Another exciting, we’re-getting-close communiqué to share today: the glass shower enclosure in the icehouse bathroom has been installed. While these photographs may not do the shower justice (a little bit of perspective distortion, perhaps?), the progress is worth trumpeting because it represents one more notable stride toward completion.
The glass and polished nickel shower enclosure looks ample in the snapshot above. It’s not. The entire building is diminutive, and the bathroom is super compact. The shower? Even more so! But for now we’ll enjoy the exaggerated perspective, a little eye candy to balance the snug proportions of the *REAL* (ie. not distorted by the mysterious magic of digital photograph) glass shower enclosure.
The photo below provides greater verisimilitude, and it helps orient the pedestal sink adjacent to the shower, a sneak peek at the bathroom as it will appear once complete (if we can manage to photograph this small space without continuing to distort dimensions and proportions, a challenge when quarters are tight.
Speaking of glass and nickel, I requested that Superior Glass Company (who templated, fabricated, and installed the glass shower enclosure) match the shower enclosure’s 1/2” clear tempered glass and gently beveled edges with glass shelves that we’ll be floating inside the garapa niche. Here are the shelves, ready to install.
Glass Shelves for Niche (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
I’m still sourcing polished nickel pins (or similar shelf supports) albeit unfruitfully so far. Soon I’m hoping to locate minimalist hardware finished in polished nickel suitable to support these rather stout shelves. Proportion is important, and so far I’m only finding undersized pins…
Child’s play, you say? Legos are a perfect proof of concept when it comes to children’s instinct to construct and then deconstruct, reuse instead of demolish.
Children intuitively understand adaptive reuse:
Legos teach reuse at a young age. You build, take apart and rebuild using the same pieces. You wouldn’t throw away your Legos would you? So why throw away your home’s valuable materials? (reusenetwork.org)
This quirky little video (published on Oct 30, 2009 by the Deconstruction & Reuse Network) is a clever reminder why we should practice more sustainable building and renovation. It’s not rocket science, folks. Reuse! The organization’s mission statement is:
We’re an environmental and humanitarian public benefit corporation, promoting and empowering deconstruction practices and the reuse of quality building materials 501(c)(3). (Source: Deconstruction & Reuse Network)
Too bad they’re in California! I wonder, is their an equivalent deconstruction, salvage, reconstruction, repurposing and/or reuse organization in our area? All tips welcome.
Rosslyn & Reuse
In the early months of Rosslyn’s historic rehabilitation, adaptive reuse was not only environmentally responsible (think green renovation and green building) and architecturally responsible (think preservation of historic heritage), it was also a sentimental inevitability. We inherited such a vast array of architectural salvage from the previous owners — installed and in-use in all four buildings, but also stored away in the carriage barn. Such treasures! We couldn’t even identify everything (mysterious artifacts surface all the time), but we suspected that some day, one day many of these items would serve us (and Rosslyn) well.
One of the items that we removed from the previous owner’s woodshed was a pair of Greek Revivalcolumns. They’re stored away in the carriage barn, hibernating, awaiting a creative reuse. Stay tuned for their next chapter. And, though most passersby are unaware, the flagpole mounted atop Rosslyn’s boathouse was once a sailboat mast!
Reuse is Child’s Play: digital watercolor derived from a video still (Image: Geo Davis)
Legos & DIY
In addition to the handy look at deconstruction and reuse, I also like the video above because it uses Legos. Legos! So accessible, and for many of us, so familiar. This ubiquitous children’s toy is one of our first introductions to the DIY way of thinking, subtly exposing youngsters to the idea of making, encouraging experimentation (and occasional failure) as well as reminding us then when it’s all said and done we can just deconstruct our creation back into its pieces in order to make something new. This ethos guides so much of Susan and my interest in and aptitude for what we call “greenovation” (responsible remodeling). We were both “Do it myself” kids, and now we’re a couple of “Do it myself” adults (who still feel like kids!)
Tucked into the folds of the icehouse rehab scope of work some accomplishments stand out more than others. The garapa paneling in the bathroom, for example, has been a long, slooow labor of love many months in the making. Many stages and many hands have shaped this initiative, so anticipation has been building for many months. The column flanked vestibule (and the bookmatched ash threshold upon which they rest) is different. I’ll try to explain why this installation is momentous for me.
Justin Installing Columns (Photo: Geo Davis)
[Let’s start with the] architectural salvage [of]… Greek Revival columns that we salvaged from Rosslyn’s future dining room back in 2006 in the early days or our renovation project. (Source: Architectural Salvage: Repurposed Columns)
Icehouses didn’t historically rely upon columns for structural support, of course. They were utilitarian buildings purpose built to preserve ice cut from lakes, ponds, and rivers during winter to ensure access to ice (and cold storage) during more temperate seasons. Icehouse design was practical. Embellishments like Greek Revival columns would have been impractical, perhaps even frivolous.
But, needless to say, Rosslyn‘s icehouse rehabilitation is not an historic preservation project. It is an adaptive reuse project. It’s heart and soul is relevance to us today. Think dynamic, multipurpose, vibrant. Think simple and minimalist, but beautiful. Think inviting. Think whimsical. Straddling an unlikely divide — home office (though I prefer the connotations of study/studio) and recreation/entertaining space — the icehouse we’re conjuring into existence will blend productivity, creativity, wellness, and the largely outdoor lifestyle that we favor.
