Nothing like a fresh coat of white paint.

As I noted in my previous post, I regret not getting more done this summer around the house. What did get done focused mostly on the backyard and pool area; while my efforts to get the front lawn back in order bore some fruit, it was not until September that I was really able to get to work on the front of the house.

As I noted in previous posts, I have been working to restore the fence that flanks both sides of the house. I was finally able to complete the restoration of the large post at the west side, and then continued sanding and repainting all the fence pickets in-between. As of this writing, I have completed three of the eight 8-foot sections of fencing. With the sides facing the front of the house, I applied a very high-quality latex, working it in with a brush; I may use my new paint sprayer for the rest, to save time.

Just need to define this flower bed a little more...

I think I have re-painted this fence maybe twice in 25 years; this was by far the most complete wire-brush-and-sanding job that I have ever done, so hopefully it will last for a while. The treated cross beams are fine; a few of the cedar pickets (especially where they have been in contact with the ground) have seen some rot. This will be hidden by a treated 1” x 4” that I am adding at the bottom, which will not only look better buy hold back some of the soil and mulch I am adding in front.


Thus, I gave the flower beds (which reside in front of these fences) a thorough weeding and tilling—since it seems grass grows better in a flower bed than it does in the yard—and they had also been invaded by assorted weeds and vinca vines that had creeped in.

Yeah - that's what I'm talkin' about.

This also gave me an opportunity to consider a much-needed update to my planting scheme. When we first built the house, the trees in front were not so large, and the flower beds there got a lot more sunlight throughout the day. As a result, the tall tiger-lillies we inherited form my mother-in-law’s garden did wonderfully, combined with a nice purple spiderwort and a few small daylilies.

Time has taken its toll, however. Only two of the sections get sufficient sunlight these days, and the tiger lilies have more recently suffered from some kind of blight, which renders the bottom of the stalks and leaves yellow and brown. It may be a lack of oxygen or a similar issue, since they had never been divided. Remembering the wonderful old hollyhocks we had at the back of our old house, I am planning on replacing the tiger lilies with those—a more “English-looking” garden flower. I’ll leave the spiderwort in front of these and may also include a few four-o-clocks, which we also had at our old house. On the west side, something else will be called for, since the big oak tree out front (a beautiful specimen, with a trunk straight enough for a ship’s mast) casts that side of the yard in shade/semi-shade much of the day. I’m thinking maybe planting some foxglove on this side, and perhaps something else that can tolerate the light conditions.

These three beds are each approximately 8 feet wide and 3 feet deep. Till now, I had simply edged them with a spade, but to keep out the weeds I am considering a raised border of some sort. My first inclination is to use timber; I’m leaning toward using 2” x 8” with the bottom 2” buried. This will leave about 6” above ground, but then I am also planning to route the boards with joint grooves to give it a stone/masonry look—then staining it a beige/gray to match the house foundation color. I need to work in a couple inches of improved soil, compost and leaf mulch as well, so the raised border will help hold it in.

If I can just get all this remaining work done before the snow falls, I guess I’ll be satisfied. There’s more on my to-do list, but it’s possible that those parts-and-pieces will have to be built over the winter and installed in the spring. Even that will be a challenge, since I have a basement upgrade to get back to…

Sadly, this summer ended up being far less productive than I had hoped. Reviewing my “to-do” list of items that needed addressing, it seems I have only been able to complete a few of them. Now there is only the hope that the coming Fall may serve to be a more productive season as far as the house is concerned.

No, this is not the reason for my lack of productivity. A nice addition to my tiki bar, thanks to the good people at Windsor & Eton Brewery.

A large part of this was due to our trip to the UK in mid-May; between holiday planning and the weather upon our return, this set me back about 3-4 weeks in terms of my usual summer work schedule. In recent years, we’ve been able to open the pool during the first week of May, with another week or two after that to handle annual chores like cleaning the patios, doing touch-up painting on the decks and some outdoor furniture—which all has to be hauled out of storage—tidying up the perennial beds, setting up our tiki bar on the back deck and bringing all the seasonal decorative items out of the garage, shed and basement. This is then followed by planting of tropical-looking annuals in beds and in pots all around the pool.

