Journey To The Center  

It’s been awhile since I wrote about how things are going at the Round Hill house. This has been a big summer here. A lot of work and a lot of money spent on the house, but all for the good. When I arrived here this season, there were pieces of shingles scattered on the front lawn. The roof was badly damaged on the east side, having taken a severe blow from the crazy winds that swept through Nova Scotia in late March. I immediately realized that there was no way that I could repair the damage and the roof had been reaching the point of replacement anyhow. I began searching around for a roofing company to repair the roof. All roads seemed to lead to the same local company, so I gave them a call and they visited to give me an estimate. It was not going to be a simple shingle job as the roof is fairly complex and my own investigations in the attic revealed that there were a lot of rotten planks that would need replacing. Anyhow, I went on a waiting list of houses that needed roof work this summer – many due to the same wind storm that wrecked my roof, and then the tropical storm aftermath of Hurricane Arthur. In the meantime, I put plenty of buckets around the attic to try to catch as much of the water that was pouring through areas of the roof. At last, a bit over a week ago, I got a call saying that the roofing crew would be able to start on my house if that was okay with me. I was more than happy to welcome them to begin work. It took about a week in total, but now the house has a great new roof. I’m very pleased. They did a really nice job of the tower — which is actually a rather scary thing to work on — and they even got the whale back in place after.

Of course, while all of the above was going on, I was busy with house projects too. One of my first projects for this year was to scrape and paint the floor of the downstairs guest bedroom. The hardwood is old and ripply, but I decided it was good enough to leave down, so I got it cleaned up and put down a couple of coats of paint. Above is how it looks. The perennial garden is just beyond the window.

Another big project for this year was to paint the floor in the front entrance hall. It’s actually a fairly large room. I painted the floor with an blue background and then began adding figures similar to those found on old mariner’s maps — mainly fanciful sea creatures. Above and below are a couple of the paintings. There are already several more and I have more to add before I’m finished.

In addition to all of the painting, I added more perennials to the flower gardens and also put in a pretty large vegetable garden. Then there has been all the weed whacking to do to keep the trails cleared around the property — of which there are many up and down to the river.

My other big project was to put down a 25 square foot tiled area in the front entrance hall (photo below) — I chose tiles appropriately named “Sand Dunes” to represent a beach on the edge of the mariner’s map floor. I’m pleased with how it turned out. It’s a great improvement over the punky, rotten, sagging floor that used to be there!

There are more projects remaining for this year. I have to repair a badly damaged plaster ceiling– the result of water coming in through the damaged roof. I’m also currently at work plastering the walls and ceiling of the last unfinished room of the house. It should be nice once completely done. There are more projects as well, but I’m not sure if I’ll manage to get every one of them finished, but my track record is pretty good.

As another summer comes to a close, it seems an appropriate time to look back on the house as it appeared when I first arrived here in Round Hill in April 2010 (see below – click on all photos for larger views).

What do you think? Four summers of plenty of sweat and elbow grease has made quite a difference! When I first arrived here, the old place was in a shambles. As many of you may remember, I bought it sight unseen other than through photos and video clips. Upon arrival, I wasn’t dismayed. In fact, the state of the house barely registered as I was still in that peculiar state of seething fury that sustained me during the first three or so years after Don’s death. Perhaps it’s good that I felt that way. Otherwise, I might well have abandoned this project as there was just so much to do in order to make the house even passably inhabitable. The truth is that living here has been a pretty spartan existence. Fortunately, that didn’t bother me much. Most of the time, I was entirely oblivious. I expect that my few-and-far-between visitors wondered if I was off my stick for staying here. Well, perhaps I was.

Anyhow, things are better now. Great strides have been made this summer. I won’t go into a detailed enumeration, but suffice to say that the house is looking and feeling much happier these days.

And, things are finally to the point that I’ve even been inspired to get creative – painting floors and fish on doors – and so on.

One of the nicest projects was to get some new windows for the brook side of the house. The best of the original windows could then be added to those that I had been rebuilding for the front of the house. When I arrived in 2010, most of the front windows were a rotting, unsalvageable mess. However, now with the extras, I was able to assemble enough for the three front windows. I even had enough of the rippled antique panes of glass to fill all of the upper sashes. They look wonderful from inside the house – like looking out into a slightly watery impressionist painting. In daylight, the same panes throw beautiful shadows and reflections on the interior walls.

The collapsing cellar entrance is now well shored up with concrete and reinforcing rods. No longer must I worry about a cave-in on the way into the basement!

All in all, it’s been a terrific summer — between playing music with friends, cooking up the bounty of the prolific vegetable patch, and seeing the completion of a number of projects. It’s all been good. The forlorn old house has grown into a much happier place.