Update on Jenny Lane Project(s)

I think we thrive on this project. A slow week as we wait for supplies. One thing that has happened during the Pandemic has been the increase in home improvement projects. Our contractors tell us that there is now a shortage of pressure treated wood and sheet rock. Luckily for us they had ordered the sheet rock we need to get some walls in the front hall, bonus room and the bonus+ room a few weeks ago before the shortage showed up. The balance of the windows will also be shipped to arrive this coming week. A big day on Tuesday when all will be delivered. We are most excited to actually have a new window in the kitchen. The current one is rotting and provides no insulation from the out of doors. We had it taped shut to get through last winter.

The lack of outside workers this past week helped us to focus on things we could do ourselves. We realized we could improve the look of the house dramatically if we painted the replacement clapboards and the unpainted parts that were under the shutters. When the house was painted the previous owners took a page out of my mother-in=law’s playbook of how to paint. In the cottage in Canada she and her friend would paint the floors in the spring when they opened up the house and their method of saving on effort and paint was to paint around the rugs. Why would you paint a floor that you were not going to see. What a laugh we had when we took the rugs up to have the floors refinished and discovered some interesting colors.

So, the paint under the shutters was a very much darker yellow than the rest of the house. I started painting and during the week John joined in and finally this weekend Katie joined in the project. The big reason was she didn’t want either John or me to be up on a high ladder and since she was a professional house painter in college she offered to do it for us. What a difference a little paint makes. We all agree we can live with the house like this until spring when we will get the whole house and trim painted. In the meantime it doesn’t annoy us. There is a lot of satisfaction in doing some of the work oneself and we all feel we contributed a big piece to the project.

We have two other projects going on besides building rooms. One is the refacing of the inside chimney with some beautiful stone and the other is to get and install a gas fireplace in the bonus room. We have a second chimney from when we had the old furnace so we are hoping to use it for the gas fireplace. We have been given an opportunity to have a beautiful stove that is at least 10 years old and will be the perfect size for our room. It, however, needs to be cleaned out and properly fitted out to work again. We are working on finding someone who knows something about this stove and is willing to refurbish it. Then we have to get someone to install it and we need to get the gas from the new system to it. Again, a multi-step project.

The inside chimney turned problematic when the guys arrived on Friday ready to install the flat part or the back of the chimney. They went to get the stone and discovered that most of it was not usable because it had broken or even shattered in some cases. Out of 8 cases of stone we were left with almost 4 cases which sounds almost ok except they didn’t match. Somehow we ended up with some porous with scalloped edge and some filled with smooth edge. Doesn’t work. So now the supplier is trying to find us enough of one or the other to do the project. The quarry, however, thinks the stone is the same which it obviously is not. Stay tuned on this one.

Walking This Week

After months of having trouble with my heel and slowly having it get better I had a terrific week of walking. The dogs and I were able to do just over 20 miles which was exceptional, for the second week in a row. We had a mix of walks/hikes with some over on the Rail Trail in Andover and back on the trails just outside our home into the Morris Trail on the campus of Colby-Sawyer College. No bears have been seen for some weeks so we ventured out there again and I am happy to report we didn’t run into any bears nor did we see any sign of them. We did however, see one deer but she wasn’t interested in us so took off pretty quickly. We don’t see too many of them here which I suppose is a good thing. I did get another pair of the Vionic sandals and some inserts for my walking shoes and those seem to be really helping along with the brace. Progress. Katie set a goal of 100 miles for herself this month and I set one of 75 miles and we both have succeeded. I am very proud of Katie for making herself get up early and get out there for 5 1/2 miles almost every morning. Working from home does have the advantage that the time she normally would be commuting is now used for exercise.

Birthday Boy

Our handsome boy, Wyke, turned four years old on August 29th. We cannot believe he has been part of our family for four years now. It seems as if he has always been here and we love him to bits. He is so mild mannered, a gentle fellow with tons of patience. He loves his walks, especially the swimming part and he loves his friends and really enjoys playing with them and with Bean. He is loyal and follows us around the house – oh, maybe that has something to do with food but he is usually with one of us. He and Bean made me so proud this week when we ran into a stranger with her dog. Both of them sat and then lay down and waited patiently for the strange dog to come up to sniff them. I don’t know if they sensed she was shy or what but it was the perfect meet and greet with everyone very happy.

Choosing the House and Trim Color

You might think this would be easy but it has taken us about two weeks to figure this out. We started out with an idea taken from a house we loved in South Carolina. Not knowing the colors we tried to match them from a picture. We started off with Kelly Green and Pistachio – oh so not a good concept. We finally found a dark green that we loved and then tried to get the house paint to fit. We kept adding white and more white and more white until we were left with a white that has a hint of green. John set up a section on the porch and our cocktail time amusement was to have Libby paint the clapboards with the latest color, sometimes alternating boards for comparison until we eventually got to the one we liked the most. It will wait until spring but I think it will look fabulous when it gets done.

Cooking/Baking

We had a surplus of blueberries and zucchini so what did we do but ask our resident baker to make us a cake. We actually found a recipe from the website healthy-holistic-living.com that combined the two very nicely. It was truly delicious and a special treat.

Here’s the recipe.

Blueberry Zucchini Snack Cake with Lemon Buttercream

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups sugar (HHL recommends monk fruit sugar or coconut sugar)
2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups all-purpose flour (HHL recommends using almond flour or coconut flour)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1-pint blueberries, tossed in 1 tsp flour

Lemon buttercream
1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) butter at room temperature
4 cups confectioners’ sugar (HHL recommends Monk fruit powdered sugar)
juice of one lemon

Instructions