Rejuvenated Kitchen

Jesse and his team made short work of the kitchen remodel, and our simple galley kitchen is transformed. Here is a photo with the new cabinets and coutertop installed, and a second of the sink area and new faucet set-up.

With these improvements and the new dishwasher, combined with the refrigerator and stove that were there, we have an updated kitchen that will serve us well.

Mary went through and removed the old shelf liners from the existing cabinets. Doing so may have removed the last vestiges of mildew that was left from the old kitchen.

The old kitchen - before we bought the place - was the source of the damage that ended up requiring us to replace the roof. Here is a reminder of how serious the situation was...the kichen would be in the lower left hand corner of the main house. The entire roof system had to be replaced due to water damage and termites.

In any case, it's good to be on the other side of this problem!

A Week on Skyline Drive

Today I need to get back to work with a full agenda for the week, including preparation for an intercompany transfer, a road trip to Las Vegas next week for a speaking engagement, and all those delightful things that justify getting paid. Meanwhile, I also have a queue of blogposts that will be going up about discoveries last week in the Shenandoah Valley - I may not have accomplished everything I set out to do on the "staycation" - but I did get quite a few of them done.



After the preliminary kitchen upgrade work - deliveries and the dishwasher installation - was done on Tuesday, I was able to do five day hikes, averaging about 4 or 5 miles a day and 900 feet of climbing, all in Shenandoah National Park:

• Calf Mountain (Southern District) - photo is from this one
• Powell Gap (Southern District)
• Jones Run Falls (Southern District)
• Fox Hollow (Northern District)
• Compton Peak (Northern District)

Three of these hikes were from the "Easy Day Hikes" book (link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762734159?ie=UTF8&tag=hawkscabin-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0762734159 ) and the others were "freelanced," although the Compton Peak hike was the result of a recommendation from Ranger Mike at the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center.

For vacation reading, I completed Colin Fletcher's "The man Who Walked Through Time," (link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679723064?ie=UTF8&tag=hawkscabin-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0679723064 )

and "Long Distance Hiking on the Appalachian Trail for the Older Adventurer" (link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0938631209?ie=UTF8&tag=hawkscabin-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0938631209 ) by David Ryan.

Both made for good recreational reading and a review will follow...

Of course, I had some time for socializing with friends in the Valley, special thanks to Howard on the tip to visit the Speakeasy (this is the pub at the remodeled Mimslyn Inn in Luray) on Thursday night - had a great evening out (and taught the bartender how to make a Ketel One dirty martini, up with two olives - and tested the results on Saturday night)...

Also, the farmers' market, a chat with Sally and Dan, cicadas, praying mantises, Jesse visiting to take a look at the work involved on the kitchen remodel...and a great walk through town with Mary on the Hawksbill Greenway on Sunday.

Of course, there is the sad note that Mary and I lost our beloved Gracie last week. So far, both of us find ourselves thinking about her a couple of times a day. I am still not ready to post on this; we had her for more than 14 years and there is a lot to sort through.

I am really looking forward to getting these hike reviews up, and will do so over the next two weeks. Meanwhile, ciao for now!

Tuesday Afternoon Dishwasher

Just like that, at 2:30pm, the Home Depot called to tell me that the dishwasher was on its way and the team would be there within the hour. I thought this was pretty exceptional – they said we’d need to stand by from 3pm to 7pm. The guys were here at 3:15pm, so now I have time to run down to H-burg and post these!

Here is a before and after set of the dishwasher - the white one is our new one. No surprises in the installation, the team was obviously experienced at this, and ours was their last call of the day. So they were in and out, the whole job done in 45 minutes or so.

Here is a view of what was under the dishwasher. This appears to be residual dirt and grime from the roof and ceiling job that was done two years ago.

The only surprise – when the installer moved the old dishwasher out there was a big spider – much larger than actual size – hiding away in there. He asked me to kill it, and I did. At least, I hope I did.

Tuesday Morning Countertops

Writing Tuesday noon.

The new Formica Boomerang countertops were delivered this morning. Here is a quick post with photos; I’ve had them laid out in the living room while we wait for Jesse to come by and take a look. He is scheduled to get started sometime this week – I’m hoping it’s a job that won’t take long.


These are views of the countertops lying on the floor, and close-up views of the no-spill edge and back splash; these were taken so I could send them to Mary for her approval. Modern technology is a marvel, ain’t it?

