Looking at the (snowy) world through MY OWN 17th century windows!

I can't believe these exquisite windows are actually in OUR HOUSE! 
 Photos showing them in the whole room are up now on the TOUR page of our website~

You can read how 2 frugal, dedicated, determined, and creative DIY-ers---(Adam and me!), accomplished this long-time dream in captions under the room photos on the website.

Oh, and yes, that is snow outside! A freak and fierce nor'easter dumped a lot of it on New England Saturday night. We were lucky to get only 5 inches---some got as much as 2 feet!  Millions of New Englanders had downed trees and are without power. We were fortunate not to be among them. After a scary start, today is sunny with blue skies, and  we can all hope for at least a little melting.

Here is a link to one of my favorite posts from a year ago, that you might enjoy reading again this time of year~'The Turkey Chronicles'

Little chores, making goodies, and an historic New England dinner~

Today I have a lot of work to do in preparation for our DINNER WITH THE PILGRIMS. It is a rainy fall day in New Hampshire, and we may even get our first dusting of snow of the season.  Before I get on with some painting, cleaning, and working on some of our current DIY projects, I was up very early baking. The house smells amazing. Already I have made a homemade concord grape pie, and am now trying to replicate the wonderful lunch Penny and I had at The Common Man in Portsmouth a couple weeks ago for our dinner tonight.

I poured a bit of butter and our own maple syrup over butternut squash halves, covered with foil, and baked them. I made quinoa on the stove, using chicken stock instead of water, and when cooked stirred in some dried cranberries. 
I cut up fresh zucchini, fresh mushrooms, and a sweet onion and tossed with olive oil. I just roasted them on a cookie sheet at 425 degrees. Now, I should reiterate that I am making this on my own with no recipe, but I think I am duplicating faithfully what we had!
I have just piled the fluffy, cooked quinoa in mounds on top of the butternut squash halves in the baking dish, and put the roasted veggies on top of and around them. Lastly I have ladled the maple/butter juice from the pan over all.
Later this evening, I will cover the dish with foil and bake it just to warm it through for dinner. I have to say it looks and smells exactly like the original we had for our lunch the day we went to Strawbery Banke. I will give you a report after we eat it.

I love these cozy rainy fall days once in awhile. It is nice to be warm inside, surrounded by tantalizing smells, and just dig in and do some jobs that have been waiting for the cooler weather. Today I plan some of those big, 'spring cleaning' type of jobs like washing the interior of my little paned windows in some rooms, touching up paint here and there inside, and scrubbing some baseboards and wood floors. It will make the cleaning for our event next week a bit easier.

We are really looking forward to the DINNER WITH THE PILGRIMS. Adam has printed out the menu keepsakes we designed on parchment, as well as place cards in a 17thc. font. Our guests will each get a menu, rolled up  and on their dinner plates, and will see for the first time what they will be having, and can take them home as a remembrance. They will have a 17thc. spoon and a knife at their places, but no forks---they were not in common usage at that time. At the last event we had like this, no one had any problem eating, and all are welcome to use their fingers, as well as the large old linen napkins!  We know our guests will have a good time, and an evening of much merriment. We have an amazing menu planned, and my mouth is watering already.
We have just the right number of guests coming. We could take 2 more reservations only, if we get a request, but are at an agreeable number now.

Our last big DIY project, and the one that will be the biggest suprise is still 'in the works'. We hope it will be completed for the dinner. When it is, I will be posting the new photos as usual on the TOUR page of our website.
I will not be emailing anyone about the last of the updates----people will have to keep visiting, and they will see the exciting changes!

A fall day at my 18thc. cape~

Yesterday was such a pretty fall day here in my little corner of New Hampshire. I was up early and after a workout and breakfast, I walked around the yard. The morning sun was slanting across the still very green grass, and sparkled on heavy dew. It really smelled of fall---of dying leaves and my neighbor's woodstove fire. It smelled delicious.
I took all of these pictures spur of the moment.

At the end of the driveway there had been an area of plantings surrounded by a curved line of large granite stones. It was here when I came. We planted a small cherry tree there a few years ago, and I did have some perennials there too. I wanted the tree to be able to grow large, and I was not happy with the look of the whole stone-ringed bed; it just looked too "suburban" for me, and my little, early cape. I got to work, hefting a few stones at a time into a wheel barrow and depositing them into some of my old stone walls instead. They were very heavy, and it was a really exhausting job. I dug up the butterfly bush and the perennials there and transplanted them in the back, along a stone wall.
I then raked out the area, smoothing it even with the lawn. Next spring we'll plant grass seed there, and it will soon blend into the rest of the yard. I hope my tree does well, and that I can somehow stop the birds from eating every last cherry, as they have done so far!

