept wet. Soon the lawn was almost as drenched as I was.  

Now watering has become my foremost task.  I stand in the yard sporting my black and white rubber boots wielding the hose, as I will my grass seed to germinate. However, by week’s end the watering duty was suspended when heavy rain storms moved-in from the Midwest, and I helplessly watched as my grass seed washed out into the street where it would be run over by passing cars.  Eventually the sun did come back out.  It warmed up the earth and at last little green blades of grass formed a haze over the front yard. Every day the grass gets stronger and I marvel at the way nature succeeds in spite of the antics of the well-meaning gardener. 

Up In Smoke

Up in Smoke

The big burn of the giant brush pile commences

Since last spring we have been looking at a huge brush pile in our yard
created by the trees that were taken down to make room for the new
septic system.  We have been waiting for burn season to return so that
we could get rid of it, but that can be tricky. The weather situation
has to be just right in order to get permission from the fire
department. So we were very fortunate on our first day back to discover that the
conditions were favorable, moderate winds and a high ceiling. It was
back breaking work to move all that wood a few feet to a safe place for
a fire. And as we were pulling and yanking on the branches, we heard
screeching overhead and looked up just in time to see the osprey
returning to their nest.  Back for another season just like us. We
hauled branches and tended the flames until regulations required us to
put it out but within 2 days all the brush was gone except for the ashes blowing on the wind. 

All that's left after two days of burning

-- 

  Glenna K. Outwin

In the Kitchen

In the kitchen

Chris and I just returned to Cape Cod after spending the winter in
Chicago. We brought back with us the butcher block counter tops that we
are using in the kitchen. Deciding on countertops has been the most
difficult decision we have had to make.
My heart was set on marble from the beginning. I was in love with the
classic white and gray look and the smooth feel of the stone. Three
years ago we had vacationed in  Lampereccio near Carrara and had seen
the white quarries. But I was quickly dissuaded by friends who asked me
if I could live with the etching and staining that would surly happen
from red wine and tomato sauce spills. But I longed for marble and
nothing else. 
If I wasn’t going to use marble then I at least wanted a countertop that
I felt I had a connection to. I considered a piece of soapstone from
Vermont where my niece and my brother live, or a piece of granite from
Nova Scotia where Chris’s parents had had a house for years.  I just
didn’t want a piece of stone shipped in from Brazilian on a cargo ship. 
Somewhere in this seemingly hopeless search we started thinking about a
wooden countertop. Chris has always liked the warm look of wood, and he
thought it was a great choice for a cottage by the water.
Old friends suggested The John Boos Company. I liked the fact that the company
had their own wood lot in Wisconsin where we had traveled recently and
that the Illinois factory was located where Chris and I had been living
part time for the last 9 years. 
While researching on line I discovered that if we ordered the
countertops from John Boos and picked them up ourselves we could save
40% of the cost. Wooden countertops were sounding better and better.
After a couple of discussions about dimensions with our general
contractor Paul and Norbert, the manager of the John Boos showroom we
were ready to order. 
Chris gave his final exams on Monday and we drove 225 miles south to Effingham
Illinois that afternoon. Early the next morning we struck out for the
factory. After trying to find it with assistance from our GPS, 2
iPhones and 3 calls to Norbert, we found ourselves on a rural road in
the middle of a cornfield.  At that news Norbert sent out a posse to
find us. As we trailed into the parking lot, we imagined him eyeing our
ancient Volvo. No roof rack. No trailer either. We could hear him
saying to himself, well for crying out loud how do you think you are
going to get this countertop back east.  We didn’t know, but we figured
Norbert would. 