One more thing to do today – the new dishwasher is scheduled for delivery and installation. Could be any minute now!

The Kitchen Plan is Coming Together

Over the weekend, thanks to Chris, we got our “new” kitchen cabinets out to the Hawksbill Cabin. Installing these is one of three elements of the kitchen remodel that should be complete this week.

I am writing this from the brick terrace; I hadn’t expected to post much this week but I just got the news that our dishwasher is on the way and the installation is going to be done much earlier than expected (they told us to expect it as late as 7pm tonight).

Here are some “before” pictures of the galley kitchen. The stone wall is where the recycled cabinets will be hung; we are also replacing the Home Depot stock counter tops with some in the Formica Boomerang pattern, which I posted about last week. Our current plan is to paint them “Wooden Spoon,” the color most of the kitchen surfaces have been done in.

Mary asked me to line up the cabinets on the floors (note they are upside down here), despite all the careful measuring we thought there might be something with the angles, widths, and heights, there just might be something misaligned and we wanted to see that before we put them up. In Mrs. Barclay’s old kitchen, these were not all on the same wall like they will be at our place. As you can see here, they are pretty well aligned, enough that I don’t think the little mismatch will be noticeable when we put them up.

While we're on the topic of renovations - part 2

Today, finishing up on a couple of posts about our pending kitchen remodel at the Hawksbill Cabin…

On our block in Alexandria, there are two other houses that have the same exterior profile as ours. At one time, we thought this might be a series of the same kit house, but closer inspection and analysis reveals this isn’t so – for one thing the interior rooms would be in a similar layout and the dimensions would be precisely the same. So the developer here, in 1929, basically designed the three houses pretty much to order, and they very substantially inside.

We had befriended one of the other owners, Mrs. Barclay, who had lived in her place since the 1940’s. Mrs. Barclay would visit our house on our January 1 open houses, and we’d take her on a little tour of the place. She would delight herself by pointing out the little differences in where the walls were, the arrangement of the bathroom, things in hers but not in ours, or vice-versa.

She always offered that we could come for a similar tour of her place, but sadly, she passed away this spring, and we never took her up on it.

Our realtor arranged for us to have a look at the place when it went on the market. We remembered Mrs. Barclay’s description of her kitchen, last remodeled in 1954 or so. Visiting her house brought back fond memories of our friendship with her and her visits to our place, and as we looked around we realized that there were a lot of opportunities to remodel and modernize the home she had loved for so long…not a challenge we were ready to take on, however.

So the house went on the market, and within a week or so, it had three competing offers (I’ll reserve the details for a future post), with the successful one an all-cash deal at the offered price. We subsequently learned about the remodel plans the new owners have, and we offered to let them look around ours if they were looking for ideas.

We also remembered the kitchen in Mrs. Barclays – custom cabinets, likely built and installed by her late husband.

Given the mid-century heritage of these, in the back of our minds we thought we might like to save them to recycle into some future project if they became surplus.

Sure enough, the new owners decided not to use the cabinets. We’ve decided to use the wall cabinets - shown in these photos - as part of the kitchen remodel. The Hawksbill Cabin kitchen is galley-style and short on storage, so these will double what we have in there. We will mount them on the stone wall above the sink, under the new windows. Their “streamlined” shapes will fit right in with the new countertop and mid-century style of the house.

We also have the two base cabinets. No plan yet on what to do with these.

While we're on the topic of renovations - part 1

The post yesterday reminded me that I have yet to write about a second project – a larger one – that is imminent. For most of the summer, Mary and I have been putting together the ingredients for a kitchen remodel at the Hawksbill Cabin, and finally everything has come together.

While a dishwasher is installed in the kitchen, it has been out of commission since we bought the place. On a whim, when we were at the H-burg Home Depot (best Home Depot anywhere, I’ll say it again!), on a whim we went over and took a look at dishwashers. Even though we only use it when we have company over for dinner, maybe five or six times a year, we decided that we would go ahead and replace the appliance this summer, and finally bought one in July.

We also had spied a vintage Formica pattern, “coral boomerang,” that was available as a custom ordered counter top. Here is a photo of a restaurant installation. On our July buying trip, we went ahead and ordered this for the kitchen as well. Since it had to be fabricated, we didn’t expect to get word it was ready until the fall.

Next week, I’ll be on vacation and I am planning to spend most of the week at the cabin – at least based there, since I plan to get in a couple of day hikes down in the SNP Southern District, as well as a visit to Waynesboro for some AT-related sightseeing. We had set Tuesday, September 8 as the day for the dishwasher installation.

