Soapstone, Carrara or Both?

Both!
We've chosen our counter tops! So... one decision down- one million, two hundred, seventy six to go!!!

The counters will be soapstone and the 3'x 7' island is bianco carrara marble. In keeping with the spirit of an antique farmhouse we loved that both stones would have been used in a turn-of-the-century kitchen. We started off looking for solid soapstone, but fell for the gorgeous veins in the slab we picked out. We will need two slabs of soapstone. The slabs are about 5' x 9' which we are told is large for soapstone. I will only have two seams, both will fall behind the sink (really only one is needed, but for structural integrity they put in two.) Initially I contemplated all soapstone or all carrara, but in the end all of one type just seemed too much for our kitchen. Ever since our first trip to France I have always coveted marble for a kitchen surface, so I am very happy to have incorporated both. There was just something about the veining in both stones that made them look perfect together. The word on the street is that carrara is running very grey and muddy these days; several of the slabs we looked at were very nondescript or overly busy, but not pretty. I was very happy to find an articulate piece! The marble will be honed.

The water on the second chosen slab was starting to dry which is why is appears blotchy.

Pictures of the carrara are a little washed out. It's really a pretty piece!

The indoor warehouse had "lovely" fluorescent lighting...this photo shows the guys moving the soapstone after I asked if I could see it in natural light! They had to move it to a garage door opening in another building! They really loved me for that! But hey, I don't have a windowless box with fluorescent lights as a kitchen!

A year ago today...

A year ago today we arrived in New Hampshire. Our movers moved 221 boxes and three trucks worth (two 24' and one 16' packed to the gills.) The enormous risk we took by uprooting our home of 15 years and moving to a part of the country that neither Dan nor I had any experience with has turned into a wonderful adventure and a big blessing in our lives. While we didn't know a soul here, and were a little fearful of the winters (turned out our first winter here was the second snowiest on record, the wettest year on record and we just survived what they are calling the "ice storm of the century"; so I think we have earned our winter stripes!) we knew that if we didn't make the move at that point, then we never would. I can't explain it, I just felt we were supposed to live here. If more than two days go by that Dan and/or I don't 'silly slap' each other's arm and say "Look where we live," I would be surprised. We are both constantly amazed by the beauty here. We feel like we are living on vacation.
I was born a Texan, raised a Texan and will always be a Texan, but it was just time for us to leave. There isn't much that we miss about Dallas. That said, I do miss two things. Mexican food and Michel. Oh my, how I miss Mexican food- that's all I can say on the subject, or I might start to cry! I also miss my friend Michel more than words can say (and that usually does make me cry!) She and her husband moved in across the street from us eleven days after we did. Over the years she became my dear friend and confidant. It would be impossible (and perhaps wrong!) to know how many bottles of wine/Veuve we went through over the years while solving the world's, and our own, problems! I miss my friend Michel every single day, and Ella misses her Auntie M.

Two of my favorite stories from the past year give you an idea of the spirit of the people and the part of New England that we now call home. Keep in mind New Hampshire is a very small state and we have only one television station for the whole state! (And yes, we have all the b.a.d. things happening here as the rest of the country, but they're fewer and lesser and definitely not the nightly body count that we moved from.) Last Spring during a broadcast of the 11 o'clock news there was a story about a found dog. They said it was obvious that the dog had just had puppies, but the puppies were not found with her, so the news station was asking if any one knew the whereabouts of the puppies to please contact them. The dog was found about 2 hours North of us, but again, since we only have one channel the whole state heard the call to arms to find the puppies of the found dog! That the story of some missing puppies made the nightly news warms my heart.

Then there is the story of our first trip to Maine to go antiquing. Do not be fooled, Maine has some fabulous antiques! We were in a wonderful shop and I found a pair of vintage concrete birds that I knighted my birthday present (makes life easier for Dan!) The shop didn't take cards and we had forgotten to refill the checks. The owner said (now mind you he had never laid eyes on us before) "Go ahead and take them, and just mail me a check!" This was several hundred dollars worth of merchandise and he was letting us walk out the door and trusted us to send payment? Sometimes we feel we have landed in Oz!