Why, you might well ask, would we need two imposing columns inside the diminutive icehouse? While the question is reasonable, perhaps *need* is not the most appropriate evaluation. After all, adaptive reuse of a utility building originally constructed to fulfill a highly specific (and outdated) function obviously doesn’t *need* handsome embellishments for structural support. And yet the opportunity to re-integrate these historic Rosslyn elements into an otherwise utilitarian barn has presented a whimsical challenge that at some level echoes the unlikely marriage of work space and recreation hub we’re imagining into existence with this newest rehab project. (Source: Re-tuning Columns)
Just as fusing work and play in a single space might initially seem incompatible, designing a column flanked vestibule inside an icehouse might evoke concerns of incongruity. Fair concern. And final judgment will be for you to make once we reach completion.
Peter in Column Flanked Vestibule (Photo: Geo Davis)
And so as we stride toward completions of the icehouse rehabilitation I draw your attention not only to the finally repurposed columns that once supported a beam in Rosslyn’s dining room. Now let your eyes drift down to the floor, to the bookmatched ash threshold crafted byPeter from some of our homegrown stump-to-lumber hardwood. Yes, it’s breathtaking. And, yes, the charactered grain forms a large stylized heart (and an enormous grin!)
Columns, threshold, and header are finally coalescing in a long envisioned “spatial transition from the more intimate entrance and coffee bar into the loftier main room”. Witnessing this accomplishment after so many months of planning and anticipation filled me with joy. It affirmed hopes and plans, it rewarded a risky design decision, defining and framing two functionally distinct spaces without losing the transparency and porosity. It instills a playful unlikelihood in an otherwise mostly predictable environment. It filters light dramatically, adding sensuous silhouettes to an otherwise geometric linearity. It delineates without restricting. It is a suggestion. It is poetry.
And, although there’s more work to be completed before a final assessment is justified, I am immensely pleased with the column flanked vestibule. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Justin.
Reinventing Rosslyn’s icehouse as a hybrid home office and recreation/entertaining space has taken center stage intermittently since last summer (planning board and permitting) and continuously since last autumn (deconstruction and reconstructing). In fact, it sometimes feels like the icehouse rehabilitation has eclipsed just about everything else. This evening’s snapshot, our icehouse backlit by setting sun, appears to show the building emitting a halo of light. It kind of captures the vibes of this project in recent months!
Backlit Icehouse, May 5, 2023 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Backlit, Haiku
Old icehouse backlit; sunsetting a prior use, moon rising a new.
I’ve talked plenty about this project metaphorically backlit against the ideas of historic rehabilitation and adaptive reuse. And I’ve examined ways in which this latest chapter in a slow rolling renovation that’s been ongoing in one capacity or another since 2006 is backlit by our lifestyle choice to leave NYC and relocate to Essex. But I haven’t really developed the literal, visual impact of this charming building — my “Multipurpose Man Cave” — offset by the sun settling into the Adirondacks.
Backlit Rehab
But this deserves some ink. As too sundown and the gloaming as observed from the soon-to-be-complete icehouse terrace, patio, hot tub,… Still an unphotogenic construction site, there are never these moments, like this evening, when I get a glimpse of how things might look and feel by midsummer.
For now, no more ink. Just a backlit snapshot of Rosslyn’s icehouse rehab looming large, glowing, dramatic.
Today it’s commonplace in carpentry and construction to build with materials that are factory finished. In other words, raw materials (flooring, trim lumber, etc.) are delivered to a job site, pre-dimensioned, pre-surfaced, and ready for installation. While there are times (ie. custom windows and doors) that we rely upon the efficiency of offsite fabrication and factory finishing, the icehouse rehab has incorporated an extensive amount of field finishing — on-site material preparation such as re-milling garapa (upcycled from deconstructed deck) into wall paneling and transforming rough cut lumber into finished hardwood flooring — in an effort to repurpose surplus building materials and architectural salvage.
Calvin Field Finishing Woodwork (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In the photograph above, Calvin Cumm is planing poplar that was harvested and rough-sawn on property approximately a decade ago. We’ve “high graded” the well seasoned poplar, culling the best quality material for finish trim, stair treads and risers, etc. Although the amount of field finishing we’ve undertaken for this project has increased labor inputs and drawn out the timeline, it was one of the defining principles for our scope from the outset. There are quicker and less expensive ways of rehabilitating an obsolescent icehouse into a 21st century work+play hub. But adaptive reuse and upcycling and repurposing are challenges worth investing in as much for ecological responsibility and the enduring value of quality, custom construction as for the merits of collegial collaboration and knowledge-sharing. We habitually eschew “cookie cutter” renovations for creative, consequential challenges that encourage team wide learning. We’re as concerned with process as product. And we love adventures! Reasserting creative control over the ingredients as much as the recipe can yield surprisingly rewarding results. As much for us, the homeowner, as for the remarkable collaborators who’ve contributed to this project.