On Monday evening we got the call that the new counter top was ready, Mary quickly called and arranged for it to be delivered on Tuesday with the dishwasher. Then she called Jesse, who’s available to install it on Wednesday. Everything is good to go so far, right? But, a counter top and dishwasher do not a kitchen remodel make, so there is more to the story – I’ll have to finish tomorrow...

Floors and Doors

We still have a long list of home improvement projects at the Hawksbill Cabin, and we get to them as we can. It's basically a function of money - the two labels about big projects and small projects will show that we've taken on quite a lot of them, including some that were very expensive, over the two years so far - but also, Jesse, our general contractor, stays very busy in the Valley so we have to wait until we come up in his queue.

There was old linoleum tile in the main hallway of the addition. It was probably the original floor. The immediately previous owners had haphazardly installed a second layer in one area and painted over the tiles for the entire length of the hallway. Replacing the tile with Pergo or a similar floor was the plan.

I should note that we considered using alternative, sustainable materials for this purpose - including bamboo and other products. Their costs were approximately double that of the beech block we chose, which ended up being on sale at Home Depot, and comes with a 15-year warranty. I still chalk the availability and distribution issues up to an emerging market for "green" products, there is a lot of talk and great products and technologies, but the supply chain issues still preclude their widespread adoption.

Also, somewhere along the way the doorway to the master bedroom had been removed, and there were never any doors on the hall closet. We'd gotten by on the bedroom door, and hung curtains over the closet.

We combined the doorway installations with the floor to have a two-day project for Jesse, and last week we finally got them done. In the progress, he hid the phone cord that used to run down this hallway behind the molding and thresholds. Really a job well done, as always.

The Valley, Obscured by Clouds

Mary took this photo during a walk on Saturday, she was out at the cabin while I stayed back for some much delayed errands. Apparently a cold front rolling through pushed the brooding hurricane offshore.

We've got a little work starting this week on the 2009 projects: Jesse is coming by to install new Pergo flooring back in the hallway of the addition. In a couple of weeks, a new dishwasher is arriving, and shortly after that, a special order, vintage Formica countertop in the kitchen. A few new cabinets in there, and most of the year's interior work will be done.

Saturday Chores

After heading out to the Hawksbill Cabin on Friday night, we got up early so we could run some errands on Saturday. Mary wanted to pick up a few items at the Luray Farmers’ Market, and then we were due for a drive down to the Home Depot in Harrisonburg (the only Home Depot I will ever set foot in again – most courteous and knowledgeable staff I have encountered in one of these stores!).

We made our stop in Luray, but the two vendors we wanted to see weren’t there – there is a fellow that sells Page Valley honey and Mary wanted to get a few jars for hostess gifts, and there is a lady who makes wonderful beeswax hand soap that is scented with lavender that we really enjoy. With these two absent, we browsed the other booths, where Mary found some local jams to substitute for the honey, and from the same vendor, a nice bunch of asparagus which I grilled with corn and NY strips for dinner.

Then it was on to H-burg. I mentioned that Jesse, our general contractor, was out a couple of weeks back – we have a slate of small projects for him, including installing some folding doors on the hallway closet (we currently have curtains hanging there) and a new door on the master bedroom.
The bigger part of this group of projects is laying a new floor in the hallway, about 80 square feet. We were going to put down linoleum tile ourselves, but after shopping the Pergo we decided we liked it better. We’ve chosen a light colored Beech Block pattern, and we went down to Home Depot to buy what we needed. These photos are of the linoleum we were considering.

It turns out that a little more planning is due – there are several kinds of trim packages, including quarter rounds, leveling elements, etc., that need to be purchased at the same time to complete the installation. Because Pergo is a “floating floor” it is not mounted flush to the walls, as you do with linoleum. There is a quarter inch gap between the floors and walls, and this is typically filled with a silicon caulk-like project and covered over with the trim.

So we left without a purchase, just slightly better educated. We will work with Jesse to make the purchasing arrangements for the flooring, and he’s going to go ahead and start on the closet doors within the next couple of weeks.

Good karma, bad karma

It’s Friday morning, and I am still holding out hope for a canoe float on this vacation. Today is the first fully sunny morning we’ve had on the trip – yesterday, after I did my pool chores, it grew overcast and threatening rain so I ended up running banking errands down in Elkton. So much for recreation, but I am resolved to relax here on the brick terrace for a bit today.