It was so nice to walk peacefully around the leaf-strewn yard, mug of tea in hand.
Perhaps one more fire in the firepit we built a few years ago? Maybe we could sit bundled up, in our collapsible camp chairs and toast marshmallows for s'mores? I don't eat them, but Adam loves them, and it's just fun to sit outside in the dark by the warm fire, and look through the wavy glass of our windows to the soft light inside, illuminating home.

One bright kale, and some green tomatoes were still thriving in one of our raised bed gardens, along with the scarlet runner bean plant. I loved seeing bright red fallen leaves here and there in the stone wall...
Back inside, I made one of the do-ahead recipes for our upcoming DINNER WITH THE PILGRIMS. I can't spill the beans about what it is, as our menu is a closely guarded secret for our guests! I also made a big pot of that decadent but oh-so-comforting Cheese-Bacon-Potato soup for dinner. (I have given the recipe in a post last fall).

We are coming along on all our DIY house projects, and have put many new photos up on our website, with more quite dramatic ones to come.

After this weekend, I will be putting in long days here with all the cooking, cleaning, and preparations for our event. The sun is just coming up this morning and I see a patch of blue sky above my hill out back. It is nice to be able to have a few more nice days to enjoy before all the leaves are down, and snow starts to fall from pewter skies.

Our own 17th century oasis in a 21st century world~

 A 'sneak peek' at just a few of the changes to our period home~

During the next few weeks we will be removing all of the pictures of our home that are now out of date on the TOUR page of our website, and putting up all new photos. We have made significant changes in each room and will soon be sharing them with everyone.

We have lovingly collected 17thc. antiques over the years, and worked for many years restoring the house to showcase them.  Now, our surroundings reflect a 17thc. aura that is true New England. 'Cluttered Country' is not for us; we love the simplicity of an earlier time.
DIY was the name of the game here, and over the years I have salvaged, bartered, and yes, garbage-picked.
Coming home after we have been out to a house with mellow, old, warm hand hewn beams, low ceilings, wide board pine floors, cozy fireplaces, and spaces not crammed with an over abundance of antiques, but rather just the right things, is so comforting to us. Years of visiting such historic sites as the Parson Capen House, Rebecca Nurse House, Whipple House, Jabez Howland House, and my favorite, the Jonathan Corwin House, among others, have influenced and nurtured a love for the understated and minimalist feel of 17thc. New England architecture and furnishings.
Below, I have added only a few 'teaser' photos of some of what we have done. 
Visit our website TOUR page to take a tour of the whole house to period musick!

We are pleased and proud of our efforts and look forward to the 'big reveal' in a few weeks!

UPDATE~JAN. 2013~VISIT THE TOUR  PAGE OF OUR WEBSITE AND SEE THE ENTIRE GALLERY OF PHOTOS OF OUR 18THC. HOME, TO PERIOD MUSICK!

One of our 3 fireplaces in 'this old house'~

A holiday scene in our taproom~

2013***OUR BEAUTIFULLY RESTORED 18TH CENTURY HOME IS NOW FOR SALE~

Some morning thoughts from an historical lady~

I am up very early as usual, and after working out, started immediately on touching up caulking I had done yesterday on one of the "big secret house projects" we are working on. This afternoon when Adam gets home, we will finish one room, and will complete a project in the bedroom by tomorrow.

Taking a break for tea and a whole grain bagel, I walked through dimly lit rooms and stood in awe of our most recent DIY efforts in this old house. It is, of course an early home, but I am gob-smacked at how our most recent well-thought out, and long-anticipated projects have dramatically changed the house and made it look even earlier.  The things we are doing are things I have wanted and waited for for years.
We seem to have a gift for not only having a vision in our heads, but for doing things that cost comparatively little, and yet make our spaces look "like a million dollars". Never having had much in the way of funds, I have always prided myself on my ability when I was alone here, to see in my head what I wanted to accomplish, and to ultimately do so "on the cheap".