Life is a little slower and simpler here and that has brought us great joy. We have found that the slower pace is more to our natural cadence and fits us much better than the buzz of the city. Today I am very grateful that we took a chance, trusted our gut and followed our heart to our very own land of Oz.

Fall and Winter view of the river we drive by everyday.

Wide Plank Floors

The original floors in the house are all random width Eastern white pine, which is indigenous to our part of New Hampshire. For some unknown reason the dining room floors were replaced with oak at some point. We are replacing the oak with the Eastern white pine to match the rest of the house. We will be adding the pine to the kitchen and the Barn room. We are fortunate to live only 40 minutes away from the headquarters of Carlisle Wide Plank Floors which will supply our new floors. We like that they: are local and that the Eastern white pine comes from the our area, just as our antique floors did 150 years ago; age their wood naturally outside for about a year before slowing drying in a kiln which ensures that there will be no shrinkage when installed; and that after staining you apply four coats of a low VOC tung oil and the end product has a very natural finish that will hold up well in our climate. I felt like a kid in a candy store- every wood sample I saw was my new favorite! Luckily I had the limiting factor of matching existing floors or I'd still be deciding which floor I wanted a year from now. Sadly, I don't love any of their existing finishes (that would be too easy!), so it looks like we will be mixing a stain. Something medium brown with gold undertones is the goal. Nothing too dark, and nothing too light.

Wood drying outside.

The candy store!Yum!

These are the 13-20" widths that we will put in the Barn room. To match our original floors we will use reproduction antique square cut nails as seen in the photo.

This is the 6-10" that will go in the kitchen (shown in oak.)

A house blessing...

After we took possession of our house we performed a house blessing. If you're not familiar with the term, a house blessing is an ancient tradition performed by many religions and cultures in one form or another. Its basic purpose is to bless and provide spiritual protection for a dwelling. It can be done at any time, not only when you first move into a house; some people do it every year, or after a traumatic event in their lives, after remodeling (oh wait, I guess that's covered under traumatic events!), after a visit from a relative with bad energy, etc. While looking for a house blessing prayer I came across a lot of interesting information that I did not know: many religions perform house blessings; you can actually hire individuals who specialize in house blessings to to do the blessing; you can purchase whole packages on-line with all the needed components for a proper blessing, and there are many, many blessing prayers to be found. There are different directions a house blessing can take from religious to spiritual.

We chose a spiritual prayer. As we said the prayer we lit dried sacred white sage to vanish any bad spirits or energy from the house, which is a Native American Indian practice.

The prayer for the house:

God, bless this house and all who live here. Fill this dwelling with an ambiance of peace, prosperity, health, happiness, harmony and love. Let this space shine with divine light and beauty and provide a warm, comfortable haven from the world. May only beings that are kind-hearted and well-intentioned enter here. May nature's spirits feel welcome and live with us as friends. May all who enter here receive what they need, and feel richly blessed with their heart's desires.

We also hung an iron Jan Barboglio house blessing cross on the maple tree closest to the front door. We brought the house blessing cross from our last home. It came with a new hand-made square nail which we changed out for an original antique square nail from this house!

Holes in our head...

Oh wait, they're actually in our walls! Who's idea was it to restore this old house anyway?? Oh wait, it was ours..... what were we thinking?!!!!!!! In the end there will be approximately 400 of these lovely little insulation holes in my walls. Why so many, you wonder... well, because of the way that antique homes were framed the insulation has to be "drilled and filled" on different planes to get into each and every crevice. We are installing blown in cellulose (it's 'green')- they drill a hole in the plaster and then blow the cellulose in. As you could guess, it is much more expensive to retro-fit an old house than to put insulation into a new structure- this seemingly little project will cost us the price of a new car. Not some little economy car, but a nice full-size number! Considering that the house had zero insulation, and it can get a little "chilly" here in New Hampshire we thought it a good investment! I can't tell you how happy I will be to see the plaster-guy, not only is he only a third of the price of the insulation, but he will make my walls pretty again! Pretty... so hard to remember pretty at this point!

A brick wall

After the see-thru fireplace is put in we will cover the kitchen side with an exposed brick wall and hearth. Our contractor had some of the original bricks from the chimney that was removed laid out on the floor in the same size as the wall so I could pick and chose which bricks I wanted and which ones I didn't.

