After the Holidays

On Boxing Day, I awoke with the cold Larry brought from SC. It was just the beginnings, so we visited with our friends, the Craig family, in Natick, MA anyway. That night, I really got hit with it. I was miserable all day on Friday: chills, coughing and blowing. You know the drill. I thought I would not be well enough to travel on Saturday and was feeling very stressed about it. I knew Larry really wanted to go because he wanted to be back on the lakehouse construction sight Monday morning. He had been away for almost two weeks.

Saturday came and after sweating the previous two nights, I felt better. I decided to forego taking down the Christmas tree as I had planned on Friday, and thought I'd do some laundry instead. I loaded my washer with clothes and detergent only to discover it wouldn't start. That was "the straw" for me, so I said, "That's it! Let's pack up and get out of here." I told our friend, Nancy in Annapolis who usually hosts us, that I was too sick to visit her, so we stayed in a pet-friendly Red Roof Inn instead in Roanoke, VA. We arrived at my brother-in-law's house mid-Sunday afternoon.


Monday morning, we made our first visit to the lake. My eyes lit up with the progress that had been made during the two months I was gone. I had been following demolition and construction remotely as best I could using the security cameras Larry reinstalled. But, seeing the job in person was so much better.

Yesterday, we met our brother-in-law, Ed, at the house and walked him through the renovation. He had not been there for many months, and although he follows this blog, did not "get" how extensive this project is. "Now that's what I call a strong roof," he commented. "I had no idea you were doing this much. It doesn't even look like the same place. It's not a cottage anymore; it's a house!"

The roof is completely covered in plywood now, and walking onto the covered porch into the house is so exciting. The entry porch is large and feels really protective. The entry to our new laundry room is outside off the porch too. I can  just imagine having a couple of Carolina rockers out there for the smokers, or putting the metal glider there that now sits in the yard under the Dogwood and Magnolia trees.

Laundry

When I walked into the laundry room, though, I noticed that the only window will be up too high. I can barely see out of it because there was a sixteen-inch cinder block "knee wall" built on the concrete floor onto which the framed walls were installed. I was up all night thinking about this high window. We joked about it, but I told Larry first thing this morning that they had to lower that window by a minimum of six inches to a foot for it to be useful to me. As it is, I wouldn't even be able to open it without the use of a step stool. This is unacceptable.

Living Room Looking Into Kitchen

We walked into the living room and it looks so expansive now with it's high ceiling and opening into what I'm now calling the sun room. The kitchen and living room ceilings will be at least twelve feet high.

Living Room

Walking into the sun room was also really amazing. It is a huge room; larger than the living room, and I can just imagine sitting in there, rocking and watching the water and my bird feeder/bath. The way the walls were constructed, I thought I would need more smaller windows installed above the larger window openings, but we really need to keep costs down, so I will let this go. Instead, I'll have Larry build a shelf above each window for pictures, vases and chatzkes. We'll use the same type of tile as the broken-tile mosaic floors in the rest of the house, but keep them whole for the sun room and laundry room floors.

Sun Room

Walking through the rest of the house, the bedrooms look so much smaller with only framing separating them, but perfectly adequate for our needs. The master bedroom will be a little larger and we also created a change for the master bathroom.

Larry suggested raising the outside cinder block wall by two blocks' width, and reducing the large window opening behind the toilet by at least one cinder block length. This window reduction will save money on the size, add a privacy wall, and allow us to buy a smaller sink vanity with a tall, narrow cabinet in the corner for linens. We'll mirror the entire wall behind the sink and install an in-wall medicine cabinet with a mirror for looking outside while seated. The mirrors will also make this small bathroom look much larger.

Master Bath

Over the bedroom area, we will now have a walk-up attic space, tall enough to stand erect. We'll have to move a twin bed when we want to pull down the stairs from the back bedroom ceiling, but that will be a minor inconvenience. I don't imagine having to go up there much anyway. We moved a closet in that room, but we can still fit a full-size and twin bed in there.

The small bedroom across the hall from our master will be more functional because we moved the door to the end of the room, closer to the back bedroom. This will allow flexibility of bed location. We'll install a covered-wire shelf system in its small closet, so a bureau will not be required. The master bedroom is also larger because we removed two closets in there. We could now have our queen-size bed facing the window overlooking the lake through the sun room. We also reworked the wall into the master bath to fit a single door instead of a double door.

I am very excited about the progression of construction at the lakehouse. So far everything is moving quickly. Bill, our GC, said things will slow down once we get to the subcontractor phase. I have chosen all the interior and exterior colors now. I just have to finalize a couple now that I've been to the house and can visualize more. We will be using mostly recessed lighting, but we are having fun researching ceiling fans, a dining area chandelier and mini-pendant lights for over the kitchen sink.

The exposed brick wall in the living and sun rooms will have to be cleaned and finished. The mason was a bit sloppy with mortar. But the brick walls will still be a pretty look. Even though new and old brick lines are obvious, we are convinced the new brick will age over time. Our GC suggested painting them, but I am not a big fan of painted brick.

We decided to cover all the exterior cinder block walls. We were going to save money by just leaving them as is and painting them, but there will be three different materials exposed that way. I think it will be too busy and will not pull the house's look together adequately enough. So, we decided to stucco the entire body of the house instead. We will paint it a goldish color, and install shingles on the gables that will be painted a dark red. We haven't investigated the cost of cement shingles yet, but they are also a distinct possibility since the gables are the only areas to receive them.

Sample Colors

Larry will also cover the entry porch columns in the SC Farmhouse style: narrow at the top, widening down to the ground. There are many styles for these columns, some involving brick half-way down, but I think we'll keep it simple and creamy white. These colors are like those of the gym I go to in RI, but we found a building in Chapin, SC in the same color scheme. Finding this building, cemented my desire to paint our house this way. It will be charming, and only just a little "loud". Like me. Right.

I plan to leave to head back north on Saturday. Larry will stay down here until Valentine's Day. He'll come north for about ten days. Then he'll come back for my spring concert, the third weekend in April. After the concert, we'll all drive back down here and stay for the duration of the project. Move back into our now new house on the lake and just enjoy it. Stay tuned.

P.S. We try to enjoy being in Columbia when we're in town, so on Saturday, we saw the Annie Leibovitz "Pilgrimage" photo exhibit at the Museum of Art. At the museum, we discovered that the City constructed a public ice skating rink in front of it. Lots of families were enjoying it, and I was impressed with how much has been done to bring people back to the once abandoned city center. The South is experiencing the coldest temperatures ever this week, just like the rest of the country.

More and more restaurants and coffee houses are being introduced to the place that drinks iced tea all year long. Sculptures are everywhere and this area in particular is becoming very "artsy fartsy". I love what's happening here, and already so much has changed in the twelve years Larry and I have been married. Amazing.