Ta ta from Tory Hill

This is our last posting from the rental house we've known as home for almost 2 years. Packing and moving is well under way as we write this. Although temporary, we've really enjoyed living on Tory Hill. Our landlords are wonderful people and we've made some good friends with our neighbors. The new house is not far so we can stay connected.

Over the weekend the refrigerator found its way to the house with the help of our friend Bob, the same great guy who helped put our roof on. Other things happening in the kitchen were the installation of the basic structure of the 7'+ pantry designed by Cheryl which when complete will have lots of slide-out shelves & baskets and circular lazy susans making its entire 19" depth useful space, the pot rack was installed, the floor was finished and the professional chef's floor gel mats were put in place (these make a huge difference to the bod when standing on concrete), and the plate rack from Great Britain was installed over the sink so just washed dishes can be placed to drip dry and then stay for permanent storage. This plate rack took forever to get to us, it was feared lost. When it finally arrived you should have seen the box, if only it could have told us the story of its voyage!

The entire first floor is bare concrete, which you may remember has radiant heat within, we chose to seal & finish the concrete with dark tung oil (the same natural product we used on the wall wood except it's dark brown instead of amber). The floor was washed & dried, oil applied and later in the day wiped with t-shirt rags, then 2nd coat the next day with another wiping. Then the floor isn't walked on with dirty shoes for 7-10 days (we did the floor in sections and made walking trails with waxed paper so we could still get around the place). The floors came out with a mottled look incorporating browns, grays and black and have these funky geometric shapes going on randomly which just occurred naturally. Each room is different in terms of how the concrete took the oil. The kitchen came out particularly cool and we figure people would believe us if we told them we hired an artist to create its effects! It was quite a bit of work but worth it as we are pleased. And we avoided the acid staining that has become very popular lately, which is hazardous and we hear its neat effects fade badly after a few years.

We'll be softening the look & feel of the floors with rugs. Cheryl had a ball finding rugs online getting some great deals on antique & new rugs. She also found some locally via Craigslist, one huge handmade braid rug made in the 1950's by a Newfoundland woman.

Halloween slipped past in a haze of sawdust and oily rags for Kirk & Cheryl, but Jayne who loves the holiday did it up right. She was Mother Earth, her friend Grayson, whom she met doing the production Hair, was David Bowie and they had a great time at several parties in Portland. They spent hours together doing their makeup & hair.

Jayne's been working on her new bedroom. The rug is a genuine hippie 1960's persian! which is a big hit with Jayne. Still to be done is the full wall mural which she designed and she & Grayson are going to paint.



The shower is done and came out nicely. We went with a soaking tub, 2' deep so you can soak up to your neck. The livestock watering trough, which will be our soaking tub (hey, don't laugh, Cheryl got this at the Agway for $83, compare that to several $100 for an actual soaking tub) is not yet installed but it's ready to be. Faucet and drain lines are in putting the tub next to the window for a great soaking view!

Here's our laundry room/extra pantry. It's upstairs and will only have a washer, drying will be on the line which we'll run from outside the window down to a tree. That way heavy wet laundry won't have to be carried downstairs & outside, but rather just pulled from the washer & hung out the window!




We've got ourselves a starter chicken coop for 3-4 laying hens. We're going to add an attached outside run and hope to get started with a few girls right after we get settled in the house. Ultimately we will be building a larger coop for a good sized flock. Then this coop will go to an urban-dweller like Jayne when she moves out.


In the sitting area upstairs we chose to break up the wood look with partially painted walls. This pic shows some of Kirk's beautiful trim work, but you'll just have to come to Maine to really see it! The rug is one of Cheryl's antique finds. We went with pale taupe on this floor rather than the deep sage of the other upstairs wood floors to bring more light into an otherwise quite dark space.

In non-house news...Kirk is still playing his bass at jams about once a week...Kirk's job is stressful and a music buddy suggests that he take up smoking pot...Jayne is doing fine grade-wise in her 2 college classes but hates the formal education gig and plans to seek adventures other than college in the new year...Cheryl was bit by a tick which Kirk found lurking out of sight almost on her back, it was engorged and thoroughly disgusting -- couldn't feel a thing, healing well and no signs of disease...bought ourselves a new used car -- 2000 Honda Civic with 83k miles on it -- for us that's a new car (our van now has 255,000+), we're going to let her stretch her legs on a trip to Michigan for a short Christmas visit to both families to celebrate getting into the house.