The past lives on in art and memory, but it is not static: it shifts and changes as the present throws its shadow backwards. — Margaret Drabble
I return today to a recurring theme, a preoccupation perhaps, that wends its way through my Rosslyn ruminations and my collections of photographs and artifacts. While the past lives on, the present riffs, repurposes, and reimagines the past. Adaptive reuse. Upcycling. Reinvention. Art.
Buckle up. Or pour yourself a cocktail…
The Past Lives On: NW Corner of Icehouse and Carriage Barn, September 21, 2021 (Photo: Geo Davis)
NW Corner of Icehouse
Before tripping too far into the wilds of my imagination, let’s root the present inquiry in something a little less abstract, a little more concrete. Like, for example, the northwest corner of the icehouse about a year and a half ago, September 21, 2021. That’s what you see in the photo above as well as those below.
I’ve titled this post, “The Past Lives On”, and if you’ve been with me for any time at all you’re well aware that Rosslyn, the property around which this multimodal inquiry circumnavigates like a drunken sailor, is rooted in the past. And the present. Starting out in the early 1800’s and spanning almost exactly two centuries.
I’ve pilfered the title from the quotation above, ostensibly the perspective of Virginia Woolf filtered through the mind of Margaret Drabble. The broader context for Drabble’s perspective is landscape. Let’s look a little further.
The past lives on in art and memory, but it is not static: it shifts and changes as the present throws its shadow backwards. The landscape also changes, but far more slowly; it is a living link between what we were and what we have become. This is one of the reasons why we feel such a profound and apparently disproportionate anguish when a loved landscape is altered out of recognition; we lose not only a place, but ourselves, a continuity between the shifting phases of our life. — Margaret Drabble, A Writer’s Britain: Landscape in Literature, Thames & Hudson, 1987 (Source: Ken Taylor, “Landscape: Memory and Identity”)
In the photo above I’ve recorded the exterior of the icehouse and adjoining lawn as it has looked since approximately the 1950s which is when we understand that a clay tennis court was built behind the icehouse and carriage barn for the pleasure of Sherwood Inn guests.
Actually, I’m slightly oversimplifying the contours of history. Given what I understand, the clay court was installed for Sherwood Inn patrons, but at some point in the decades since, the court was abandoned. Or at least *mostly* abandoned. The +/-10′ tall wooden posts for an enclosure along the northern end of the court remained until we removed them early in our rehabilitation. And one of the two steel tennis net posts will at long last be removed in about a week when Bob Kaleita returns to tune up the site for hardscaping and landscaping. But a long time ago the clay surface was abandoned and a perfectly flat lawn replaced it. We’ve enjoyed using it as a croquet, bocce, and volleyball court for years.
If you look at the bottom right of the photograph at the top of this post you can see that there’s a topographical bulge in the lawn, sort of a grassy hummock that is crowding the building(s). In the photo below you can again see how the ground is higher than the framing on both buildings.
The Past Lives On: NW Corner of Icehouse and Carriage Barn, September 21, 2021 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Not an ideal situation when organics (lawn, landscaping, etc.) crowd wooden buildings. Unfortunately the tennis court was built above the sills of both buildings, and inauspiciously close. Moisture, snow, and ice buid-up over the decades compromised the structures of both buildings because of this miscalculation.
Today, both buildings have had their framing rehabilitated, and their structural integrity is better than ever. In addition, significant site work last autumn (remember “The art of Dirt Work“?) and again next week is restoring the ground level adjacent to the icehouse and carriage barn to more closely resemble what it likely looked like in the 1800s when both buildings were originally sited and constructed.
A landscape altered. A landscape restored.
A memory recreated with the art of landscaping. The past made present. And yet, not. The new grade has been reimagined as an outdoor recreation and entertaining area not likely resembling the environs a couple hundred years ago. And so it is that the past “shifts and changes as the present throws its shadow backwards”…
The Past Lives On: NW Corner of Icehouse, September 21, 2021 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Present Shadowed Past
What if innocence, in a sense, is less unbiased naïveté than wonder-wander, curiosity, and experiment? Or kneading gray clay dug behind the barn, behind the garden, before the forest (but barely before) after summer rain forty years ago. Stiff and cold at first, loosening with touch, oozing through cupped palms and playful fingers, shapes suggest themselves. Contours and textures echo yesterdays unrecorded and likely forgotten but re-emergent, confections conjured of sodded clay, and curiosity.
The Past Lives On
Indeed, something endures, but rarely should we be confident that we are knowing the past as it was. As it once was. We are informed and perhaps sometimes misinformed by our perspective sometime subsequent to the archival echo we fixate upon. And yet, perhaps allowing for reimagination, adaptive reuse, and even ahistoric reinvention, drawing upon the artifacts and memories we inherit but investing them with whimsy and wonder is one of the best ways of rehabilitating the past. Art from artifacts…
In the snapshot above, Peter is trimming the top off one of two Greek revival columns deconstructed and salvaged back in 2006 when we rehabilitated Rosslyn’s dining room. Although our vision was to repurpose these bold design elements, to upcycle them some way, somehow, it wasn’t until undertaking the icehouse rehab (after postponing it indefinitely 14 or 15 years ago) that this capricious concept presented itself: use them in the icehouse!
