Phase One on the Facelift of “a Magical House” Is Complete

Here it is, the tail end of summer, almost time for the plumber to come and winterize my very own historic Maine homestead for the season. Since the closing in mid-July, the workmen have accomplished the following:

• Dug a well. 
• Removed a chimney stack.
• Propped the foundation of the Anchorage.
• Repaired rot and sill damage from failed gutters.
• Scraped and painted the worst sections of the house.

I have deferred the next big job — putting a proper foundation on the smaller back house, otherwise known as the Cabin — until I get back up there to watch what the contractors are doing.

Speaking of contractors, Woodstock says that a check is arriving via registered mail for the work he never did. I haven’t seen it yet, but I remain hopeful. I did, however, get my tax bills. One of the siblings of the family that owned the house before me forwarded them to me with a sweet note welcoming me to the house “with open arms and an open heart.” A different sister, the one who arrived to sign papers at the closing, described the Anchorage as “a magical house.”

Some history may be useful here. The property was on the market 12 years, according to its current Realtor. Before the housing market crash in 2007, it had been listed for over twice what I paid. Apparently it was also in better shape. The family made numerous improvements to the back house, including the installation of all new plumbing. But they had given up on the foundation of both structures and let brush grow up around the Cabin. Weather beat down the roofs, and poorly installed gutters introduced rot.

They also disagreed, as siblings will, about whether the house should leave the family at all. Some prospective buyers wanted to tear down the Anchorage and finish off the Cabin. They wanted the place to remain as is.

My daughter and I choose the suite of rooms upstairs as our own apartment for June, before the seasonal rental market heats up and we have to vacate for our paying visitors. This section of the house includes a toilet at the end of a long corridor, a wash basin in the hallway, and two light-filled dormer bedrooms with a distant view of Eggemoggin Reach. The fact that the water closet has an arched and paneled ceiling speaks volumes about what makes the house so special. It’s a place where nothing is ugly, and most things are whimsical and charming. My room features framed selections from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, for instance. The banisters going up the steep staircase to the second story don’t match; one is black, the other white. This eclectic touch seems random until you realize that their railings mirror the black and white finish on the stairs themselves.

Both houses are full of neat surprises like that. I was immediately smitten. I’d seen a bunch of places that had good individual features, but over the years the owners had put their mark on them in ways that made the design feel incoherent. In one early nineteenth-century house, the original ceilings on the upper floor were less than seven feet high, yet the owners had remodeled a master bedroom on the ground floor to have the prosaic feel of a 1940s bungalow. Another house had a clawfoot tub seated on a platform in the bedroom. I loved the whimsy of that, but the tub was only five feet long — not ideal for soaking my almost six foot body. And though the tub was the focal point of the room, its location beneath the eaves felt cramped and a bit sad.

The Cabin and Anchorage need repair and restoration, and yet they are complete. The Cabin has such rustic charm that from the first time I wandered its circular layout, I  imagined myself, clad in soft winter clothing, walking from the kitchen with a cup of tea and sitting by the fireplace to do some writing. My Realtor remembers how I sank into the red chair pictured below and announced, “I want to buy this place.”

Meanwhile, another semester at Austin Community College is underway. Teaching sections of literature and composition to reluctant student writers is probably not the most efficient way to fund the restoration of a 200-year-old property, but I get to take six weeks of the summer off to go up and oversee the construction, and, for the time being, it pays my health insurance premiums.

The community college teaching also gives me enough time to supplement my income by writing ebooks and website copy. I began working this patchwork of different jobs after the divorce, so that I could continue picking up my daughter from elementary school and taking her to guitar practice and gymnastics rather than putting her in aftercare. But now I have to admit that I sort of like doing a little bit of everything: grading papers for a few hours, rushing to meet a client deadline, strategizing before administrative meeting at the College, tutoring students at a campus learning lab.

Nevertheless, it will be nice to slow down a bit. Focus on my writing. Get some goats and chickens.