Here's where I could use some help... not long ago I came across a design blog that had a post about loving exposed brick walls- she had lots of photos which I would dearly love to see again! Of course, now I can't re-find it (you know how a blog leads to a blog, leads to a blog goes...) So if anyone knows of the aforementioned brick wall post I would so appreciate a shout out!!

And on a "sweet" note; Dan had to do some business at our town offices today and he brought home some hand-dipped chocolate covered cherries from the candy store! Our Main street is only about two blocks long, so I am very happy that one of the shops is a candy store! They've been in business since 1914 and make all their own candy and chocolates; at Christmas they even hand pull their own candy canes!

Road Trip

Yesterday we drove two hours north to Franconia, New Hampshire into the White Mountains. The fact that we can drive only two hours and be in grand mountains brings Dan and I great joy- in Texas we would have to drive a day and a half to get to see mountains like these in Colorado! Franconia, besides being known for being home to Robert Frost and Bode Miller, is also the corporate offices of Garnet Hill (home of lovely linens and wonderful down comforters) they have an outlet there and they were having a Sale! It was a beautiful clear day and the high in Franconia was 9 degrees! It's a good thing we went yesterday, as last night we got 11 inches of snow!

This is a New Hampshire rest stop... they have fireplaces! This is reason #1,000,527 why we love New Hampshire!!
Views along the drive...

The tiny town of Franconia.
Garnet Hill outlet..

The moon rising on our drive home.

In the end I didn't buy a single thing for the house. But I did buy two really cute Spring jackets (and for those of you in the South, who knew?!, but Spring jackets really do have a purpose in other parts of the country! In the South we just thought they were some "funny figment of a clothing buyer's imagination" because it's too hot in the South to wear jackets in the Spring!!)

Who? Me?!!

Wow. I am truly honored to be chosen by the delightful blog Lime in the Coconut as worthy of a blog gift. Thank you so much for your support and recognition Linda! You are the best!

"This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to some bloggers who must choose some more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."
It is my honor to bestow this gift to some delightful blogs who cheer my day! These blogs are similar to mine in that the bloggers are restoring homes in need of much love. And then my favorite foodie blog cannot be forgotten either; because as we all know food is love!
St. Mary
If you've ever fantasized about owning and living in an old church this is the blog for you! Mary is delightful, charming and witty- you will so enjoy her journey (be sure to start from the beginning; it's a very fun read!) Mary saved the church and the church saved her....
Home on Tallmadge
I can not imagine losing my beloved home to a fire. Julia did... and this is the story of her home in the remaking and rebuilding. Julia is brave and strong, and has such a great attitude despite such a devastating tragedy. She could have easily chosen to walk away, but she didn't... she chose to love a house!
Once Upon A Plate
My dear friend Mari has the most amazing food blog. The highest compliment I can give her is that she, like my favorite Ina Garten, creates amazing dishes in such a way that you think.... "I can do that!" She is an amazing chef and an even more amazing person. Do not miss this blog. Your friends will think you went to culinary school!

A Kitchen is born...

I walked into the house today and for the first time actually saw the new kitchen- no more walls, pipes, or studs in the way- just one big open space: our new kitchen!

Before.

(It helps to use the iron pulls on the built-in cabinet to the right of the range as a visual reference point to watch how the room has changed.)

The existing windows to the left of the fireplace opening will be replaced with French doors that open on to the covered back porch. After the see-thru fireplace is installed in the wood opening seen in the photo we will add a brick wall using the bricks from the original damaged chimney that we took down. I think the exposed brick wall will add character and wonderful texture to that end of the room.

Painted door in the left of photo is the original walk-in pantry! It even has a large window, how sweet is that! The opening at the end of the room will become the stairway into the new Barn Room.

A simple string of lights....

The first time I saw our house I could just see dinner parties under the maple trees on an old wooden table and clear lights strung loosely between the trees....

... but last year at this time we were still too far away from owning the house and I just couldn't bring myself to purchase them. Today I bought a part of the dinner-under-the-maples-dream and they were on "Sale".... 75% off to be exact.! That made them $1.99 each at Target!

So, I bought 23 boxes!!!

Hey, it's a cheap price to pay for a dream don't you think?!