125 year old John Boos Butcher Block Factory, Effingham, IL

Sliding in the 84 inch piece of butcher block

We knew the first thing we had to do was to unload all of our stuff and
eyeball the space. Someone suggested getting a tape measure. We put the
back seat down and measured from wheel hub to wheel hub. Sure enough,
the 4ft x 4 ft. piece would just fit. How about that! As we walked
around the car thinking about what to do with the other pieces, Chris
started to unroll my yoga mat on top of the roof. But hold on, how about
trying to fit one of the 7 footers in the back up on its edge.
Miraculously it just fit – stretching the length of the car. Next
question, could Chris and I squeeze into the passenger and drivers
seats?  We barely winced as we crunched ourselves in and envisioned the thousand miles of road before us. 
So Chris and I set a course east and drove for 2 days back to Cape Cod
with two 7 ft. butcherblock counter tops between us. We could see out of
all the mirrors, but had to call to each other to check the traffic on the
right before changing lanes or pulling onto the highway. We arrived on
the Cape just in time to have a birthday dinner with my mother and to
learn that our nephew and his wife had just had a baby daughter named
Lily. It was a long trip but we were safely home, and more than ready to see the carpenter cut and install this beautiful Wisconsin rock maple.

John Boos Butcher Block countertop

T'was the Night Before Christmas

T’was the night before Christmas, we were in our new house

Not a creature was stirring, certainly not a mouse.

For the house had been lifted, chimney removed with care,

We still hoped that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Mark and Michael were sleeping, crashed on the floor in bed,

While visions of bass fishing danced in their heads.

And Glenna in her sweatshirt and me in my cap,

Had just settled down for a full scale collapse.

When out on the dirt piles there arose such a clatter,

I sprang to my new Anderson window to see what was the matter.

I clicked the black lock and pulled down the sash,

It worked like a charm and opened with a flash.

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,

Gave luster of mid-day to the crap down below.

When what to my wandering eyes should appear

But the Lacey’s trailer and 8 tiny reindeer.

With Chuck the driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment this wasn’t a trick.

White, black and red trucks with diesel they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Hey Kevin, Hey Junior, Hey Quatro and Paul,

There’s Jack and Rick and Todd and all.”

To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Hammering, sawing, soldering and all.

They cranked the tunes and went straight to work

And finished the house then turned with a smirk.

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod , past the ridge beam (all 52 feet) they rose !

He sprang to the trailer, to his team gave a yell,

And away they all rumbled like a bat out of hell.

But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

“Thank you thank you to Paul and to all a good night!”

Grand Entrance

Installing Codfish Cupola on the old garage

The day after Thanksgiving was sunny and warm. It was good working weather and the Lacey boys were back. The big trailer was parked in the driveway again and the tools were humming.  They were going to finish the work on the front porch. It had been quiet around Ladd Neck so it was great to have this level of activity bring back some of the energy from the summer.

Tight tongue and groove bead-board ceiling

The front of our house faces northeast which makes it cool and lovely in the summer time but exposes it to northeast gales in the winter.  So weeks beforehand we had decided on an all-natural look for the front porch that would be handsome and durable. We chose bead-board for the ceiling, red cedar casing for the posts and beams and a mahogany banister.  Throughout the day we watched Chuck calculate the angle cut for every rail support so that all the pieces fit perfectly. Chuck Jr. manned the saw while Kevin swung the hammer. Flashbacks to the summer when the construction was moving so fast we couldn’t keep up with it.  Months ago Paul had hand selected cedar caps for the railing posts for the front porch.  When the Lacey boys finally put their tools down Paul glued and nailed the caps in place. Then everyone clambered up the stairs for a team picture.

Aligning the banister

Paul Pacella and the Laceys

Michael had flown in from Chicago to spend the holiday with us. He was anxious to get to the house to see what had been done since his last visit in early September.

While the Laceys were measuring and cutting,I busied myself raking leaves and running them up onto mulch piles. Michael scouted around the property and decided that he wanted to build a bench on the waterfront. He corralled Chris into helping him carry 2 6x6 leftover porch timbers and a 6-foot 2x10 down to a clearing by the river.  This part of the property had been allowed to go wild, chocked with thicket and poison ivy. Chris and Michael had been assiduously working to clear it for the past couple of summers.  He selected a spot with a  panoramic view up and down the river. And after some tough digging, setting of posts, nailing the wide plank, Michael had fashioned a seat for watching life on the water. 

Mike's new bench with a river view