This brings me to a few words about quality and about the necessity of learning patience. I am the first to admit that whatever I do, I want it to be authentic and very well done. I don't buy cheap, I buy smart. In my antique collecting, as well as in everything we do to our home, I have learned not to buy willy-nilly to fill up space, or to sacrifice quality because I can't wait for the right thing to find me, or  wait for the things I truly want. I have friends who have made so many mistakes by doing exactly those things.
One friend recently purchased a rug that is not of the right texture/weave structure at all for the era she is trying to recreate, and an item she believed was old, when it was something I have seen in several places online for about $55.---far less than she spent on hers. She has to be buying something every week, and often makes precipitous and poor choices. She is unhappy with her life, and she thinks that purchasing more and more antiques will change that...
It has taken me a lifetime to collect what I have, and a long time to transform a forlorn, rundown, 18thc. house into one that has been featured in national magazines and books. I am proud of the fact that I have used a lot of creativity and ingenuity in my efforts at decorating my home in period style that is also comfortable and realistic. I see so many collectors of antiques copying each other, and one house seems a clone of another. My husband says I am a trendsetter in a way, because he has seen a lot of people copying me for years, not the other way around.
I wanted, and still do want to do things to the house, or get things that I have long wished for and dreamt of, but I learned long ago that to be really happy you have to be patient sometimes, and wait for the right time in your life for some things to happen.

The friend mentioned above lives in very comfortable and happy circumstances in the midwest, yet she is very unhappy. She wants to move to New England, and right now. The fact that it is not coming together yet is causing her frustration that consumes her entire life.
I feel badly, because I know that perhaps it is in the cards that she come in 5 years or 10, or maybe not at all, and she is unwilling to wait, and to be grateful for and embrace all that she has and let destiny happen in it's own time.

I dreamed of living in a little house in New England like this one for over 20 years. I used to have pictures torn from magazines, of old New England houses plastered on my refrigerator. I was several years older than my friend when serendipitous circumstances ultimately brought me here.  I look back and I see that there were reasons, and right times and wrong times. Even when I finally did come here, my house was in a deplorable state, and took years and years of sacrifice and back breaking work to make it as it is now.
Having endured a devastating economy-based job loss, we struggle every day to improve our circumstances. Until the right job in his field comes along, Adam teaches special needs children full time, and makes less than some people working at Mc Donalds, and not even close to a sub-standard living wage. We  live very simply, and never beyond our means, and do many other odd jobs to survive. 
I am well aware of the need for for fortitude and patience.

My friend has not researched New England, and many of her visions and expectations are romanticized, and not based on reality. During many phone conversations I tried to help her by telling her about real estate, areas, the costs of living here and about some of the ways New England is very different from living in the midwest. She wasn't interested in hearing any of it at all, preferring to continue living in a daydream, and doing no research or work at all to help her dream come to fruition.
 Additionally, she wants my life---everything about it.  It is a little creepy and sad. Her husband has a very good job by anyone's standards, and they are far more secure and comfortable than a very great number of us. I wish that she could appreciate that, and be truly happy in the place she is...just for now, and in who she is.

I think that to a certain extent, while we certainly have to persevere and fight to achieve our goals,  we also have to let go of our own individual tendencies to micromanage every aspect of our lives, and just wait sometimes---Wait for that inner voice or sign that says now is the time...This is your destiny...

The next few weeks will be extremely busy ones here. We will complete all the projects hopefully by the end of the month. We are on a tight deadline, as our DINNER WITH THE PILGRIMS is fast approaching, and we have been also working on things for that. I have solid days ahead of me of non-stop cooking and cleaning.  We will debut our house projects first to the guests at our dinner. This annual event is our way of earning our real estate tax money, but it is also a very wonderful opportunity for us to share our period home with people from all over who do not live the 'historical life' that we do, and to give them a memory they will hopefully cherish always. After the dinner, we will be taking down all the house photos on the TOUR page of our website, and putting up all new ones. We think that our long-time followers and fans will be shocked and amazed at the changes in our home.

Later in November it will be time to take some pictures for our acclaimed and well-loved annual '18thc. New England Christmastide Photo Essay' feature on our website.
 Soon too, I hope I will be modeling my new 18thc. petticoat and pet en l'air jacket for you, when it is completed, in a mini '18thc. photo fashion shoot' post~

An open and shut case~

We love the interior board shutters we made this past weekend for our taproom. Photos showing them in the whole room will be up on our website TOUR page sometime this month.

