House Of Escher

Yay! I'm FINALLY posting pictures of my country shack... only a year after promising to do so. It has been dubbed "The House Of Escher" because the varying angles of walls, floors & skewed frames/casings inside might loosely resemble a M.C. Escher painting. Keep in mind that the original structure (built in 1939) is the small section that you see the mudroom/entrance tacked onto on the front (on the left in the picture below), it is also the only part on a proper foundation. All the other rooms sit on a combination of piers, posts, blocks and a slab. Every single room is an add-on and every room is a different age. The house has settled at strange angles and the back half of it sits about a half-foot lower than the front half. Some of the additions were put on after it settled. You all think I'm nuts for taking this place on yet? If not, you will need no further convincing after I post pictures of the interior... I just need to edit out all the dust, grime, vermin, bat-skyte-crazy repairs/"upgrades" and general threats to public health... which I expect will leave a perfect void in place of the original photographs.

East side, the small pine tree has since been removed, and the weird collapsing wood-shelter/whatever-it-is attached on the far right is in the process of being torn off. Note the 3 separate chimneys: I was told that every room used to be heated by a separate woodstove. These will eventually be torn out and replaced with triple-wall metal stovepipe.

South side: again, this section on the front was the original structure, a tiny cabin, now it serves as the kitchen area.

West side.

North Side

Creative engineering/architectural marvel of the 21st century. A toolshed... with a long roof addition to serve as a woodshed... and the sun-porch which was apparently cut off from a mobile home... sitting on the side of it. I've since torn most of the tattered plastic off and enclosed the front of wood-storage area.

Late 70s/early 80s(?) model of mobile home which came with the property. This will be deconstructed at some point within the next year or two and many of the materials will be re-used to upgrade the main cottage as well as the tool shed.


Northwest side


Front yard facing south, dirt road in the background


Main yard facing southeast from the house. The planter is an old hot-water tank which was cut open and welded to angle-iron legs. Some of my friends think it is either hilarious or ugly. I am keeping it because I love to see low-brow junk recycled into something useful.


Main yard facing east from the house. The brick fireplace on the left has since been torn out and replaced with a stone fire pit.


Back part of the main yard facing north. The picnic table and everything you see in these photos came with the place. The random well-tile-turned-flower planter has since been emptied and put on the well: an engineering conquest I am proud of because I did all of it myself using a rope, breaker-bar lever and a come-along winch to move it fifty yards onto the well (and it weighs at least as much as three of me).

"Not so bad" you might be thinking? It is way shabbier and mind-bending up close. These photos were taken in the first week of moving in last year. Much has changed since then: Many trees cut down, a lot of equipment moved around... piles of pallets everywhere... but a lot of the junk has also been consolidated or eliminated. A work in progress for AT LEAST the next half decade I think.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

...and feel a heck of a lot like winter. There have been several dustings of snow here, amounting to only a couple inches. There is nothing quite like waking up on a Sunday morning, having your day planned in a relaxed fashion... only to go take a shower and receive no water... finding that the intake pipe from the well has frozen because of defective heat tape. My friend Matt P. was incredibly helpful, he threw on his rubber boots and waded around in 8 inches of mud, water & ice... helping me to strip the old insulation off the pipe and put new heat tape & insulation onto it. We had the water working again by the time it was dark. Oh yeah, in latest news... I've taken on a couple of sublets (friends of mine, including Matt P. who is seemingly handy in all things home-repair related), it was another unexpected occurence that happened on short notice and due to dire circumstances in their lives, but it has been a blessing for all of us; Pepper included because he now gets more socialization and play time when I am not home. Speaking of which, he sends Season's Greetings to all of you!

Pic credit: My Dad

Uninvited Guest

Nothing enhances the ambiance of your recently-purchased cottage in the country like waking up in the morning and finding MUDDY PAW PRINTS IN YOUR BATHTUB.... paw prints which do not belong to your own cats or any other domesticated animal. Oh yeah, and then there are the raccoons fighting underneath your bedroom in the wee hours of the morning as well as getting into your recycling bins. I do believe it is time to purchase some chicken wire to skirt the house with!

Mea Culpa

"Why so long between posts?," you may ask. I have been busy from dawn 'til dusk since the last time I posted here. Every day I've been covered with sawdust, mud, grease, soot and probable toxins. The home I've purchased needs a lot of man hours to make it a pleasant living environment. Am I complaining? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! This has been just the thing to spring me out of the rut I've been in for the last few years. Even though the place is a dump I still feel fortunate to have it. The house will not be in any condition to receive company for months. I am trying to keep my mind focused on the end product of my efforts in order to stay motivated.

The previous owners left me enough cleaning products, shampoo, conditioner, and skin lotion to last a decade. On top of that I've found no less than 20 cans of bug spray in various locations in the house. I guess they really disliked bugs. They also apparently had an OCD-type of fetish for scotch tape because they put it on EVERYTHING!!!!... wrapping container covers with it, the wallpaper seams, tying together clothes hangers with it... and that's just the tip of the iceberg... I even found a set of brass butterfly windchimes on a mobile and every component of it was taped to the wall behind the kitchen curtains. My camera is still with my sister and I will post pics as soon as I receive it.

Container gardening has been my idle pursuit between major household projects. Nothing fancy or extensive this year... just some tomatoes, peppers, basil, marigolds, and whatever I've been managing to scrape together from the native plant offerings. This year will be the time to discover and mentally catalog all the various half-wild perennials & herbs in the neglected flowerbeds, next year will be the year for intensive shoveling, dividing, replanting and generally more intensive gardening on a much larger scale. I would like to preserve most of the species that currently exist on the property, but they will need to be moved and organized better. So far I've found: peonies, rhubarb, some bizarrely-monstrous species of mint, more irises than I'll ever be able to pick, day lilies, lilacs (purples and whites), rhododendrons, azaleas, hostas, comfrey, astilbe, lysimachia (creeping jenny), daffodils, narcissus, tulips, periwinkle, and the list goes on.

AGAIN, MY APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE WHO HAS WRITTEN TO ME WITHOUT REPLY!!! My internet access is severely limited right now. I only get to check e-mail once a week lately and access from my house is currently slower than cold molasses.