Red, White, and Topless

On Tuesday, the waterproofing company
finished installing the French drains in our cellar.

That is a big Yay! but it will be awhile before we'll be able to move things back down to the basement.

Cement has to cure.  Like ham.  Only not as tasty.

Also on Tuesday, our sunroom got the spa treatment.

Power washing the exterior, scrubbing off the mossy bits, and Windex-ing all the glass outside.

Yes, that's the brave window washer up on the glass ceiling, which isn't really glass

but some sort of poly-vinyl-somethingunpronounceable plastic filled with insulating gas,

that flexes when people walk on it, and that's why everything is covered in plastic inside.

Like so:

Because when window washer guy was on the roof, and the roof got all wobbly, this happened:

Yes, that's water, folks.  We had to leave the plastic on for 24 hours to allow the final drips to work their way through to the inside.

But our conservatory is lovely and pure white again, and all the doors and windows adjusted

and working just as they should, and everything ship shape and Bristol fashion.

I'm getting all nautical now, in readiness for my next white picture:

Clams!

Clams, dug right in front of our beach house on eastern Long Island, just this past Monday,

by these squatters, below, who are enjoying linguine with clam sauce, Long Island corn and Long Island tomatoes:

Not in the picture, my sister in law Doris, the family shutterbug.

                              Okay, they are not squatters.

That's my brother Kirby in red, son Matt, daughter Emily, and her husband Mike --

who was bitten by a crab that he was setting free from a trap.

Crabs have no manners.  None.  Ingrates, all of them.

The quaff of choice for a hot summer afternoon at the beach house is my Mom's favorite cocktail,

the Muttini.  Here, what looks to be a lovely batch of them.  Our squatters know how to live.

Kirby and Doris, enjoying a late afternoon break on the deck.

I can't tell you how much joy it gives me and my sister Peggy that our family is enjoying our family  house, and approves of the changes since April.  We've been kind of obsessed with getting it all right, and a little nervous, too!  And thanks also to Kirby and Doris for their contributions to the kitchen out there.  Every beach house needs a toaster, frying pans and -- maybe most importantly! -- a blender!

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Now for the Red and the Topless
 Our study this week is 80% storage unit, with boxes and oddball things like a wallpaper trough
and a pressure cooker, waiting to return to the basement . . . and 20% dressmaker's studio.

Anne is designing another show, another New York premiere, that requires Victorian style clothes.

The study is awash in billows of fabric and straight pins,
and an old auction-find dress form on which Anne is designing elements of the

costumes.  For this one, a solid dark red skirt needs an overskirt that can be a quick change for the actress.

I've been fascinated watching Anne do her work. 

I can sew, but I can't take long swaths of shapeless fabric and within a few hours end up with something beautiful and wearable.

I can make curtains without instructions or patterns, but who wants to wear them?
Other than Scarlet O'Hara maybe . . . .

Only as I recall, she didn't go topless.
(Anne just read what I wrote, and said, "Well, it might have helped her cause!"  Cheeky monkey.)   
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Mr Dion is not interested in any of this girlie stuff.

After all the hub-bub of the past two days, he has spent most of today asleep.

And who can blame him?

I have saved the best picture for last, so I hope you stuck with me!

It's a panoramic view of the cove off Long Island's
Peconic Bay, where our beach house is.

The wounded Mike took the picture from the dock, brave lad.

Our house is second from far left.  Click on the picture -- click twice! -- to enlarge.

 Wednesday Link Parties!  -- Cass



Visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday.  Click here!

For more summer REDS, visit It's A Very Cherry World for Wednesday Is Rednesday.  Click here!
And for heavenly whites, it's White Wednesday at Faded Charm Cottage.  Click here!



A Day for Walls, and the Great Outdoors!

It is Wednesday (although just barely!) and I am participating in What's On Your Walls? and Outdoor Wednesday. You can find the links to the lovely hostesses (thank you, Susan at A Southern Daydreamer, and Barb at Grits and Glamour) who have created these special blogging days, below, so you can visit and see what the other participants have been up to!

Outdoor Wednesday

What's On Your Walls Wednesday


On my walls? Right now, paint, mostly. I haven't hung much in the way of framed things. But the paint? Whoa, baby, that gave me fits.