Why, you might well ask, would we need two imposing columns inside the diminutive icehouse? While the question is reasonable, perhaps *need* is not the most appropriate evaluation. After all, adaptive reuse of a utility building originally constructed to fulfill a highly specific (and outdated) function obviously doesn’t *need* handsome embellishments for structural support. And yet the opportunity to re-integrate these historic Rosslyn elements into an otherwise utilitarian barn has presented a whimsical challenge that at some level echoes the unlikely marriage of work space and recreation hub we’re imagining into existence with this newest rehab project.
And soon enough, you’ll be able to witness the capricious way in which this pair of columns (and an understated entablature) not only help support the loft where I’ll be composing these daily dispatches in coming months, but also define and frame a spatial transition from the more intimate entrance and coffee bar into the loftier main room of this small building.
Offcuts from Re-tuning Columns (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Those geometric discs above are actually offcuts from Peter’s column re-tuning. while it’s easy enough for me to conjure these quirky concepts, and similarly viable for Tiho to translate my ideas into drawings, it is left to the alchemy of Peter and other finish carpenters to ultimately morph busily s and plans into reality. Thank you, Peter!
Tuning, Haikus
Re-tuning columns salvaged from a dining room, once deconstructed.
Sometimes a few fingers full of words best communicate a notion nebulous enough to wiggle free of prosaic paragraphs. And other times image, sound, motion speak sounder than words. So I conclude with two haikus, the more familiar variety above, and a quirky mashup below. Enjoy.
Time for a progress report on the garapa paneling that will soon embellish the icehouse bathroom. We started out gently easing the edges, but several iterations later we’ve settled on a full roundover. Here’s why…
Garapa Edge Profiles v1.0 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Roundover Rewind
Because the garapa upcycling backstory helps illuminate the decision to edge these boards with a diminutive roundover, let’s rewind the time machine. The garapa we’ll be installing in the icehouse bathroom as paneling began service at Rosslyn back in 2008 as decking, and it served admirably for almost a decade and a half, enduring summer feasts and foot stomping fêtes, winter snow and ice, and all manner of wear-and-tear. Last summer we deconstructed the deck, not because it was failing, but because the TimberSIL substructure was kaput.
Grading Garapa for Upcycling (Photo: Tony Foster)
After dismantling the old deck we sorted out the best garapa decking boards for upcycling; “cherry picked” and inventoried the best-of-the-best material to ensure sufficient linear footage for adaptive reuse in the icehouse; and then began the painstaking process of trimming, re-dimensioning, planing, and grooving the edges that will be conjoined with garapa splines during installation.
A little over a month ago Peter experimented with several profiles. He started by just barely breaking/easing the edge two ways: sand paper and a single pass with a hand plane at 45°. Too subtle. He eased slightly more and then a little more. He also tried a subtle v-groove (two micro-chamfers), and we finally settled on a full roundover. Both the chamfer and round over details were achieved with a handheld trim router and a super small round over bit.
Garapa Edge Profiles v2.0 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Why Roundover?
Why did I make this decision? Because the garapa is repurposed, it is charactered and irregular. Preserving this patina is important to the finished look we’re endeavoring to achieve. A subtle wabi-sabi story is being told not only in the varied lustre and texture of these boards, but also the handworked (ergo slightly irregular) dimensions. When installed there will be some variability in the thickness of the boards. The roundover will create a shadow line while accommodating the slight inconsistency from board to board, and the quarter round profile will be less severe than the 45° chamfer would have been. I’m hoping that it will all come together with a a subtle horizontal linearity that creates cohesion for the well worn wood.
Tony Roundover Edging Garapa (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Well Worn & Well Worked
It’s worth noting that the age and patina were showcasing with this upcycled lumber has only been made viable through the guidance of Hroth, Peter, and Pam and Tony’s devoted attention and immeasurable hard work over many months. I joke with Tony that he’s investing lots of love into transforming this material. From debris to centerpiece. In the photo above he’s roundover edging boards that he’s literally been working and reworking since last September or October. That’s a LOT of love!
Call it a 184-day streak. Or call it dogged determination. Either way I have 181 days to go until I reach my goal. And with each new post, each small victory, I am growing more and more confident that I will accomplish my mission of 365 posts, one complete year of daily updates beginning on August 1, 2022 and concluding on July 31, 2023.
So how to commemorate this midpoint milestone? With 6 months down and 6 months to go, it feels momentous enough to pause and praise my good fortune. But should this benchmark be acknowledged with a celebratory salute? A solemn ceremony? A toast, my first spirited sip after 31 days of teetotaling? (Yesterday marked the conclusion of my 7th or 8th, maybe even my 9th “dry January”.) Or perhaps a decadent dessert after a sugar free month? (For some sadomasochistic reason I’ve decided in recent years to add a sugar fast to alcohol abstention during the month of January, a timely recovery after the excesses of Thanksgiving-through-New Years…) A new month (ie. rabbit-rabbit) ritual transcending the delicious dinner I shared with Jim and Mark two nights ago at Juniper?
