A Visual Before and After

Giving Thanks

It's been a busy month at the church. David and the crew were racing to get the steeple up and beat the bad winter weather. First, we had to deal with a bit more rot where the steeple once was than we would have liked. That put us behind about a day. When you're renting a lift, every day matters.
The frame, fortunately, went up quickly.

Then we waited for the delivery of the windows and louver vent. I climbed up there and the view was wide and sweeping.

Now, I was completely ready to put a spire on the steeple but there were issues. David had never built one and was concerned about wind. The manufactured ones at online shops with names like "the Steeple Store" were very pricey. Deb and I were checking out Leisure Time, our local flea, and we saw this:

It was copper, and while it wasn't probably more than thirty years old, it had a really nice patina. The price was right. I bought it, thinking it was meant to be. To cap off the steeple with a non religious homage to the river.
I'm glad I did. While I was having dinner with my friends in Paris on Thanksgiving (mine, not theirs), Don, my roofer, sent me this photo from my phone.

The windows and louver vent were installed and the weathervane was put up. I was really struck that the pitch of the main roof, pitch of the steeple roof and the "pitch" of the sails on the weathervane were all in proportion. Sometimes, you realize that it's best to go with the flow.
While dramatic things were going on top of the roof, subtle things kept occurring inside. I finally tackled the front staircase:

 The process took a few weekends of sanding, staining and varnishing.
It's almost done. I'll have a new picture with all the spindles when I get up this weekend.

And when I get up on Friday night, there should be a floor to ceiling bookcase in front of the rear staircase.

I'm always happy when my books get a home and my bedroom becomes more private. I haven't been up in nearly three weeks. I'm homesick.

Back to sharing my home with tools and David

It was so great to take the summer and early fall off from renovation but I've decided to go for the mad dash of completing the steeple before winter. Here's the hole in the office loft roof where the steeple once was:

If you stand directly beneath it, it looks like this:

It's a four by four footprint; the base will be eight feet tall and the steeple/spire will be another 6' or 8'.
I want to make sure that the structure looks like the church that it once was and not a schoolhouse.
I'm drawing a lot of possibilities and will have to come to some conclusion by Wednesday. I've ordered the two windows for the north and south sides; David contributed a window for the east side and I'm going to find a louver, maybe octagonal or chapel style for the west side; the side that faces the street.
David has already blocked off the area; it always reminds me of preparing for surgery:

My big task this weekend was dealing with the office loft staircase. Last weekend, I stained the treads:

This weekend, I stained the side tread ebony and painted the north side and risers high gloss white.
It was a ton of taping and working on stairs is always tricky but I do like the way it came out. David had the handrail milled and I oiled it hoping that it will get darker like the counters. People who know wood say it will. I also painted the twenty eight spindles that will go up this week and I'll have a finished staircase. This morning before I hopped the train, I laid down a nice thin coat of fast drying poly.

My deck is covered with leaves. I took the leaf blower to it in the morning and it looked even worse by the end of the day. That is the price I have to pay for this view when I lie down on the deck and look up:

And then, if that's not enough, there's always the mighty Hudson river:

Phase Two in Effect

I haven't written in so long. I apologize, dear reader. I have been enjoying the summer and fall in the beautiful Hudson Valley and the Church and I are really getting to know and love each other.
I lost my camera last weekend which is a drag mostly because of the photos that were on there. I wanted to show you the before and after shots of the 28 spindles for the front staircase that I had to prime and paint. It was a pain in the ass kind of job but it was a job I could do, so I did it.
David is milling the wood himself. When I went to price out a 14' handrail it wasn't that expensive. It was the shipping that was astronomical. So, I designed it and he's making it. I have to stain the treads and paint the risers. All straight lines, very simple and classic northeast.
My beautiful garden that came together so well and now it's becoming a memory. Deb called and told me it was snowing today.

In the next couple of months, we'll be putting the steeple on.

 I can't wait.