If I added up all the paint Howard and I have slapped on walls, I'd have -- well, I'd have one heck of a lot of paint. So, when we bought That Old House nearly a year ago, we figured we'd paint it ourselves.

All ten rooms of it.

One room later (in a Sherwin Williams soft green I can't remember the name of) ...

. . . and realizing that there were still 9 rooms to go, my husband suggested to me that the sweetest words in the world are not "Your Ebay item has been shipped," but ... "Pay the man!"

For the first time, we hired painters. Bliss and terror, in one fell swoop.

Bliss, because Danny and his crew gave an amazingly affordable quote for stripping wallpaper, fixing old plaster, and painting. Terror, because Danny handed me the enormous and intimidating Benjamin Moore color fan deck, and said, "Choose your colors. By tomorrow morning."

Yikes! I love color. I am a color junkie. But to choose so many colors from weensy little cardboard rectangles . . . scary stuff!

(The painters used the empty kitchen as their home away from home.)

I begged and got 2 days to make my choices. While Danny and the crew tore off wallpaper, patched, spackled, sanded . . . I sat at a tiny table in our conservatory and pored over those Benjamin Moore colors.

Here's what I finally chose, and what is on my walls!

Our front hall, above. To the left, the parlor in progress. The hallway is Moore's HC-45 Shaker Beige, which we used for the stair well and upstairs hall, also. You can see our red dining room through the doorway, in 1300 Tucson Red. More of that room is here.

Below, the parlor, in its new coat of HC-44 Lenox Tan. Surprisingly, Lenox Tan, Shaker Beige and Tucson Red are among Moore's most popular colors. I had no idea. My daughter Anne says I must have common tastes. Aren't children delightful? Well, she was kidding. She was. Really.

Now... up the front stairs...

The upstairs hall -- you can see the progress. Wallpaper down, walls under repair, spackle and primer on ... and finally the finished hall with its fresh clean paint!

This is the back bedroom, our official "guest room." It started as an aggressive lavender -- two shades -- with a wide floral border. It is now a clear pale yellow -- 198 Cornsilk. I love yellow walls; they make antique wood glow.

The hall bath. It is wearing a fresh coat of HC-143 Wythe Blue. This is a slightly more intense shade of HC-144 Palladian Blue -- the color we put in our master bedroom.

The front bedroom, nominally our daughter Alida's room, although as she is living in California for 5 years of graduate school, it is actually another guest room. It is painted in 015 Soft Shell, a pink that flirts a bit with peach. Very pretty color!

Not shown: my daughter Anne's rooms; she has two connecting rooms across the hall from the pink bedroom, but they are not yet painted. Anne wanted to do them herself. Yeah, that's worked out well. We are negotiating. As for my kitchen, it was due for renovation this year, but we are postponing it; I will live with its gold-ish walls for awhile longer.

Because of all the colors, I used the same paint for all of the woodwork, I-79 Atrium White. I am happy with my color choices, but oh my! I much prefer the usual system -- pick your rugs or fabrics first; you can always have paint mixed to match!

Now... for Outdoor Wednesday ... you can read the explanation, or just skip down to the pictures and enjoy! They are of Corey Creek, an inlet off Peconic Bay, and taken from my parents' front lawn.

Long Island is shaped like a fish, sort of, with its far ends slanting north and east into the cold Atlantic. The two "fins" at Island's end are called the "Forks." The South Fork is home to the fabled and gorgeous Hamptons, with wonderful fishing and farming, a rollicking social scene, and of course -- Ina Garten.

The North Fork is a much smaller land mass, and quieter than its riotous cousin across Peconic Bay. Dozens of vineyards and wineries have rescued the farming business (the climate and soil are almost identical to that of France's Bordeaux region), and the pace of life is slower, and I think sweeter.

In the winter of 1969, my parents saw a classified ad in the Sunday New York Times for a waterfront summer house in Southold, on the North Fork; they drove out and bought it that day.

In the 40 years since, the little house was expanded once, then twice, then again, and then in 1991 it was torn down completely, and my parents built their dream retirement place, a three story house with plenty of bedrooms, multiple decks, and a water view from every window.

This is what you see from their front lawn:
Now, to me, that is the Great Outdoors!
Thanks for visiting!