Hamptons Reno: Paint, Tile, Elbow Grease

Beach plums in bloom

STEAMING TOWARD A MOVE-IN DATE of this Friday at my new/old house in East Hampton, N.Y. Yes, I know it doesn’t look move-in ready, and the fact is, I still don’t have water. But that’s my goal. The phantom plumber was supposed to come yesterday to hook up a couple of fairly important items, including a toilet, but he was sick. Fingers crossed for today.

I had two satisfyingly productive days recently. On Sunday afternoon, I put a coat of primer on the plywood floor in the dining/sitting room, above and below, soon to be covered by floor paint, probably white. Quick way to make the place feel cleaner and brighter.

This first required the painstaking removal of hundreds of carpet staples, most with tufts of carpet stuck to them, a prospect that had been hanging me up for weeks. My daughter got to it last week with a pair of pliers, enabling the operation to proceed, and for that I am very grateful.

I spent almost all day Monday cleaning the house as best I could without H2O. That was a rather non-green operation involving broom and dustpan, the vac, Swiffers both dry and wet, spray cleaner, and lots and lots of paper towels. I won’t be happy until I get my rubber gloves into a bucket of hot soapy water, but it helped.

While I worked inside, Eric the tree man buzzed and chipped outside, removing tree limbs and a couple of whole trees near the house that posed a danger of falling. It’s not a dramatic change, but to me, the space in front of the house feels more open and airy. (Don’t go by these iPhone shots. I keep saying the place looks brighter, while the photos look terribly dim.)

The kitchen floor, below — 18″x18″ charcoal gray tiles — has been laid and will be grouted today.

This was the inspiration photo for the floor tiles:

The stove and fridge are being delivered later this week.

The contractor built a wooden base for a deep two-basin kitchen sink top that was left behind in the shed, below, following a magazine picture I showed him. I think it came out better than the picture.

Then I’ll have to say goodbye to all my helpers for a while and forge on alone for the next couple of months. The coffers have run dry, and all incoming funds will be going toward fix-ups at our mews house in Brooklyn. <–That link is to a four-year-old post; the rent has gone up. If interested, contact me at caramia447@gmail. The longtime renters are leaving, and the place requires attention and an infusion of cash.

By the way, anyone need a 9-1/2 foot long liquid propane tank, bottom? Once used to heat a now-disappeared swimming pool, it sits in the parking area like a beached submarine. I got a $4,000 estimate to take it away, so it won’t be leaving any time soon. It’s not in my way, but neither do I anticipate any future use for it. Do I have any takers?

My Wonderful, Beautiful, Not Bad, Very Good Day

WHAT A SATURDAY I had. Just about perfect in every way.

• Color is peaking in my own backyard, above.

• Eric the Tree Man is almost done taking down the big dying oak in front, below. That, plus some huge limbs that overhung the house, and one that protruded unkemptly into the street, are gone. That’ll be it for major tree removal.

• I went to 4 yard sales; the number has shrunk since Labor Day. I got nothing at the first three. At the last, I scored a load of gardening books for 25 cents apiece, terracotta saucers for under flowerpots 3 for $1.00, a clear glass urn perfect for a pillar candle $3, and an unused mint green rag rug, about 4’x6′, for $2. Whoopee do. Nothing is going to touch my yard sale triumph of two weeks ago, but I can still get a thrill from a Le Creuset pot for $2 or wicker chairs for $5, below.

• My daughter painted the front door. Can’t get enough of that Sailor’s Sea Blue.

• I took a drive down exquisite Further Lane, below. There are parts of this area I haven’t yet discovered, and that’s intentional. I don’t want the sense of wonder to end, so I’m taking it slow. Further Lane is quintessential Hamptons. You can buy a lot of landscaping and, well, land — acres of meadow stretching down to the dunes — given enough millions. The houses are plenty big, but you wouldn’t call them McMansions; they’re too good. They’re mostly hidden behind magnificently sculpted hedges.

• I went stone-shopping at Southampton Masonry on Springs Fireplace Road, below, looking at cut bluestone for a walk around the house. My thinking: buy the stuff, have a palette or two delivered, and then, one by one, whenever I’m feeling strong or help is around, move the stones into place, laying them directly on the compacted, sandy soil. My hope/fantasy is that they’ll settle in perfectly from people walking on them, and I’ll never have to go through that monstrous excavation/crushed rock/gravel/edging process that probably wouldn’t yield the kind of informal look I want anyway.

• No trick or treaters came to my door. I laid in a stash of lollipops but, admittedly, did nothing to encourage them.

Decisions, Decisions

THESE DAYS, I’M FACED WITH CHOICES I couldn’t have predicted a few months back, when I lived in a brownstone in Brooklyn.

They’re fun choices, not matters of life and death. Still, they are perplexing. For example:

• Fencing: how high? I’d like it six feet high across the front of the property, for a feeling of seclusion, but East Hampton says no more than 4 feet, and I dare not break the rules – they’re pretty fascist around here when it comes to fencing. It will be cedar, to match the house. But what kind of design – plain or cute?
  

Above: The McKinley from Wayside Fence: Rather whimsical, with those little cut-outs, but they’re not really going to be seen (they’ll be hidden behind my ‘mixed hedgerow,’ which is in the pre-pre-planning stages), so do I want to bother with that little detail?

• What kind of gate across the driveway-to-come? Big enough to drive through, or merely to walk through? When it comes to deer fencing on the other three sides of the lot, I *am* planning to break the rules. Nothing short of 8′ will keep those big bucks out. But that’s wire and in the woods, less likely to attract official attention (I hope no Town people read my blog). I’ve had two fencing guys here — both scoffed at the idea of applying for permits of any kind — and one estimate so far for the deer portion: $4,200 for 470 linear feet. Is that good or bad? To be determined.

• Driveway: how big? What shape? I’m now thinking ‘parking court’ rather than driveway. I don’t absolutely need to drive up to the front door, so why not keep the car(s) tucked out of sight on the other side of my planned gate? I looked up standard driveway measurements: for two cars, a simple 25’x25′ square should do (got one estimate for about $2,000, including excavating 5″ deep and a layer of crushed concrete). I already know what kind of surface I want: gray/beige 3/4″ gravel — larger than pea gravel, which is squishy to walk on. Then there’s the edging question. I don’t want brick or cobblestone. Too urban. Steel would be functional, unobtrusive, and keep the stones from ‘migrating,’ but I could save a grand by skipping it. Would it be so terrible if a few stones migrated into the road or my forsythia hedge?

• Fireplace. Since I’ve now decided to stay here in the boondocks for the winter, a fireplace has become a must. Not a wood burning stove; this will be strictly for atmosphere and a bit of extra warmth. I’m ordering a Malm Zircon freestanding fireplace in white, left, from Design Within Reach. The decisions here are size — 30″ or 34″ wide? — and location. Which of two corners in my living room? Also to be determined.

• Tree removal is underway and going well. Decisions here have already been made (and these were life or death decisions, for the trees), with the wise counsel of Eric Ernst of Montauk, known as “Tree Man.” He and his son Ethan, 19, are out there buzzing their chainsaws as I type. Soon, my yard will be less five or six diseased, struggling, leaning, or unfortunately placed trees (and I will have lots of firewood and wood chips for mulch). A white oak that overhung the yard oppressively is gone already, as is a front-yard pine that got no light. Now its neighbor, a blue Atlas cedar, has a fighting chance.