Wife, writer, tinkerer, grower of food. I'm happiest outside our rambling farmhouse with a basket looped on my arm, picking dinner from the garden. That's joy right there. Please follow along; I'm so glad you're here!
This being our last week in Binghamton, we're trying to make it quintessential. Last Friday night, we walked to our favorite downtown restaurant and ate a sumptuous Last Meal. We walked to our home away from home, after, as we've done so many weekend nights before. Monday, I checked out my favorite of nearby antiques shops, and came home with a little bit of treasure.
The print was the first thing I claimed. It's of Acadia National Park, a stop on our honeymoon road trip. How could I pass that up? It was in amongst a crate of old cards, pictures, postcards, and brochures from all over the country-- whoever they belonged to must've done a lot of traveling. The McCall's magazine (from 1925) I chose as a source for vintage fashion plates and other cool things-that-might-end-up-framed someday. (A gallery wall is in the works for Gilbertsville.) And lastly, the crate: Lotz Bottling Works, Binghamton, NY. What can I say? I'm sentimental. I'm thinking it might look cool mounted on the wall in the entry way, as a place to stow gloves, a leash, a balled-up knit hat. That's my current thinking, anyhow.
Tonight, the quintessential theme continues: our last chance to root for the home team, and eat bratwurst, at the ball park.
Slowly, in the middle of it all, a quilt is growing. It's a life raft of calm in this week, which is growing to resemble a dunk tank of unknowns. New house, new commute, new patterns and systems, even a new weekend job which will start up soon (waitressing at the [fabulous] restaurant in town). In the midst of it all, this cutting and piecing, each careful seam building upon the last... it's straight-up therapy, is what it is.
What did I used to turn to in times like these, before I learned how to sew?
Anyway, right, the project. I've been de-stashing. The solid squares are linen which has been living in my stash for years-- the unfortunate aftermath of a misguided attempt at dyeing-- and I've been very much of the de-stash mentality lately, both in the fridge and in the craft room. The printed squares were leftovers from a pillow project a couple years ago, and were waiting, patiently, for me to come along and give them a purpose. Initially I was going to regularly intersperse the prints, but ended up settling on a more "deliberate random" design. I like the way the printed squares become more dense toward the bottom of the quilt-- it's playful and perfect for the unnamed-as-yet recipient.
In the meantime, curtains for the new house have been getting sewn, one by one. I can't believe I'm actually going to get to hang them this weekend. Pinch me. Please.
What's been keeping your machine/thread/fingers busy these days?
// helping a friend clear some ready-to-divide perennials out of her garden.
// digging and potting and planting and digging and potting and planting.
// watching a magnificent storm roll over just south of the farm.
This is a story about patience, and intention, and why it's important to have faith in serendipity. I wanted to take time to reflect, and write it all down, to remember. So here it is.
I'd been dreaming of a place for a long time. I grew up on seventeen acres-- four barns, a brook, hay fields and forests-- an 1857 farmhouse with wide pine floors upstairs and stories in every room. I've been writing love letters back there ever since I left, and getting misty-eyed over folk songs about old houses, (this is one such song, though the pictures aren't of the house I grew up in!) and wishing and yearning and hoping and (somehow) knowing I'd find a place of my own like that someday. A place to raise the kind of kids who'd get misty-eyed over folk songs about old houses.
When I fell in love with Patrick, we began dreaming together. Though we were settled and happy in Binghamton, always we were thinking of the next place. We transitioned from dating to married, from giddy twenty-somethings to real adults, from awkward to synchronized in our Binghamton house. But on weekends, we would escape. We'd drive around and discover new towns, interesting towns. Sometimes we'd be wooed-- we'd drive home and punch numbers into real estate websites, trying to match our dreams with a house we could actually afford. We continued in this frustrating pattern for a couple of years.
And then we met Gilbertsville. The town is equidistant between where I grew up and where Patrick grew up--45 minutes each way-- and with all the living and driving and exploring we'd done in the area, it's unbelievable how long it took us to stumble upon it. It was not our destination that day, but, as we drove through our eyes snagged on the striking architecture, the quaint downtown, the beautiful clapboarded houses, and-- was that one for sale? We turned around. We drove through again. We pursed lips and raised eyebrows.
It took Patrick about ten minutes to get from parked car to realtyusa.com, upon arriving home in Binghamton. Five minutes later, he uttered the auspicious words that would launch this little journey on its way, and they were:
"Hey, that gray one is only a hundred thousand!"
Maybe not the most auspicious words in history, okay. A week later, we came back for a showing. We also walked around a couple other "fixer uppers" in town, including one with huge poofs of black mildew on the bedroom ceiling, and one with a spectacularly bulging foundation-- both more expensive --and decided, reasonably, that the gray one was the way to go. Add to that the fact that Gilbertsville isn't exactly a booming housing market, (especially for fixer-uppers; most folks who buy in town want a nice summer home that's move-in ready) and that the house had been for sale for nine months already, and we walked away with what I like to think of as the best deal this side of the Louisiana Purchase.