New this year was an effort to grow more grass in the backyard bare spots (initially, this appeared to be successful, but a hot, dry July and August rendered these efforts fruitless) and I also wanted to test some of that specially formulated spray paint on our plastic outdoor furniture, which was in serious need of restoration. Our four white chaises were seriously stained and dirty—totally beyond cleaning—and I also wanted to paint a few other items (a cooler and a trash bin) a dark brown. It’s also important to note that all of this work was limited to the backyard, which is where we spend most of our time during the summer. Other than fertilizing, raking and mowing, planting a few annuals in the porch planters and setting some pots out on either side of the steps, little happens in the front of the house until the backyard is totally in order.

As it turned out, June was spent by the time this work was all completed; after another week of enjoying the fruits of my labor, I took the first weekend in July to head up to Michigan for some camping, sightseeing and volunteer activity. Two weeks later, my daughter visited from New York for a weekend, and four weeks after that my wife and I went to visit her again. Obviously, no work got done during those periods. Take away another weekend or so with cool or wet weather, and here I am now considering when to close the pool and start packing everything up for the winter. Sigh.

This is how the "She-Shed" turned out.  The space behind the curtain on the left is still needed for storage.

So what did get done? Aside from regular yearly maintenance, I was able to:

1) Rebuild, reinforce and re-paint a large bench I had built for the pool area some years ago.

2) I successfully re-painted all four of our plastic chaise lounges, in addition to a large cooler/cabinet and a trash bin. This turned out wonderfully; all the items look brand new.

3) I was able to finish staining the back of the backyard swing I moved about a year ago, and fully restored the carved wooden sign on it (dated 1997) that says Mom’s Swing.

4) Got a coat of paint on the small oriental bridge in the garden.

5) Repaired, added decorative trim and repainted a small open book case that sits next to the tiki bar on the deck. This serves as a summer home to decorative items like tiki mugs, candles, photos and other exotic knick-knacks.

6) Painted the inside of our backyard shed so that my wife could use most of it as a “She-Shed” during the summer season. The inside walls (and the roof framing)  is painted a light seafoam green; I had put in a sheet vinyl floor previously, and with a few decorative items and an area rug, it looks pretty good. Since I still need about four feet of the interior for storage (the shed is 8’ x 12’) I hung 2 color-coordinated shower curtains across part of the space to hide things like extra tables, chairs and other items that we still keep there. Come fall, the “She-Shed” goes away as we pack the shed with stuff again.

There is still much to do. I think I’ll cover that in my next post…

Let me first come clean and explain that I am not really a wine enthusiast. I do drink and enjoy it at times; usually at a meal, when paired with the right food. When my wife and I travelled to Napa a couple of years ago, I loved the wineries. I loved sampling the wines—especially when they served them with some really tasty chocolates.

Nevertheless, when it comes right down to it, I am a Beer Guy. Not the vapid swill that passed for beer during most of the last 50 years, but better quality craft beer and exports.

Finding this door for $50 was one of the best things about this project.

My wife likes wine, but generally she prefers very sweet wines—Muscato, Prosecco, ice wines or an occasional Reisling. For the most part, these are not the kind of wines that hang around very long—or that improve significantly with aging.

So, why a wine cellar, you may ask?

Well, for one thing, we have friends who like to drink wine, maybe before, during or after dinner. So it’s always a good idea to have some on hand.

In addition, I planned to store some craft beers in the cellar as well—in particular, those high-gravity stouts, porters, ales and barley wines that do age and mellow well.



I also wanted a place to store and display related items, like glassware, books on wine and beer, and related memorabilia, in addition to some of my home brewing equipment.

Last of all, I think the house deserved a wine cellar. And why not? I had a perfect space under the stairs, and I thought if done reasonable well, it would be a nice feature in terms of future resale. So there’s the logic.

THE PROCESS

First I had to enclose the area under the basement stairs with a stud wall, which was pretty straightforward. The main consideration here was the position of the doorway, ensuring plenty of full height opening clearance on the right side while leaving enough room to squeeze in some built-in bottle/book/glassware shelves on the left. Inside, on the right (underneath the descending stairway) I’d have room for an old wooden cabinet that fit nicely into the space, leaving some room for hidden storage behind. The whole space used for the wine cellar was about 3.5 ft deep and about 7.25 feet wide.

Clearly we require more wine. All good things in time.

The stud wall went up without too much trouble; the best thing I did here was finally invest in a nail gun, which made things so much faster and easier. I must admit my drywall skills leave something to be desired—the main problem being that I didn’t use enough mud at first, and then spread it out with a blade that was not really wide enough. This makes it necessary to go over the joints more than is necessary, and sand more than usual. I suppose the results show a little here and there. Next time, I resolve to get the proper tools and perhaps do a skim coat over the whole surface.