That banking errand was the next step in a long story about our property line that I will write about as soon as the issue comes to final resolution. The lawyer tells us it won’t be long now.
The sun is rising in the sky so I’ve had to move my Coleman Max chair into the shade so I can see the computer screen, and I want to write some more about what I’ve been seeing in the front yard of the Hawksbill Cabin this week – at least the events of those times when the clouds have broken up and it wasn’t raining.

I’ve mentioned our hawks that returned to nest in the big pine, and now we have another pair nearby. I saw two of the birds soaring on thermals this morning; at last I can tell the difference between them and the buzzards that are sometimes around. I would have thought our local ecosystem would require more space for these top-line predators, but apparently our little hollow is rich and abundant enough for more of them.

Add to that our little snappin’ turtle nest, the little pair of house wrens that live under the pool, the pair of blue herons nesting over by the beaver pond, and the beavers responsible for that feat of engineering – and we have some very positive karma emitting from this little corner of nature.

Yesterday, Jesse came by to consult on some projects and he spotted movement in some weeds near the driveway. It turned out to be a little box turtle clearing out a nest, and there she was, laying her eggs.

Jesse didn’t notice the beaver pond until he was on his way out, and he offered to stock it for me. I know there are fish in there because I see the little wakes, but I just don’t know what we’ve got in there. If we were to procure something indigenous, like some trout, small mouth bass, or even some kind of little sunfish, my hope would be that we could establish a little school here. I don’t know how long beaver ponds last though, so I worry that our interference in the process would be very temporary.

This contemplation reminds me of a conversation from when I stopped by to see Howard earlier in the week. We talked about the splendor of what I see out front and compared it to what is going on in the backyard. “These things have a way of balancing,” he said.

Back there, we’ve had another black rat snake find its way into the laundry room. There is a photo here of the “shed” it left out on the back wall. “How do you know it was a rat snake,” you ask? They are climbers, and of the four or five species I’ve encountered out here they are the only ones that can climb like this. So when you visit, if I send you for an errand to the laundry room or to the back of the house, be sure to keep an eye out – and look up as well as in all of the other directions.

I don’t mind the black snakes for their being here, it’s just the surprise of finding them. I quickly get over it and set to work putting them back in their place, outside. But Mary gets the dry heaves when she sees them now. This is also mainly because of the surprise – my hypothesis – since she nearly put her hand on one turning off the main water valve a while back.

The other problem out back is this new paper wasp nest. We have the pest control coming out to take care of this later today; we will have them consult on a wasp infestation that we have found down at the pool cabana as well. I am also going to ask them to puff some Sevin into a few carpenter bee holes I found in the soffit of the addition – an area I neglected to spray earlier this spring. Once the bees are gone, I will fill the holes with wood putty, and I may install my carpenter bee chamber there, too.

So there you are, the balance at work: all of the beauty and wonder of our front yard, and the treachery and danger of nature in the back. Maybe there will be a change in a few weeks when the bee balm blooms, but at that point I guess I’ll need to keep an eye on what’s going on out front.

Mary's Rock - a not so easy day hike

On Saturday, we decided to head up into Shenandoah National Park for a hike. We started off on the assumption we might go to Dark Hollow Falls or to the Hawksbill Summit, two favorites, but once we got to the Park we were warned about crowds. So, knowing that the Panorama parking lot was recently reopened, we thought we might finally try Mary’s Rock, which is immediately south of the Thornton Gap entrance.

Our general contractor, Jesse, had recommended the hike a few years back when we first started working with him (for a reminder of Jesse’s work, check out the label “Big Projects”) – he described Mary’s Rock as a “right nice walk” – so we were looking forward to trying it someday. We were waiting for the construction around Panorama to finish up.

Accompanying this article are a couple of highlight photos from the route up. The trail is essentially the AT, so it is well marked and very well constructed.

Also, the “Best Easy Day Hikes” book includes Mary’s Rock as one of the hikes. What we didn’t know, and what Mary will be surprised to learn, is that there are actually two routes to the summit…and the Panorama route, which we took, with its 1,200+ feet of altitude gain, is the more difficult route. That makes for a steep 2 or so miles, which explains why we found it so challenging.