It's important to travel those less-familiar roads sometimes, and important to keep that faith in serendipity. Sometimes, when you least expect it, your future home will show up some dewy May morning, just waiting to take you in.
I'll be posting a photo tour of town sometime in the next couple of weeks, but for now, here's an excellent video tour from a local tv program.
So, there you have it. I don't want to jinx us, but from where I stand it's looking like we're down to our last week. If there ever was a time to pause and reflect, it is now. Thanks for reading.
It took us just under an hour to clear-coat all the floors, and it was almost--almost-- fun! There's just two more standing between us and the rest of our lives.
Maybe that's a little bit over-dramatic, but this house has lately been bringing out my inner Rachel Berry, in a very big way. Now I'm going to go sit and breathe into a paper bag, and wait for coat #2, which happens Friday.
I'm not going to lie. I did consider titling this post, "When Twelve Hours of Dry Time Becomes Seventy." The two better angels of my conscience, the Keep it Positive side and the Keep it Real side, had a little face-off, though, and Positive won. Positive definitely took some blows this weekend, so, it's good to see her on the mend.
Let me set the scene. It was Friday night. The floors had been sanded to within an inch of their lives (see above and below; don't they look like bowling alley floors?) and it was finally time to start gettin' er done.
Staining is hard work!
We pushed ourselves, hard, to get the staining done that night. We finally finished up at 11:30pm, at which point a few beers were in order, so we Zombie-walked straight down to the bar. When you've just spent Friday evening on your hands and knees, a beer is precisely what you need. And it was.
And now all our downstairs floors look like this:
Pretty, right? It feels great to have the staining done. The upstairs is done, too, in a darker color. I'll show you that just as soon as I can.
I think I'd mentioned my Crazy Plan for the weekend, which (over-) optimistically involved getting all three coats of clear finish down on top of the stain, as well. Didn't happen.
We came downstairs Saturday morning expecting to see dry floors, and instead saw wet, wet, wet. Sunday, same deal. The fact that it was 58 degrees inside the house, and had rained, non-stop, for the previous week, may have had something to do with that fact. So.
Somewhere, the universe is laughing at us. Can you hear it?
This evening, after work, we will drive out to the house, and hopefully, hopefully behold dry floors. Coat one of floor finish will happen tonight.
I finally managed to get outside with my camera to take pictures for you all. Saturday was a glorious day-- we couldn't bear to do anything but spend it loafing and basking (see above picture), enjoying the sun. Which was a good thing, since the floors were still wet from Friday night. I'll talk about that tomorrow.
On with the tour.
This is a slightly off-kilter view from the street. We have a front porch to the right, and a big flower bed, and a seriously overgrown bridal veil bush. Our exterior to-do list is almost as long now as our interior to-do list was back in November: strip and paint porches and window trim, prune bushes, plant lots of flowers, pull lots of weeds, eventually remove dented aluminum siding and scrape and paint the entire house. Yeah, we'll be holding off a few years on that one. Which isn't to say we aren't already scoping out potential exterior paint colors. You know.
The aluminum is in good shape, and we don't mind the color, it just... isn't quite right. It's a very old house with a lot of integrity... covered with a shabby shell of aluminum. For now, it serves.
Also, you'll notice the foundation is covered with foam paneling (visible below). Once we do things like install new storm windows and sweeps for the outside doors, and beef up the insulation in our attic, we'll be ditching the foam and letting the house's pretty stone foundation see the light of day.
Side view. This porch is right off the dining room (you can see the door that leads to it in this picture), which we love. So far, we've enjoyed a couple of meals and a couple of beers out here, with many more to come. Also, a robin has built her nest underneath the roof, and, once we get a dining room table and chairs moved in, I'll be able to sit there and watch her feeding her chicks. Love that country living.
Around back. That little shed, not visible in this picture, sits directly to the left of where I was standing to snap this shot.
... and if you turn 180 degrees from that vantage point, you are rewarded with this.
I know, right? This is where I was standing about a year ago (at the showing) when I started to envision our life here. I wrote a very cryptic post afterwards. I was SO excited, but there were still so many unknowns. That feels like a very long time ago, and I feel so unbelievably blessed that the path we took those unsure steps onto last spring have led us here. To this.
These trees, this land. Our very own daffodils blooming under our very own paper birch. I'm in love.
And, but wait, there's more! Looking right from the birches:
There's a line of smallish maple trees you can just make out across the grass; that's the property line. This part of the yard is extremely soggy from all the rain we've had, which makes me glad I decided to situate the garden in a drier spot. Oh, and speaking of the garden:
This is the part of the tour where I felt the need to put down my camera and pick up a shovel. You understand. I didn't get any "big picture" shots, but I will soon.
I will close with a currant bush. Come September, these guys may have a date with the jam pot.
In other news, Sunday we quietly celebrated the one year anniversary of the Day We Met Gilbertsville. I'll have to tell you that story sometime, it's a good one. It was total love at first sight.
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