Once this part was complete, I set to do some carpentry. Most of the large 22oz beer bottles would store on wooden shelves I was building in—since beer is supposed to store vertically, unlike wine. For reasons I already mentioned, I didn’t require a lot of wine storage, but I did go the dramatic route and build a 6 foot tall vertical display that holds about 12 bottles horizontally against the wall—so you can see the labels. As a supplement to this, I have a small wine rack on top of the cabinet that holds an additional 3 or 4 bottles.

The surfaces of the tiny room feature various materials which all seem to go together. The wood shelves and trim inside are mostly mahogany-stained pine. There is some cork on the back wall between the upper and lower shelves on the left, and about 18” of the back wall (originally sheathed with paneling) is now covered in some 30-year-old wallpaper that I saved from the time I worked at Wallpapers-to-Go. It was a heavy, saddle brown paper with nice images of vintage French wine labels; I knew I’d eventually find a spot for it…and I did.

Most of the remaining back wall is solid concrete in a rough molded brick pattern; this was painted a dark tan. One advantage this offers is that the concrete remains cool at all times, and with the wine being stored on this wall, it remains at a fairly even temperature. I also used a bit of the wine wallpaper underneath the stairs on the right, trimmed out in some mahogany-stained pine. At about the 5.5-foot level, I hung a roll-up blind down from the bottom of a riser, so it extends to the floor. This serves as somewhat of a “false wall” behind my storage cabinet, which is about 30’ high, and I use the 2’ of useable space behind the blind to store (and hide) large seasonal items, like a couple of  Christmas tree boxes.

The shelves provide lots of room for wine & beer books, and bottled beer storage.

I managed to get a open box of premium vinyl wood planks at the Habitat store for about $10—just enough to cover the 18 square feet or so I needed in a nice dark brown. I haven’t decided what to do for the ceiling yet, but I’m thinking some wood, maybe pallet boards.

Of course, all this effort goes for naught if it’s hidden behind a door, and I hit the jackpot at the Habitat store once again, nabbing a beautiful wooden 30" French door for just $50. It was already painted white (and really didn’t need re-painting) and best of all, it even had beveled panes of glass!

I have tested some temporary lighting, and it’s clear that some nice wall spots inside the little room would make for a very dramatic look, so I’m thinking a couple of small units on the ceiling.

We completed the look with a couple of framed prints I made—they are some of the places we really enjoyed during our visit to the Napa Valley. I’ve added a couple of other chotchkes, like an ancient beer bottle capper, but am still looking for just the right thermometer to hang in here somewhere…

When I first created this website, I wanted to have someplace where I could talk about the kinds of houses and buildings I loved, remember the people who designed and built them, recognize people who maintain, live in and restore them, and survey related topics in design, the arts, lifestyle and popular culture—including books.

Having utilized much of this accumulated information in the design of my own home—I have chosen from time to time to write about some of the projects I’ve worked on since building our house almost 25 years ago.  Some of the posts have involved thoughts on decoration, some are how-to’s (or maybe how-I’s) - that discuss things I’ve had to fix; other posts have simply touched on my own thoughts about building and design.

This is a bar-height island I am building in the basement using 2" x 4" framing and some used bi-fold doors. More on this project later...

As I’ve mentioned before, while I had very specific ideas about the design of my own house, budgetary issues (I was 34 when we built, and modestly employed) forced a number of compromises, some of which I have been able to remedy over the years. Many still remain, and I will increasingly use the website to discuss how they are being addressed, for after all—when is a house ever truly finished? When we built, I knew I would have to plan for the long term, assuming that some materials, designs and finishes would make an appearance at a later date. Sometimes much later, as it turns out.

I am a notorious procrastinator, so the fault is mostly mine. After some deliberation, I find myself in a good position now to make it down the home stretch and finally get things as I originally envisioned them years ago, when I set plans to sheets of vellum (yes, no 3D renders for me) and started searching for a general contractor.

So, interspersed among the posts on historical houses, old architecture books, preservation/heritage issues and related commentary—you can expect to see more “hands-on” bits and pieces about things I am doing inside the house.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that I have clearly noticed the popularity of so many design and “how-to” blogs; so I feel it is a natural course to develop this approach as I go along. It’s a chance to further explain—in practical terms—how I try to integrate whatever knowledge I have accumulated and my own design sensibilities into the projects I take on inside these four walls.

If, Dear Reader, you care to comment, share your thoughts or experiences, or ask questions, I will sincerely appreciate it, and would love to hear from you.