Enjoying Summer

I went to Los Angeles and Vancouver last weekend and a lot has gone on at the church in the two weeks that I have not been up. I apologize for the lack of updates but I've actually been ENJOYING the church and not blogging about my progress. It's a fantastic tree house with a mostly shady, dappled sunlight porch with a Hudson River view. Every time I come home to it, I breathe a little deeper.

I will give you a more detailed renovation update soon. The concrete sidewalk should be poured and set when I get up there tomorrow night. I now have a gas grill. My friend, Julian helped me build a stone wall at street level. Jeff, my electrician worked with Central Hudson to raise the power lines. It's coming together.
And as far as curb appeal, this was the church in March:

And here it is in August:

I can't wait for the hedges to grow. Oh wait, yes I can. I learned that patience is the key to the kingdom.
And here's my best friend and gardener, Deb Parker, who really made it happen.

More soon...

Curb appeal

After more than a year since I first bought the church, she is finally getting some curb appeal. Rich is moving along on the stone wall and when I get up there on Friday, I should have really nice stone steps installed.

I finished the painting and staining of the front porch. I bought post caps (from DecksDirect, the nice folks who helped me select the low voltage lighting). I painted them and hopefully David will have them installed when I arrive.

Deb brought over a variety of sprinklers for me to choose from. I was happy to see that there was a sweet little sixties number that matched the color of the front door. It works like a charm but I have a sneaking suspicion that one might not be allowed to water their lawn in the village of Coxsackie. I never see anyone else's lawn getting watered with a sprinkler. Perhaps I'll ask the mayor.

And look what I saw! Baby blades of grass!

In what will be the biggest event of this week's renovation is the finished installation of the new patio door on the North side of the house. David had just screwed it in for last weekend so I could see the placement of the transom but it was not functional. Over the course of the weekend, I wished that it was operable about twenty times! I'm looking forward to being able to enter and exit from right off the kitchen.

Next blog update: Gail tries to lay a brick path.

Around the Perimeter

All of the work at the church this week was around the perimeter. The deck was getting the Atlantis Rail Cables and the front was getting landscaped. There was a lot of distress when I created the driveway last year. A lot of tittering about "paving paradise." The fact is that I had to install the driveway to allow the machinery to get onto the land to replace the foundation. Whether it was going to stay or not was completely up to me. After living with the driveway for a few months I kinda grew very fond of it. I was always carrying a lot of things and now I always had a parking spot right by my front door. When my neighbor Wayne, who is a realtor, asked me if I was keeping it, I said I wasn't completely sure but I did like its convenience. He said it would increase the value of my house significantly. I began to think about working the driveway into the aesthetic!

So, yes, it was pretty. So pretty that it was part of the reason I bought the house. But I am certain that I will bring back it's former curb appeal and more.

Rich, my earth mover (I gave him that title) has started building the boulder/stone wall around the curve of the driveway and Deb, my gardener, has planted most of the hill and back to the deck on the south side of the house.

David was busy working on the deck. He had never installed Atlantis Rail before. When I asked him if it was difficult he replied, "It's monotonous." He did a fantastic job.

Today, Andersen will be delivering the final patio door and transom to replace the first window that you see on the right above. I'm turning that into a door so I can grill right off the kitchen and entry/exit on the North side of the house. David said if it came earlier enough, he might have it installed by the time I get up there tonight. Of course we are saving all the old wavy glass in the window so we will have replacement panes.

Here's some of the landscaping that Rich and Deb have done.

I sprayed grass seed around the front "lawn" and Deb said I might see grass sprouting in a couple of weeks! I can't wait to get one of those little rotary blade mowers that my Dad used and mow the lawn without any gas or electricity.

Sparky slept over on Friday and we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning. After our stretch and morning walk, he spent quite some time looking out the doors, watching boats go by on the Hudson River. He looks and plays dumb but I know he has deep thoughts...

I took the train home very early on Monday morning and got this beautiful view of my favorite river.