Season's Greetings

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year. So far, our holiday season has been merry and bright. After hosting Christmas Dinner for the first time in our new home, we are looking foward to a quiet week at 100 South Meadow. Here's are some photos of last Friday's festivities ...

We had to get creative, trying ot seat 17 people for dinner. So, Eric built us a beautiful new table that we added to the end of the island for the weekend.

Mission accompished.

Happy Holidays,

Eric, Brooke & Moses

Upward!

For a while now, we've been picking away upstairs as we focused most of our attention on renovations downstairs. In an effort to ready the second-floor guest quarters for some holiday arrivals, we're ready to share some photos.

A little background: When we purchased the house in the spring of 2008, the upstairs was a dark, inhospitable place. The ceilings were very low; the smallish space was broken up into three seperate rooms and squirrels ran rampid -- their acorns and other treasures spilling out of the falling-down ceiling and walls.

First, we knocked down a few walls ... stripping decayed horse-hair plaster as we went ... to make it one big space. After knocking down the low ceiling, we were pleased to find that average sized human could actually spend some time up there without developing a back problem.

We re-framed the walls/ceiling, threw up some drywall and smeared on a fresh coat of plaster. Because we didn't want the space to look "new" ... we were very liberal with our plaster strokes and applied several different coats of paint -- in various colors with a top coat of white -- then sanded the walls gently to make it look like many generations of occupants had made the space their own.

We sanded down the old wood floors, giving them new life. We were careful to keep much of the old paint splashes, a result of 235 years of renovations, because we liked the character it gave the wood.

And after almost two years of treasure hunting at flea markets, antique shops and yard sales to find the perfect pieces to make the room look lived-in country ...we have a finished (well, we've learned that things in this house are never really 'finished') product we are proud to welcome guest to. Take a look ...

Cold day, warm thoughts

Today, when the tempature hovers around single digits, my mind drifts back to a time not so long ago when flowers bloomed and the sun didn't hide behind the clouds. Here are some photos from a beautiful afternoon in September at 100 South Meadow. On this very cold day, let them warm your thoughts.

It's begining to look a lot like ...

... Christmas at South Meadow!

We wanted to share pics of some of the holiday decorating we've done so far. When upstairs gets decked, we'll post those, too.



























Next year, we'll expand this view to show the connected barn to the right (currently under renovation)










































Kitchen ...



















Sam nevers seems to miss a photo shoot.

Guest bathroom:



























The halls are decked as well ...

























Can you spot Moses, enjoying a bone?

Living room mantel ...

Eric requested his own tree on his side of the bed ...

'Fall'ing into the season ...

Fall is here and the pumpkins are up ...
... we LOVE this season at 100 South Meadow!

Small steps ... big payoffs

We've made some progress in many areas of the house in the last several weeks ... so decided to share a couple of the updates.

We finally decided on window treatments for the kitchen. The period wool fabric we chose lets in light while providing a bit of privacy. We chose very primitive securements for the curtains (antique nails and garden twine) to finish the look. Many thanks to Grandmother for her help!

We also finished off the laundry room recently. We went with a wide pine paneled ceiling painted the same color as the plastered walls and floor boards. A square window lets in amazing light -- and since it faces the back yard, we didn't adorn it with anything other than trim. A shelf made of leftover flooring holds our laundry supplies and some goods from an antique store in Western New York (including an old Rochester-made whiskey jug and Cape Cod cranberry crate). A rug, found at a yard sale of another historic home in Lancaster, finishes off the room. Because a door (just to the right of the camera view) in this space is the gateway to all that the back yard holds, we wanted to blend the "outside" with the "in" ... and make it a room that is easy on the eyes of its passerbys.

Wet & Wild

If you're familiar with the picturesque babbling brook that runs through our property; a meandering stream that gently washes over and around large field stone and fallen trees -- then you'll appreciate these photos taken just minutes ago.

After a deluge in the early hours of this morning, resulting in about 3 inches of rain in a short period of time, our stream has transformed into a raging river that can be heard clearly from inside the house.

‘Check’ it out

Many hours were spent over the past several days painting the wood floor in our mudroom. Painted floors of all types: solid, checked, striped, free-hand designs and stenciled were a common touch of early American homes. A feature we admire.

After painting the mudroom and hallway the historic color "parnsip," the more detailed work began - measuring, marking, taping, painting, wating, painting, waiting, painting ... you get the point.

Moses insisted on helping with the taping process.

But ...

It proved too tedious for him.

First coat of black ...

After many rounds of touchups, we used a handcut 18th century inspired stencil on the non-black diamonds. A few coats of poly later ... the project was finished. As you can see we continued the black/parsnip/shaker red color combination up the hallway on the walls, floors, built-in bench and sliding doors (built with antique hardware found in New Hampshire).

Here's a glimps of what the mudroom area looked like when we bought the house a little over a year ago.

Splish, splash

After weeks of rain, mud, mold and mushrooms ... we must remind ourselves that the sun will shine again (hopfully soon!). To help that effort, enjoy these photos of the last "summer" day we had in New England ... June 7. It was so hot that Sunday even Moses needed to cool off. He enjoyed hours of play in our yard, splashing with his girlfriend Soli.

Earlier that day, the pups attended Whisker Walk at the Lancaster Fairgrounds; here's a shot of them enroute.

Knock, knock ...

We're loving our "new" storm door. The door is an orginal, or close to original, piece of the house - as its hand-forged rosehead nails indicate. By the early 1800s, nail cutting machines were in general use in America, especially on the east coast ... so we are to assume the door dates back close to the construction of the house in 1775. It formerly seperated what is now our entry-way and kitchen. After taking it down over a year ago in the remodeling process, we knew we'd find the perfect use for it again. The hardware we used is also antique, taken from a 19th century home in Lancaster that was being torn down by its owner.

We'll leave you with a pic of the world's best cat, Sam ... lounging in the entry-way, as he does every afternoon, waiting for us to get home from work.

A Sunday guest …

Early last evening, we had a surprise visitor call on us: a GIANT snapping turtle.

Just before dusk, while trying to unwind from a productive weekend (post-and-rail is in!), we noticed a car pulled over in front of the house. Someone had stopped to rescue the biggest snapping turtle we have ever seen from the middle of the road. We ran out of the house, camera in hand to take part in the rescue.

The passers-by managed to move the massive, snapping reptile a few feet off the street and onto our lawn and continued along their way. Afterwards, as we stood there gawking at the poor lil’ guy (that we now refer to as Turtle Joe, II) … we felt compelled to get him to safer ground. Here are a few photos we “snapped” while deciding how to accomplish this.

You can see his eyes and nostrils clearly.

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Look at his tail!!!!!!!!!!!! It has spikes!

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And those claws!!

Ready to snap …

After careful consideration and advice from a neighbor taking an evening stroll, we decided to gently roll him on his back … scoop him up with a snow shovel and carry him several yards down to the stream bed.

See below for Eric in action. Just look at it … the turtle looks like a baby dinosaur! We estimate he weighed 35-40 pounds.