One of the four buildings still standing (if barely) when we purchased Rosslyn in 2006, rehabilitating the icehouse has long been a priority. And just as long — or almost as long — we’ve postponed all but its most critical preservation. As one of the extant bridges to Rosslyn’s past, we still hope/plan to tackle this utility building. The posts below will offer a glimpse into why, when, and maybe even how Rosslyn’s icehouse was, is, and will continue to be important.
Exciting update: the storage container that’s been serving as our temporary paint station is going, going, gone. One down, one to go.
One Down, One to Go (R.P. Murphy)
Remember the workflow challenge we were grappling with in the late autumn / early winter? Insufficient heated, climate controlled shop space.
Priming and painting thousands of linear feet of interior and exterior finish lumber requires temperature and moisture stability not currently available in the unheated carriage barn, nor outside during a North Country winter. The solution? Meet our makeshift workshop in a storage container! (Source: Makeshift Workshop in Storage Container)
We rented a pair of 20′ storage containers to supplement Rosslyn’s two outbuildings. One storage/shipping container is effectively functioning as a warehouse storing building materials, especially all of the architectural salvage that Pam and Tony inventoried and relocated from the icehouse early last autumn. (Source: Makeshift Workshop in Storage Container)
As of yesterday we’ve satisfied our need for the paint shop storage container, so it’s been retrieved. Sayonara. One down, one to go… Bravo, Pam, for juggling workspace capacity with dexterity!
For the last couple of weeks my future study/studio/office in the icehouse has been serving as a lumber loft. Remember my excitement when we completed installation of the beech flooring (surplus materials remaining from reflooring Rosslyn’s living room, parlor, kitchen, and entrance hallway) a couple months ago? And my anticipation when Tony was about to start sanding and sealing the beech?
Well, “soon” slipped into later. Tony sanded and sealed and sanded and sealed… Gradually he built up a luxurious luster that I should have showcased long ago. But the orphaned dispatch was preempted by another and then another. Time whistled past. And I’m still intending to revisit that process and the comely consequences. Soon!
Acclimating Ash & Elm Flooring in the Lumber Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
And part and parcel of my current confessions is owning up to yet another inadvertent omission. There’s a drafted-but-delayed dispatch I initiated last autumn, updated intermittently this winter, but that today still remains unfinished and unpublished. Temporarily titled, “Homegrown Lumber: From Stump to Floor”, I am backstory-ing the ash and elm timber-turned-flooring that will soon ground Rosslyn icehouse’s first floor. Literally years in the works, this homegrown flooring is has been one of the guiding elements in the icehouse rehabilitation.
So the chronicle will be told. Not now. But as soon as I can tell the story succinctly and comprehensively. Hope it’ll be worth the wait. Until then, today’s sneak peek inside of the icehouse is a look at the lumber loft.
Acclimating Ash & Elm Flooring in the Lumber Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Lumber Loft, Haiku
Desk and bookshelves soon; now stickered stacks of homegrown floorboards, splines, drying.
The congruity between the patience and painstaking toil invested in these former-trees-future-floorboards and the poems and prose I cultivate from seed to harvest intrigues me. Especially so given my writing loft temporarily serving as a lumber loft…
Flooring and Splines Acclimating (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Acclimating Ash & Elm Flooring
I will forestall the tempting tale of how these character rich floorboards have come so close to installation within felling distance of the coordinates which marked their birth, their maturation, and their yield. I will postpone the how and why this timber is hyperlocal, having never once been transported off-property. And instead I will touch briefly on the merits of the lumber loft for acclimating the homegrown, milled, and seasoned ash and elm that will soon and forever grace the icehouse’s first floor.
Closeup of Splines Acclimating in Lumber Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In the photograph above bundles of splines milled from the same ash and elm as the flooring rest atop the boards they will conjoin. In the previous images (perhaps the first eat of all) you can discern the grooves cut into the floorboards’ edges that will receive the splines. Mimicking the function of tongue-and-groove, our splined floorboard joinery will ensure stability while accommodating the inevitable movement arriving from changes in humidity and temperature. If our installation is successful, this hardwood floor will last at least as long as the already impressive tenure of this historic building. And to ensure a successful installation it’s vital to properly acclimate the material before it is fastened into place.