In a few hours on Saturday, Adam and I made side board and batten shutters for our taproom. This had been planned for ages because this room has no central heat and is heated with a wood stove. The old 9 over 6 front windows had no storms. Ugly 21st century storm windows will not do on an 18thc. house, so although we have been considering making our own for the past few years, we opted to make a period style interior shutter instead. Now, when I say that we made these, I mean it---Adam did not make them for me. We are an excellent team, and I do just as much of the measuring, hammering, gluing, and hanging as he does. We are so adept now at working together, that we made these from start to finish for 2 windows in less than 5 hours.

The trim strip runs down the exterior inner edge on only the lefthand doors. It overlaps the right side, providing a snug fit and eliminates unsightly or energy-losing gaps between the doors.

We made sure to line up the horizontal  bottom of the top shutters and the and top edge of the bottom shutters to the  wider wood muntin that divides the 9 panes from the six. This determined the length of the upper and lower shutters.

These shutters are now painted the same brown as the wood paneled room. The butterfly hinges were painted as well, so they do not stand out as they do in this photo. Black hinges are a 'midwesterners idea of New England'. Now, I know this because I am a former midwesterner who has gone through more than one of my "embarrassing dorky decorating" phases! Most of us who live here in very old houses paint the wrought iron hinges, as I have done in my home.

 We love the flexibility of being able to open only the top, only the bottom, both, or close both. It allows us to control the light and privacy needed at any time. Considering that the house is well over 200 years old and everything is crooked, we feel we achieved an excellent fit on the slightly skewed windows.
Yesterday, Adam lit the woodstove and sat in a chair by the fire with the yorkies and watched me paint them. I like to do the painting. I was able to do the full 2 coats needed during the day, and the completed shutters look amazing! I will be posting pictures of the entire taproom showing the finished shutters,  on our website soon.

This is just one of our 'small' projects. We have also been diligently working on several big "secret projects". We plan to debut them all within the next month with all new photos of every room on the
 TOUR page of our website.

*UPDATE~2012~SEE OUR PERIOD TAPROOM, WHERE THESE SHUTTERS ARE, AND TAKE A TOUR OF OUR ENTIRE 18THC. CENTER CHIMNEY-CAPE HERE~

Later in the day, I added ostrich feathers to the 18thc. straw hat I had made last spring to go with my sacque back gown. I will post  a photo of it here later today. How's that for a lady changing gears!

A day in an old seacoast town, and saying goodbye to a friend...for now.

Yesterday was Penny's last day in New England, and she left for her cozy home in Texas early this morning. A few tears were shed, and plans made for the next time we would all see each other. We had a fantastic day together yesterday, and have made lots of wonderful memories over the last few days.
Early Wednesday morning we headed to Portsmouth and first did some grocery shopping at BJ's. I had special things to get for the upcoming 'DINNER WITH THE PILGRIMS'.
Then it was on to Strawbery Banke. Penny had never been there, so in the car I gave her a brief history of the town, 'Puddle Dock', and some of the other grand homes such as the Warner House and the Moffat-Ladd House. We wandered from early home to early home, touring each. We laughed when we saw a fat grey squirrel with an entire ear of corn in it's mouth, stolen from a fall display, scampering across the green with it's treasure.
I stuffed a few lovely dappled green pears into my purse that had fallen from a pear tree in one of the house gardens, and put them in a pewter bowl when I got home.

In one house, a man was frying cod and mashed potato cakes in a large fireplace, and we tarried to talk with him and warm ourselves by the fire.
The ocean is just across the road, and we smelled the sea as we walked. We took a break for lunch at the Common Man, just steps from the Pitt Tavern. We both had the most healthy and delicious meal---baked butternut squash stuffed with quinoa, roasted pieces of squash, mushrooms, zucchini, and onion, flavored with a light sauce made with a bit of New Hampshire maple syrup, and sprinkled with some dried cranberries. I am definitely going to try recreating this at home.

An aerial view of Portsmouth

We headed back home late in the afternoon. We live less than an hour from Portsmouth, so we were back here near 4, and Adam had gotten home from school, and came out to welcome us back holding an excited yorkie in each arm. Penny left to go back to her motel for a short rest before coming back to our house for dinner.