Slow Cooked Whole Rabbit: cumin, blood orange and smoked paprika glazed, corn tortillas, chimichurri, salsa fresca, refried beans (Source: Juniper at Hotel Vermont)
Maybe a romantic romp with my bride who suggested, upon retrieving me from the airport yesterday, that we celebrate a belated anniversary to compensate for the one we missed this past autumn when she was unwell. 17 years of marriage and 21 years together. I’m incredulous even as I type these numbers. Neither seems remotely possible. But my 50th birthday seemed similarly inaccurate this past spring, and I’m obliged to accept it.
Or how about we honor the 200th anniversary of Rosslyn’s front façade, ostensibly completed in 1823? (Apparently 3/5 of the building — the two window portion to the north of the entrance, as well as the entrance itself — was completed in 1820. The remaining 2/5, including the two windows to the south of the entrance and comprising the dining room downstairs, a guest bedroom and Susan’s study on the second floor, and another guest bedroom on the third floor, was most likely finished three years later in 1823, fulfilling the the architectural promise of this classic Federal home with Georgian and Greek Revival elements.
An auspicious confluence of milestones and anniversaries. I’m choosing to interpret this is a good omen even as I nevertheless acknowledge that I’ve meandered from my original mark, hoisting the flag at my halfway point, mid-journey in my post-a-day quest. I recall an earlier waypoint in this quest, an update I published on October 10, 2022 when I was still just shy of halfway to where I am today.
Yesterday marked ten weeks of old house journaling. Every. Single. Day. Two months and ten days back at the helm of this wayward, meandering, sometimes unruly experiment I call Rosslyn Redux. I emphasize the daily component of this benchmark because it’s been an important part of the goal I committed to at the end of July. (Source: Old House Journaling)
Then as now my emphasis on everyday journaling remains a top priority.
Over the last few years, Susan and I have scrutinized our hopes and expectations with Rosslyn. We have reevaluated our plans as they originally were in 2006 when we embarked on this adventure and as those plans evolved during the decade and a half since. It’s been an extended period of introspection, evaluating our current wants and needs, endeavoring to align our future expectations and goals with respect to one another and with respect to Rosslyn, and challenging one another to brainstorm beyond the present.
There’s no question but that our impromptu quarantine at Rosslyn during the spring and summer of 2021 catalyzed some of this soul-searching. But so too have the many life changes in recent years. Our gradual shift toward Santa Fe as our base and Essex as our getaway rather than the other way around. The loss of Susan’s mother. My parents’ retirement near us in Santa Fe. Our nephews and nieces growing up and expanding their orbits far beyond Rosslyn. A perennially postponed but driving desire to collaborate on a smaller, efficient, creative lakeside home of a different DNA altogether, an unrepressable will to imagine into existence the sort of slow cooked (albeit shapeshifting) and highly experimental homestead we originally envisioned in 2003-5 when we first began to explore our Adirondack Coast homecoming. And there is that hiccup in our 2006 original timeline, our 2-4 year vision for homing at Rosslyn until we’d managed to reboot and reground, until we were ready for our next adventure. Those naive expectations were eclipsed — willingly and joyfully — within the first year or two.
So what does this have to do with my daily Rosslyn updates?
Everything.
In committing to this daily practice last summer I was acknowledging that I had some serious work to do. In order for us to constructively sort through out collective vision for the future, to determine whether we’re too fond of Rosslyn to proceed with plans for designing and building the lakeside retreat we’ve conjured over the years, to honestly assess our willingness and our readiness to hand this sanctuary over to another family, both Susan and I are undertaking the sort of “deep work” that will hopefully enable us to make some decisions. I’m talking about 100% honest, prolonged consideration. Rosslyn has quite literally been a part of our family, and not just our nuclear family. Can we untangle her? Are we willing to let her go? Can we joyfully pass the privilege on to new custodians? Or are we not yet ready?
For me this daily practice, digging deep into sixteen and a half years of living and loving Rosslyn, is my time and place to work through these questions. To sort it all out. To find peace and confidence in my convictions. And six months in, I believe that I’m on the right path. Not all the time. There have certainly been some tangles and tangents that got away from me before I realized what was happening and reined them in. But the constant conversation — *internal* as I study, reflect, and compose these installments as well as *external* as I share these updates and then interact with many of you — is reinvigorating and reawakening Rosslyn from her comfortable slumber (and me from mine!)
So this midpoint milestone is a profoundly significant benchmark for me personally. It’s the tangible representation of my germinating confidence and clarity. It’s the measurable mean between a conflicted outlook and the conviction I’m hoping to discover over the next six months. In a real sense, it’s a halfway point toward the sort of rehabilitation that we’ve been undertaking with Rosslyn’s buildings and grounds since 2006, only in this case the journey is profoundly personal. Instead of historic architectural rehabilitation, it is restoration of my innermost wonder, my romantic dreams, and my idealistic hopes. With passion reawakened and a map forward becoming more apparent each day, I’m tempted to see this benchmark as the sort of celebration enjoyed upon finally reaching a base camp, a lofty peak viewable in the distance foreshadows the ambitious ascent ahead but also offers a majestic affirmation of the reachability and proximity of the summit. Today marks just such a halfway point, an opportunity to appreciate the accomplishments so far, and an incentive to forge ahead.
