DeJoux House

As always, the house is filled with wonderful stories of both past and present.  The last couple of weeks we really felt the house was no longer a building site (although work is still going on).  It started to feel like a house again.  Back to what it was but restored for the next 270 years.  The grounds too have been cleared and we really are starting to see the property restored to it's former glory.  The view from the porch when we first bought the house was a curtain of vines and vegetation and not a hint of the pond. Now, we have our own screened porch and we were entertaining Cindy Gallop on the 4th July.  As you can see, the view from the porch is very special. View from the porch  - 2009 View from the porch - Now Which got me thinking how the rest of the house had changed.  Fundamentally, the footprint and the structure of the house has not changed at all.  We've simplified, stripped out and stripped back to the fundamen...

We've spent the last few weekends at the house and slowly some of the finishes are coming together.  This suddenly makes the house much more livable and although the weekends are not "high glamour" they are comfortable.  We have airbeds in the bed rooms and hot and cold running water.  The baths are all functional and the UV filter is up and running so we can use the water. Running water and sink in the guest bath room ...and fully functional WC...LUXURY! This weekend's new feature was the fireplace surround.  Daniel has done a fantastic job taking some of the simple door header details from the book of 18 century Dutch Vernacular Architecture by John Stevens  (who visited and documented our house almost exactly one year ago) .    The mill work for the fire surround and the library is being done by two excellent local artists John Cox and Josh Finn . Fire surround panelling  Restored corner fireplace Our new livin...

(NB. This post was written while flying to Australia.  I couldn’t post it until I returned!) A few posts ago I talked about the Jorgensens and their rebellious daughter.  I must admit I was a little worried that Reid Jorgenson, their grandson, would read it and be offended.  Quite the opposite, this week I got a response from him in email correcting some of the mistakes I’d made about the family and giving us some more insight into the Jorgensens.   Reid wrote: I have to correct some info:     My Grandparents, Arthur and Lona Jorgensen, had four children, not two. Their names were Gordon, Reid (Sr.), Elizabeth (Betty) and Jean.  The youngest, Jean, would have been the rebel...I never knew of the wine stash, but my Grandparents did keep Sherry in the house, which they would break out (occasionally, not always) when close friends would come out from town for a visit.  Jean lived at the house, for a t...

We are settled in the guest rooms Two months have gone by so quickly since the last update.  Not surprisingly a lot has happened in that time.   Wow, we now have a flushing toilet and running water.  We have the geothermal heat systems up and running and all of the duct work is complete.   The beams and ceilings are complete and all of the upstairs plastering is finished.  The doors have been re-hung upstairs and although the floors are still covered until the plasterwork is complete downstairs, the house is almost functional. Daniel and I have been staying in the two guest rooms while work continues on the ceiling in the master bedroom. Putting up the ceiling in the Master Bedroom Now there's a story.  Originally we were going to buy some wood for the ceiling but Neil our contracting/neighbor said he would be able to get an old oak tree from his property milled for about the same price - $1 per square foot.   This sound...