She arrived back at near 6, with a bottle of shiraz. Adam had suprised us and set the table and had a lovely fire going in the dining room fireplace. The house was warm and smelled delicious. We sat at the dining room table and ate by candle and firelight.
We had ham steak with an impromptu sauce I made with a can of pineapple, some brown sugar, a bit of the juice and some butter and a spoonful of cornstartch---it turned out to be quite amazing!  We had my homemade corn pudding, and a green salad with onion, toasted almonds, some crumbled blueberry stilton cheese, and a pear-gorgonzola vinegrette. I had made a concord grape pie the night before, and we had that later for dessert as we laughed and talked, not wanting the evening to end.
Penny wandered around the house for a bit. She loves our home very much, and says it's just perfect to her.

My purloined pears in my living room...Take a tour of our 18thc. New Hampshire home HERE~

We took Penny past a house for sale not far from ours. She loves it here, and wanted to see it.  She is ready for a new adventure, and we are trying to convince her to go for it, and move here, so who knows!
We had such a grand time, and can't wait to see her next Spring when we hope to be together again in Concord and Lexington, for the big Patriot's Day reenactments.

Dark is just lifting here, and a soft rain has started to fall. It's a good day to stay in and catch up with things around the house, and maybe relax with a cup of tea later. The Pilgrim Dinner is fast approaching, and we have our 2 "big projects" here that we have been working on. We'll be back to working on them weekend. (The goal is to finish in time for the Pilgrim Dinner, and knock everyone's socks off, and to 'debut' them in new photos on our website.)

Woodwalk, 2 barrel bargains, and 'The Greatest Hits of 1720'!

The $2. record album we found in a shop and bought for Adam~(Bach was big that year!)

Today was a very good day. It was as fine a New England fall day as ever there was---warm sunshine and leaves ablaze against a deep blue sky.

My friend Penny and I drove the back roads where I live. I took her first to the old Moultonboro Country Store, continuously operating since 1791. It's a wonderful place with a huge potbellied stove for heat, barrels of pickles and Vermont Common Crackers, and then rooms and rooms of practically anything you could want. We buy our rosehead nails there, so I filled a small brown bag with some sizes we were out of as Penny accumulated some iron hooks and other treasures, as well as some different size reproduction nails for herself. We then drove the lovely winding back road to Sandwich NH and walked a bit in the sunshine past old houses with sparking white paint, and trees of gold and flame in their yards. We shared a Giardelli chocolate whoopie pie at a favorite farmstand of ours, and then drove just over the line in Maine to have lunch and stop in at a few quirky, small country antique shops. These are not the shops featuring big name dealers and pricey merchandise, but dusty rooms behind stately homes, with hand lettered 'OPEN' signs perched on a chair at the end of a driveway. Stop, and you are often rewarded with a treasure for a bargain. This way my lucky day for just such a bargain!

Not long ago, I found a small, antique wood barrel with wrapped with hand made wooden hoops rather than the iron or wire. It was $20. and I was delighted. Adam made a lid with a hand carved handle for it out of scraps of 250 year old wood, and I delightedly placed it against a wall in our period 'taproom'.
Today, I found a huge, antique wooden barrel with great old patina, and again with wood hoops, AND it's wooden lid with hand carved handle! I asked if it was for sale, and the nice lady said she had not thought about that, but "why not", and "how about $25."!  Now this is my speed, and proves what I have always said, and taught in my class on antiques----buy what finds you. When the time and price are right, they will come to you. I have wanted some nice wooden barrels for years, and resisted buying overpriced ones,  or not ALL wood, just to fill up space. I have collected slowly and carefully, and am proud of my finds.

The large, all original barrel and lid I found today for $25.!

The smaller antique wood barrel I found for $20. a short time ago now resides in my 'buttery'~

In another shop filled with knicknacks, books, and all kinds of attic items, we found a wonderful record album, 'THE GREATEST HITS OF 1720',  for the bargain price of $2., and just begging to be brought home to Adam as a little gift. (He loved it, and the barrel too. He plans to record the album and make it into a CD, complete with the wonderful graphics of the album cover, and we can listen to it in our car while on the way to reenactment events!)

We ended our day with a drive through the old historic section of a small village near my home, and Penny was entranced with the old houses and the New England fall color and stone walls.

It's been a long, wonderful, and memorable day, and I'm having my tea and nodding off---tomorrow is going to be busy as well---we will be strolling through Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth.
I'll leave you with a few more pictures of my walk in the woods behind my house on a recent afternoon~

Yes, these mushrooms were purple!