Carley, Contemplating 33% Ahead (Photo: Susan Bacot-Davis)
This is my 243rd Rosslyn update in daily succession. It completes an 8-month streak of daily old house journaling, the 2/3 mark in my quest to post every day for one year. I marked an earlier milestone — six months in and six months to go — with a summary of the aspirations guiding these posts.
With four months to go, I’d say this vision is still accurate, but the “mercurial transition / transformation we’re currently navigating” has received short shrift. The most psychologically probing (and the most elusive) of the subjects I’ve been exploring, it nevertheless gets sidestepped, dodged, abbreviated, and postponed.
And so I’m hoping to recalibrate in the weeks ahead, offering more perspective on our current state(s) of liminality. Dig deeper. Increase transparency. Invite you into the considerations and conundrums that we’re weighing. Big decisions on the horizon, and sometimes complex, sometimes conflicting feelings and ideas. Time for an open book…
Mixed Species Flooring Experiment: character beech and jatoba, a.k.a. Brazilian cherry (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Repurposing Rosslyn’s icehouse is an ambitious project within a diminutive space. On the one hand, it’s an historic rehabilitation of an obsolescent utility building into a home office/studio with lifestyle perks like a hot tub and firepit. It’s also an experiment in adaptive reuse: reinventing this no-longer functionally relevant building with materials cherry picked from 17+ years of architectural salvage, surplus building materials from several renovations, and a a carriage barn full of lumber harvested, milled, and cured on site from a decade and a half of restoration work in Rosslyn’s fields and forests. There are even a couple of personal objectives woven into the present project, but I’ll hem them in for now do that I can reflect on the mixed species flooring photographed above and below.
You’re looking at two different hardwood species in these flooring samples: beech (this batch has been selected for its “character”, patterned grain) and jatoba (a.k.a. Brazilian cherry). Both of these are surplus remaining from our 2006-9 rehab of the house, and either/both of them *might* find their way into the icehouse. I’ll explain more in due course, but today I’d like to narrow our focus to our preliminary “research”, experimentation with enough whimsy and creative license that it almost feels like playing around.
I’m referring to a sort of exploratory brainstorming, decidedly unscientific experimentation but curiosity-fueled artistic experimentation. The question we’ve begun to explore is what might be possible if we combined dissimilar wood species in the same floor? Could the beechwood and the jatoba hardwood flooring merge into an appealing design element? Would this experiment in combinatorial creativity contribute meaningfully to a unique, cohesive design?
Wondering and wandering into this experiment was made possible by Pam and Tony who pulled stock from storage, arranged patterns playfully, and sent me the photographs to ponder. And while there’s still plenty of experimentation ahead in this little mixed species flooring experiment, the creative cogs have begun to spin…
Sometimes the singing underneath surfaces in a timely manner. Good fortune allows the insights of Kathleen Kralowec to help answer this question. All of the following excerpts are drawn from her article, a wise wander that opens as if I’d written it myself.
This article, I warn you, is itself an experiment: a conscious act of wandering.
Kathleen Kralowec, “Why Artists Must Experiment” (Source: Medium)
Let’s wander a bit with Kralowec.
Recognizing an act as an experiment releases it from a lot of… demands of perfection. The outcome of experimentation is knowledge, and failure is just as valuable as success, because one has expanded one’s awareness of one’s own abilities, one’s deeper ideas, the potential of a media, a process, a genre, an art-form.
And so we play with beech and jatoba, experimenting and exploring, yielding to our curiosity, risking failure, but also possibly failing our way toward success.
Flooring Experiment: character beech (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Artists must experiment in order to find their way… because there is no other road-map, no other way to discover how best to navigate…
As creatives we must grow comfortable with the prospect of forging our own way, navigating by trial-and-error. Kralowec goes on to propose the notion of a creative/artistic studio as a laboratory. Experimentation — and this encompasses failures as well as success — is fundamental to the creative process. And so Pam and Tony and I plunge headfirst into our laboratory, experimenting, mapping the unknown.
Practice, or rehearsal, is meant to increase precision on an existing pattern of action. Experimentation takes us outside those repetitions, to unexplored territory, untried actions… Experiment is an open door, an invitation to do things that might not work, and its necessary for what we may as well call innovation in the arts.
Jettisoning the familiar patterns, the customary solutions, and the “right way” is liberating, and sometimes a little unnerving. Welcome to the wilderness!
Experimentation allows one to explore the wilderness of one’s own talent and the wilderness of one’s own mind… Sometimes one must let go, enter into the experimental space, give oneself that permission to stumble, in order to advance to the next stage.
Mixed Species Flooring Experiment: character beech and jatoba, a.k.a. Brazilian cherry (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
And stumble, we will. Stumble, I do. Often. But every once in a while, wandering in this metaphorical wilderness of experimentation, we discover something singular, something remarkable.
