Home Improvements

THIS MORNING I WAS GREETED BY A SURPRISE VISITOR: a 4-foot foxglove in sudden, outrageous bloom in the woods just beyond my property line. Reading up on it, I came upon the phrase “naturalistic woodland garden.” That’s what I want to create here; that’s what’s suited to this site, which, though south-facing, has very few spots for plants that require full sun.

Shade-tolerant and deer-resistant will be my watchwords as I figure out what to plant. Columbine is easy, self-sowing, as I learned upstate. Meadow rue I’ve never tried, but here in Zone 7 I might, along with chartreuse bursts of spurge, which I love (hope the deer don’t) but have never had any success with.

Yesterday, with the help of a pickax-wielding friend, I did further battle against wisteria roots, uprooted overabundant barberries, moved ferns out of the area where I want eventually to put a patio and into what I call the ‘fern glade.’

Over the past few days there have been quite a few vital home improvements. I now have HEAT, for one. Yes, it’s June, but on Tuesday, when Charles the plumber made my furnace operational for the first time since I got here in mid-May, it was chilly and raw, and I immediately put the thermostat up to 70 and basked in the warmth. (That was too warm; I soon put it down again to 65.)

Thanks to Tom the electrician, I now have a light at my front entry. I have a washer and dryer – oh, the convenience – and a stove. The refrigerator question is still open; Sears is coming to pick up the noisy Whirlpool beast on Sunday, and I will replace it with something quieter and more high-end, as soon as I can focus on it.

Read up on foxgloves here.

House Progress

DAY 2 OF GARDEN CLEAN-UP by Tri-R Services, otherwise known as Marcello and his crew. There’s been a lot of sawing, chipping, weed-whacking and leaf-blowing – in other words, noise. They seem to be doing a wonderful job of reducing my overgrown Eden to a pared-down version of itself, minus a few dead trees and the wisteria that had, in some cases, literally strangled trees and shrubs to death ($800 just for the wisteria).

My overgrown Eden

Of course some of it will come back. They can’t have gotten it all. But I can deal with wisteria from the ground – I can’t reach 100 feet into the trees.

Tomorrow the shed goes. It’s actually kind of romantic, like Robinson Crusoe’s hut, sheltered by an old low-hanging cherry tree (not the flowering kind, apparently), which I’ve been agonizing over. First I asked Marcello to cut it down, since one of its three trunks is broken and with just two it will be hopelessly asymmetrical. Then I decided they should just prune it, because it’s graceful and dramatic and the well-established bed of ferns underneath — my favorite feature of the garden — won’t be happy suddenly exposed to full sun.

Last day

(Re the shed: I went to the Town of East Hampton Building Department and, on the advice of locals, looked up my property  records to make sure the shed was on the survey they had in their files, so that I can replace it in future with an equal size structure if I want to. It is. I hoped to find out when the house was built, but all I discovered was that it was erected “before adoption of zoning,” which happened in 1958, I was told. Also found out that the previous owners were here nearly 40 years. I hadn’t known that. Somehow, it makes the house feel more loved.)

Somebody loved this house

Inside, I’m puttering around, making things looks homey on a budget of zero. I counted 15 existing pieces of furniture I’ve kept and am using. A surprising amount of the rest is things I found on the street in Brooklyn.

Zero-dollars decorating

Table and chairs were here

I ordered a stove and fridge from Sears. I was salivating over the blue Smeg for $1,700 but decided on a white Whirlpool for $400. It’s small — 9.2 cu. ft. — but I didn’t want a monster in the room. I’ll paint the lower cabinets blue instead. The stove is electric, a first for me. But there’s no gas in the house and I don’t want to bother with propane - where to put those bulky tanks? It’s a Kenmore with a radiant glass cooktop, black, no beauty and $1,100 by the time all is said and done.