A downside of this hike is it's proximity to US 211 - like the other highway that transects the Park down in Elkton, it is a favorite route of motorcyclists. The noise of the vehicles follows you up the first half of the route...after a turn in the path, the mountain is between hikers and the highway so it's a bit quieter. I've written about this before - in the Park, since AT routes are rarely far from Skyline Drive, the noise of motorcycles is a constant harrassment to other Park users.

I’ll post a follow-up tomorrow with views from the summit.

Chimney Cap Repair

A couple of weekends back, I noticed that the stone at the top of the chimney inside the house was wet. The fading hurricanes had passed through and put in so much rain – I wasn’t surprised to see moisture. But with all the roof work last year, of course we were concerned.



So we called our friend Jesse, the official general contractor for the Hawksbill Cabin, and asked him to take a look…above there’s a “before” picture of the chimney cap, taken last Spring. Jesse found some cracks in the masonry, and of course the futile repair jobs of shingles and corrugated roofing.




He removed all of that stuff and did a little mortar patch with some leftover concrete from the pool job. He also painted the top of the chimney. In the “after” pictures – all is much better.
There are more small projects to come this Fall, I’ll be posting on them soon.

Summer 2008 Projects are Coming Together

We set out plans for three big projects this summer, and they are finally getting close to ending. The interior work - new tongue and groove paneling in the addition of the cabin, specifically the ceiling and wall in the main bedroom, were done in May. Since then the work has focused on the outside, on relaying the brick terrace and doing prep work for the pool repair. Jesse managed both of these projects.

Some earlier posts showed these new stairs leading down to the pool. They were the elements of the first of our two concrete pours...this one included replacing the footer of the retaining wall near the pool.

This photo shows the retaining wall as well as the new terrace area by the pool. This area was previously brick pavers laid in a thin set of concrete. Now it's completely a layer of concrete. Just out of view, the wood deck remains on the left side of the pool.

We decided to have a new roof put on the cabana. It's pretty close to transparent, although that won't last, but for now it makes for a bright changing room...bright enough to see a snake skin laying in a pile of leaves on the floor, that is!

Here is the pump and filter assembly on its new concrete pad. The electricity needs to be hooked up to complete this. With the water in the pool - I'll post about that tomorrow - times a wastin' getting this thing turned on!

The Big Projects are Really Coming Together

A few weeks ago, when I was walking down to the pool to show Daris around, one of the logs in the little stairway came out of place. We decided that we needed to add this to the project Jesse was working on - the brick terrace. Here are the old logs, lying in one of our poison ivy patches.

And the second photo here is of the new steps in progress - designed from retired railroad ties. We are going to put a four-inch concrete pad in each tread of the stair way. Here you can see where the area around the stairs is overrun with another kind of ivy, with some hostas and a magnolia mixed in - not to mention the old barbeque that is not in working order.

The next two photos are of the steps down to the pool level, after you enter the gate. We removed all the old planters that were here to give more room. I think the stairs may be a little steep, but there was nothing here before, so it is an improvement.

And here is one of the new footer at the base of the retaining wall - again replacing the planter that was there before. Two notes on this one: 1) there was a four inch layer of concrete under this wall bolstered by the planter, so we were glad to find that out in the progress before putting the new footer in; and 2) because we couldn't bring a truck in for this job, the guys had to wheelbarrow 80 times with the concrete for this footer!

Here is a quick perspective on where the new footer is, and a picture of the retaining wall. That's the Hawksbill Cabin in the back - original stone portion! Pool is not in the picture, but it would be in the foreground.

Tomorrow's entry - pool equipment arriving!

Bringing the outside in

By way of an update, when we visited last week, Jesse had completed the brick terrace portion of the outdoor projects. The work included smoothing out and patching the gravel foundation for the terrace and relaying the bricks. Next steps include putting in new steps down to the pool and clearing out the planter at the base of the retaining wall, then repointing that wall.




These first two photos show the front door - a heavy dutch door, and the view out towards the terrace from the main room of the cabin. The floor of the main room is also brick, laid in the same herring bone fashion. It was a tenet of midcentury modernism to bring the outside in, often with walls of windows that opened to the outdoors. Although our windows don't work the repetition of the brick pattern accomplishes this.




Here are a couple of views of the newly relaid terrace, first looking out to the yard and drive. That's Sofie at the end, settling down for a nap - this is the spot where she saw her first deer, so now she spends a lot of time keeping vigilant from there.

The second photo looks in the same direction, showing our outdoor breakfast set up and the wall of windows in the main room.