Extending Kralowec’s notion of art studio as experimental laboratory to our creative practice(s) in general, then it’s incumbent upon us to untether from the familiar, the tried and true, the already discovered, in order to wonder and wander uninhibited, in order to explore and experiment without prejudice and confining assumptions. Not always, of course. And we must be willing to fail. Often. It is this vulnerability combined with curiosity, and with the courage to challenge our constraints and catalyze that curiosity through experimentation into the possibility of discovery.
At this stage we’re still early in our experimentation. Discovery is still eluding us. But our curiosity and our carefree experimentation are raring to go!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CmFsG48OEa4/
Now that we’ve experimented with the beech and jatoba flooring in their raw, unaltered state I have a couple of follow-on experiments I’m hoping to run. Stay tuned!
What wintery wonders shall I share with you today? How about a celebration (and showcase) of upcycled Christmas gifts dreamed into existence by three allstar members of our icehouse rehab team?
Upcycled Christmas Gifts from Pam, Hroth, and Tony (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
[pullquote]These upcycled Christmas gifts are a product and symbol of renewal.[/pullquote]
I talk and I type, but these three creative characters have reimagined and reinvented deconstruction debris into functional art and decor. They transformed a piece of old garapa decking and a handful of icehouse artifacts (uncovered during laborious hand excavation for the new foundation) into a handsome coatrack, and they transformed a gnarled piece of rusty steel back into a museum-worthy ice hook that turns the clock back 100+ years.
Let’s start with the photograph at the top of this post which Pam accompanied with the following note of explanation.
Hroth, Tony and I wanted to wish you both a very Merry Christmas. We came up with the idea to make a coat rack out of repurposed items. The wood is old garapa. I found the spikes in the icehouse during inventory and the hook was also discovered in the icehouse during excavation for the concrete floor/footers. Hroth custom made a handle for the ice hook. We also wanted to add a new hummingbird feeder to the garden outside of the breakfast area. Merry Christmas! — Pamuela Murphy
Perfection! Garapa upcycled from Rosslyn’s 2008-9 deck build and miscellaneous ice hauling artifacts reconciled and reborn as a new coat rack that will greet icehouse visitors upon entering the miniature foyer, and a restored antique ice hook that will be displayed prominently in the main room. Bravo, team.
Upcycled Christmas Gifts from Pam, Hroth, and Tony (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
I was curious how Hroth had fabricated the garapa handle for the ice hook out of old decking boards. It’s so round/cylindrical that it looks as if he’d used a lathe.
Two pieces of garapa laminated together. Started out about a 16 inch because it was easier to run through the table saw. I made an octagon out of it on the table saw, then used the big belt sander… I roughed it up a little bit. Didn’t want it to look too perfect. Then Pam suggested that we take a propane torch to it. Made it look older.
It was a fun project. I still need to seal the wood and the metal. Penetrating sealer works well on metal. It’s sharp… We were thinking you might want to put some corks on the ends… or garapa balls. That was the first thing I thought of. We can certainly do that. — Ottosen Hroth
Carving tiny garapa orbs to install on the spikes strikes me as the perfect way to complete the coat rack so that jackets can be hung without getting spikes. It’ll be a difficult-but-intriguing challenge! There must be some technique for creating a small wooden sphere out of a block of wood. Hhhmmm…
I can’t imagine more perfect Christmas gifts. Their collaboration has rendered layers of Rosslyn history — from the late 1800s and early 1900s when the icehouse was in use, through 2008 when we built the deck that yielded this garapa, to 2022 when the old deck was deconstructed and the icehouse rehabilitation was initiated — into timeless beauty that will adorn the icehouse when it is introduced/revealed next summer. These upcycled Christmas gifts are a product and symbol of renewal. Our gratitude is exceeded only by Hroth’s, Pam’s, and Tony’s collaborative accomplishment.
Upcycled Christmas Gifts (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Upcycled Christmas Gifts (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Upcycled Christmas Gift 2022: antique ice hook with handmade handle (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
The flip-through gallery above offers a few more details, and all three (as the two featured photographs above) are documented inside the icehouse with mid-construction backdrops: old studs with new spray foam insulation and new subfloor ready for interior framing and hardwood flooring. It’s tempting to offer tidier or even fancier backdrops, but authenticity prevails. Future decor created from old materials, documented midstream the icehouse’s transformation. Future, past, and present. Concurrent history and hope, a timeless present, an artistic representation of this liminal moment.
Backstory to Upcycled Christmas Gifts
Susan and my gratitude to Pam, Hroth, and Tony is (and obviously should be) the focus of today’s Rosslyn Redux installment, but I can’t conclude without first considering a slightly more amplified retrospective, the backstory, if you will, to the new coat rack and restored ice hook.
Let’s start by rewinding the timeline to 2008-9. Building the new deck and installing garapa decking was the proverbial caboose in a virtually endless train of construction that started in the summer of 2006. (Source: Garapa Decking 2008-2009)
In the photograph below, taken exactly fourteen years ago today, Warren Cross is putting the finishing touches on our first deck build. Although the perspective may be misleading given the still unbuilt garbage and recycling “shed” which today stands directly behind Warren, this is the northernmost extension of Rosslyn’s deck. The stone step (actually a repurposed hitching post chiseled from Chazy and Trenton limestone (aka “Essex stone”) and the rhododendron shrubs are not yet in place either.