Randall Rosenthal, a well-known artist who lives across the road, painted my porch ceiling, I'm told

Note the rhododendrons, not the condition of the roof

Approved! The Latest on Springs

BACK IN DECEMBER, I started this blog with a post about my search for the ‘perfect’ beach (or country) cottage, and took you along on some of my house-hunting forays to the North Fork and Hudson Valley.

In January, I saw a 1950s cedar-shingled cottage on half an acre in Springs, a hamlet a few miles north of East Hampton on Long Island’s South Fork. I went to contract on it in early March, applied for a mortgage, and while I was waiting, shared my doubts and what-ifs in another blog post.  (There are a few pics of the interior on that one, and also a couple here.) I finally got mortgage approval Friday  — it took more than a month — and I expect to close soon, perhaps within the week.

The going has not been all that smooth. Reaching a price with the seller wasn’t difficult. She had started out asking 450K; by the time I saw it, it had been on the market about 9 months and was reduced to 400K. The real estate broker told me she had accepted an offer of 350K but that person had been unable to get financing, and then the market crashed. So she took my offer of 320K.

Now I’m told that someone is waiting in the wings to pay more if I back out for any reason, and it’s been implied (by my lawyer, no less) that the seller would like me to back out. Not gonna happen.

Not even since I found out yesterday that the boiler is way messed up, hazardous to operate, and requires a $2,900 fix or $5,000 replacement.

Over the winter, while the house was unoccupied, the plumbing pipes, which had not been properly drained by the owner (who is elderly and lives upstate), froze and burst. The plumber, whom the seller’s broker hired to repair them, stole the only furnishings of value from the house — an antique gate-leg table, a filigreed metal mirror, and a Victorian etched glass lighting fixture. The contract of sale stipulated that all furnishings be left in the house.

The broker called the police. The plumber confessed to having taken the items; he said he thought “everything was going in a dumpster.” The items have been returned, but the antique table is now broken, and I have no faith in the  sketchy plumber’s work ethic, especially since there’s a growing pool of water in the basement from two leaks the plumber actually created.

Below: My new garage, oy

When I first saw the house, the front door was stuck open — about a foot ajar — so that the house was open to the elements and potential vandals. It was “secured” by a handyman hired by the real estate broker, with the result that it is now wedged inoperably closed (fortunately there’s a back door).

But…but…but…I’m going through with it. I still like the place. When I was there on Friday with the boiler inspector and then an arborist (there are several huge dead trees that need to come down), it felt good to be there. It felt right. It felt me.

Am I over the moon about it? No. The cottage is far from perfect, though it’s sweet, and I think it’s a good investment. My interest rate will be under 5%, and the way I figure it, I’ll be able to use it a month each summer, if I want to, and still break even, if I manage to rent it out the rest of the year. Or maybe I’ll use it more; the monthly nut is well under $2,000.

I can see myself painting there (walls, not art), decorating, gardening, listening to music. I met my next door neighbor, and he’s nice. I seem to be surrounded by middle-aged couples from Manhattan, weekenders, who bought their places 30 years ago (and are still there, a good sign). I’ll feel safe.

It was quiet. Quieter than it has been on my previous visits, maybe because it was Good Friday. Very little traffic on the road.

Best of all, the arborist pointed out all the trees and flowering shrubs on the property. It’s very early spring there; the forsythia are not even blooming, and it’s hard to tell what’s what. I have five enormous rhododendrons that my neighbor says bloom magnificently; a rose of sharon hedge; a ginormous burning bush (I always wanted a burning bush!), stands of ferns and juniper; several specimen conifers with twisty trunks and droopy needles.

Everything is heavily browsed by deer, so many trees and shrubs are bare below the four-foot mark. On the plus side, that’s because the property backs up to town land; it’s very woodsy.

I have a fallen-down garage (or shed) to haul away, a boiler to fix, a chimney to repair, a stove and washer/dryer to replace. Such are the joys of home ownership.

Well, I wanted a project, and now I have one.