An Official Welcome

A really cool thing happened today.
Mark Evans, the mayor of Coxsackie, sent me an email welcoming me to the Village.
Chris Larsen is Coxsackie's building inspector.
Here's what he wrote:
Hi Gail,
I got your e-mail from Chris Larsen, my name is Mark Evans, I am the Mayor
and life-long resident of Coxsackie. 
I have been following along on the website with the progress with the old
church and it is looking just wonderful to see. I am remiss in not stopping
by to introduce myself and welcome you to our community. If I am correct you
are most often here on weekends and I am usually busy with Little League,
Basketball or some other activity. 
I am excited that the building is being reborn and in such a great way. I do
hope to get to meet you and please feel free to contact me at any time if I
can be of assistance. I work at State Telephone company, just down at the
bottom of Ely St., please stop in if you happen to be here during the week
at all.
Welcome!
Mark

Not one mayor of New York City ever welcomed me to the 'hood! 

I'm really glad to live in such a cool place. I can walk to the post office and library, get new strings at the Guitar Store, pop into to say hi to the awesome peeps at Sundazed Records and, according to Bob Irwin the head honcho at Sundazed, get into the Monday night dart game at Patrick Henry (the bar in town)!

I got to the church on Saturday morning right after my requisite visits to Lowe's and Home Depot. Armed with cans of paint and vinyl flooring, I pretty much got right to work. But not until I photographed the finished entryway... the place to hang your hat.

More of my lights arrived, they're on the shelf; and the lower cubbies are where you put your shoes.

And the door down to the basement looked really great with the gothic straps installed.

FINALLY, we are at the point where I can really do some stuff on the weekend, and move the reno along. Here's what I did this weekend...

It was really important to be able to get a place for guests to sleep because I really need some help up there! So this is what I did:

I had an interesting exchange with David on Saturday morning. The barn door hardware showed up and it looks really cool. I asked him if he would put it up and then realized it would be hard to paint around it. I told David that I would paint that wall first. He replied "Ah, the painter is getting smarter!"

He told me about the age old carpenter/painter argument of who fills the nail holes with wood putty and sands them down before painting. Painter loses in this church. 

It is a big wall so he left the scaffolding for me. Picture another 8 feet above the wall below and picture me on the scaffolding with a 6' extension pole. 

That's why it was cool to alternate tasks... painting, flooring and then my favorite: the zen like gentle scraping of the original victorian porch rail.

David began to take part of the deck down. It had this odd diagonal that I wanted removed. Straight lines are a must and perpendicular is best. I am trying to use the Atlantis Rail System for the decking but I have to find enough documentation to satisfy the building inspector of it's safety.

But it already looks better to me without that diagonal.

On Saturday night, Deb and I drove to Troy to see the Wailin' Jennys at the amazing Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. The show was really great and we took a little walk around Troy. It looked just like a movie set.

Sparky slept over on Saturday night. He needed a break from Augie and I was happy to have him. How could I not be, when you wake up to this:

And he enjoyed the view.

And on Sunday, between painting and scraping. I painted the interior of the front door. I figured I'd give it a minute before I painted the exterior and get those driveway haters all riled up :)! But you, dear reader, can see it now...

Thanks to the Village of Coxsackie for the warm welcome!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To This Renovation

It's been a very exciting time at the church. Big changes happen every week and I am truly awed how it all comes together between carpenter, plumber, electrician, tiler, et al and me. When I walked through the church for the first time, it was a bunch of cut off spaces with no flow. But when I got back to the deck and saw the view of the Hudson River, I was sold. NOW, that the interiors have really started to come together, when I walk back to the deck, it looks sad and forlorn because it hasn't received any attention. Come May, I will have a laser like focus on that deck.
But for now, what has happened inside is amazing. Here is my new kitchen, complete with running water, all appliances and lights working and cabinets installed.

Here's the view of the kitchen from my bedroom loft:

The bathroom is completely functional although in desperate need of some paint. I finally think I've got the paint color so that's my gig to get done. Here's the new shower doors and shower panel. I ordered both of these on Overstock.com (as well as the tiles). It's such a relief when the stuff shows up and looks exactly like it did in the picture on line.

And the double sink vanity.

I bought these voile like curtains for $10 in the clearance bin and I was surprised at how it kind of made me feel like I was in the sea foam.
One of the big things, other than the deck, that I still have to do is begin some plan for the landscaping of the front of the house. That requires more earth moving machinery and a clear idea of what I want. I am trying to learn about plants and zones (Coxsackie is in zone 5) blooming times. One thing for sure: I like hedges. I enjoy trimming them into order. It helps my serenity. But Deb coined it best when we drove to the church last weekend. She said "Awww, it looks like its pants are down".

I think that just about says it all. And I have a lot of house pride so I'm pretty anxious to get some bright and shiny new pants on it!

Here's my sketch that I sent to the building inspector.

Here's the porch rail. David explained that that kind of wood work doesn't really happen anymore so I'm glad that I can give a little nod to the church's history. I don't like such fancy scrolly stuff but I can see how special it is. And the big idea is for the church to look completely traditional from the front and modern once you're inside. I joked and said "It's like a mullet: business in the front, party in the back!"

The good news is that the building inspector approved the double staircase design and David will start working on that as soon as the frozen ground allows him.

And finally, I am sleeping there. David did everything he could do to finish up the bedroom loft and get all the tools and stuff out of there. It's all in the office loft now and that's a great thing since my office will be a project a little later down the line. And the bed and mattress showed up the week before and the guys put it together.

And now some of my stuff is in there so I feel at home:

My friend Rosemary, who is David's girlfriend, came to see the church with David last April when I was just considering buying it and trying to gauge what it would take to make it livable. Rosemary said, "Gail, I think you are going to show this church some love and it will love you back."

I think she's right.