But it you imagine the perspective as if you were standing just north of the morning room, looking back toward the carriage barn and icehouse, you’ll be oriented in no time. Oriented, yes, but nevertheless a bit disoriented too, I imagine, as you look upon a carpenter laboring in the snow to scribe and affix the garapa deck skirting / apron that will complete the installation that had began in the autumn with far more hospitable conditions.
Warren Cross completing garapa decking installation on December 22, 2008 (Photo: Geo Davis)
It’s worth noting that Warren, already in his mature years when he worked on Rosslyn with us, not only threw himself into difficult endeavors like the one above, he contributed decades’ of experience and an unsurpassed work ethic that inspired everyone with whom he worked in 2008 and 2009. But there’s an even more notable memory that describes Warren. He was a gentleman. And he was a gentle man. It was a privilege to witness Warren’s collegiality, and Rosslyn profited enduringly from his expertise. But it was his disposition, his consideration, and his kindness that make me nostalgic when I hear him mentioned or when I catch sight of him in photographs.
In terms of memories conjured by this repurposed garapa decking, I should include Hroth’s “research” this past autumn into how best we might reuse the lumber. There was such anticipation and excitement in the hours he experimented and explored. The image below perfectly illustrates the hidden gold just waiting to reemerge from the deconstructed decking material.
Hroth is continuing to experiment with the garapa decking we salvaged from our summer 2022 deck rebuild. I’m hoping to repurpose this honey toned Brazilian hardwood as paneling in the icehouse bathroom. (Source: Upcycling Decking Debris)
Hroth’s discoveries underpin our plan to panel the interior of the new icehouse bathroom with what for a decade and a half withstood the Adirondack Coast elements season after season, and a rambunctious parade of footfalls, barbecues, dog paws, wetsuits, etc. It’s as if the new coat rack exudes the anticipation and optimism that many of us brought to the journey of upcycling the old decking into the new paneling.
And there is an aside that I’m unable to resist mentioning. Pam’s late husband, Bob Murphy, who worked as our property caretaker and became an admired and dearly respected friend, several times removed and reinstalled Rosslyn’s garapa decking over the years — monitoring, triaging, and compensating for the failing TimberSIL substructure. He knew that we would need to rebuild the entire deck soon, and yet he waged a relentless campaign to extend the useful life of the deck as long as possible. I think he’d be proud of the work accomplished by the team this summer, and he sure would have loved being part of that team! And the icehouse rehab would have thrilled him. Needless to say, these upcycled Christmas gifts from Pam and Hroth and Tony also exude Bob’s smile, familiar chuckle, and that mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
And what about that antique ice hook?
I mentioned above an antique ice hook, and the photograph below illustrates exactly what I was referring to. Disinterred by Tony while cleaning out and grading the dirt floor of the icehouse, this badly corroded artifact bears an uncanny resemblsnce to a common tool of yesteryear: the handheld hook. This implement was most often used for 1) grabbing and hauling ice blocks and/or 2) carrying hay bales. The location where this relic was discovered (as well as plenty of examples uncovered by quick research online) strongly suggest that this is an antique ice hook. (Source: Icehouse Rehab 01: The Ice Hook)
Isn’t a beauty? Well, rusty and corroded, but a beauty nonetheless, I think.
Antique Ice Hook, artifact unearthed during the icehouse rehabilitation, 2022 (Source: R.P. Murphy)
The prospect of restoring that ice hook crossed my mind at the time. But it struck me as a challenging proposition given the advanced state of decay. What a surreal transformation from rust-crusted phantom to display-ready relic! It too is marinated in memories, some recent and personal, others vague and distant. In the near rearview mirror are the painstaking efforts made by our team to secure the historic stone foundation beneath the icehouse while ensuring the structural integrity demanded by modern building codes. A labor of loves on the parts of so many. And today we can look back from the proud side of accomplishment. As for the more distant rearview, the antique mirror has succumbed to the influence of time, the glass crazed and hazy, the metallic silver chipped and flaking. And yet we can detect traces of laughter and gossip as blocks of ice were cut from the lake, hooked and hauled up to the icehouse, and stacked in tidy tiers for cooling and consumption during temperate times ahead.
A Glimmer of Springtime
In closing this runaway post, I would like to express my warmest gratitude for the upcycled Christmas gifts above, and for a new hummingbird feeder to welcome our exuberant avian friends back in the springtime. Taken together this medley of gifts excite in Susan and me the enthusiasm and optimism for the coming months of rehabilitation and mere months from now the opportunity to celebrate a project too long deferred and so often anticipated. With luck we’ll be rejoicing together in the newly completed icehouse by the time the hummingbirds return to Rosslyn.
Hummingbird Feeder 2022 Christmas Gift from Pam, Tony, and Hroth (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Thank you, Pam, Hroth, and Tony for these perfect presents. And thank you to everyone else I’ve mentioned above for enriching this home and our lives. I look forward to rekindling these memories when I hang my coat or my cap up each time I enter the icehouse. Merry Christmas to all!
