Retrospective

Daniel pointed out that we are entering our third Christmas at DeJoux house.  One good thing with the blog is that it gives you a perspective on how far things have actually come.

The house we bought in November 2009

Two years ago the house was totally overgrown and the vines grew over the house

The vines and still to be discovered Mow Door

The property was impenetrable and even walking around the house was difficult.   The view from the porch and to the north of the house gave the best sense of "June's Jungle" as the tenants used to call it.

The view from the porch towards the lake - we still didn't know how big the lake was.

North of the house - where my kitchen garden is now.

So this was how we entered our first Christmas...beating back the jungle.  I started on the north of the house. The second week of December was our first week at the house.  We discovered a beaver had made his home in the pond and was eating his way through our Willow trees.   That was our first challenge...getting rid of the beaver.   The history started finding us the first week we were at the house.  We found a huge amount of information at the Library in New Paltz including the map of the area and the date the house was built 1739-40.

So what happened a year ago - 2010/11?

Well, last year we had finished with the removals and the first round of work and were waiting for our contractors  Eight point (who were really great) to be available to begin the main construction.  We spend the winter by the pond and in the snow but over the holidays we were in England and did not update the blog: January 2011 post

This picture was taken January 8th 2011

We had heavy snow in January and Daniel and I had received snow shoes from Jack and Janet for Christmas.  We had not started the construction work as we were waiting for the contractors to be available.  The main construction did not start until March/April.  From the photo above you can see that we still had the rotting dormers and the back door was still a window.   There were still three chimney and the north of the house was still a little overgrown with the big metal aerial still leaning against the house.

We really have done a lot of work in the year.  We've reconfigured the whole house.  Re-wired and re-plumbed it -  making all the beams and infrastructure solid.  We've put in the conduits for the new 400 amp electrical service and the generator line.

The service superhighway
We lost a basement window but got all modern conveniences

We have new chimneys for the AGA and the center hall stove as well as an all new fireplace in the living room.  (We could not have had an open fire in the original chimney). And, as of the last two weeks, we have a patched floor, all new dormers and we are almost ready to seal up the walls.   (unfortunately we still don't have that huge hole in the floor resolved but that's another story!).

The new dormers

We are in the city this weekend for a number of holiday parties so will not be up at the house.  But things are moving well since Neil started working on the house.    IT WILL BE DONE.