The icehouse’s loft — elevated and open to the interior of the building — provide ideal conditions for acclimating: warmth and air circulation. Stickering the wood (stacking the lumber with identically dimensioned perpendicular spacers between each course) ensures consistent airflow and temperature. Why is this important? Although the rough cut lumber was seasoned (dried) and stored in the carriage barn for over a decade prior to finish milling it into flooring, fluctuations in humidity and temperature shrink and expand the wood. They can even twist, bow, and warp the lumber. So acclimating the material in the space where it will subsequently be installed enables us to improve the likelihood of a stable and aesthetically pleasing floor.
In short? The lumber loft has proven to itself to be invaluable for quality control!
As we hurdle toward the homestretch on the icehouse rehab I find myself re-visiting and fine-tuning finish details to accommodate subtle discrepancies between plans and field conditions. Or sometimes it’s just a matter of little tweaks that pop up as envisioned and imagined circumstances metamorphose into reality. Today I’ve sketched a new iteration, a little bit of experimentation with the built-in coffee bar cabinetry.
Details, details, details… Making micro adjustments up until the last moment. But it’s almost time to fabricate the coffee bar built-ins, so it’s the last chance for fine tuning!
Coffee Bar Cabinetry, As Drawn (Source: Tiho Dimitrov)
I’ve cropped the detail above from Tiho’s plans so you can identify the coffee bar cabinetry near the bottom middle. The opportunity and challenge with custom carpentry/cabinetry is to tailor the design precisely to the larger aesthetic context and the specific needs. Integration, cohesion, and function in perfect harmony! It’s all in the details, and it’s starting to feel pretty close.
Coffee Bar Cabinetry, Fine Tuning… (Source: Geo Davis)
My quick field sketch above alters the right niche from 2 to 3 shelves, and the left niche gets enclosed with a cabinet door similar to the one beneath the bar sink. And under the countertop, I am reconfiguring the spaces spacing to accommodate a small bar fridge. Under the counter, I’m reconfiguring spacing to accommodate a small bar fridge instead of microwave. We are relocating an historic cherry China cabinet from the house into the icehouse, and it will be located exactly where the fridge was originally intended yo be. This small change simplifies design and streamlines space flow, so it’s a win-win-win. Or so it seems for now. I’ll take another swipe at it tomorrow and make a final decision.
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…
A Jeroboam of gratitude to Peter Vaiciulis for agreeing to fabricate a custom elm and garapa threshold for the icehouse bathroom doorway. Conjoining two two dissimilar hardwoods is challenging enough, but I added an extra detail (or two) that you just might be able to spot in the photo below.
Peter Vaiciulis Fabricating Elm/Garapa Threshold (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
The strip of garapa (closer to Peter in the photo above) will form the interior side of the threshold, integrating the slate floor and antique door with the upcycled garapa paneling. The highly charactered elm — grown, harvested, aged, milled, and finished on Rosslyn’s property — will integrate with the ash and elm flooring in the main floor of the icehouse.
If you look closely you’ll see two bowties, one elm and the other garapa, sitting on the table next to the threshold. Peter is preparing to router and chisel these bowtie joints (butterfly joint) into the new threshold, resulting in a visual testament, indeed a subtle celebration of two dissimilar hardwoods united into a single door sill.
Sketch for Elm/Garapa Threshold (Photo: Geo Davis)
I gave Peter the quick sketch above several weeks ago with an explanation for what I envisioned. He instantly understood and accepted the challenge. His woodworking, joinery, and custom carpentry have proven indispensable not only in metamorphosing my ideas into reality, but in mentoring many members of the team.
Threshold & Bowties, Haiku
Crossing a threshold with the hammer and chisel, hardwood joinery.
— Geo Davis
Chiseling the Threshold
In the video snippet below a hammer and chisel begin to reveal the location for one of the soon-to-be embedded bowties.
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.
In some respects, the most significant icehouse rehab alteration, at least to the exterior and surroundings, is the grade change north and west of the existing building and the new hardscape that will integrate this area with the rest of Rosslyn’s lawns and gardens.
Icehouse Hardscape Collage (Credit: Geo Davis)
In the collage above, an interesting perspective captured with a drone (a view unlikely to ever be witnessed in typical, non-drone circumstances) portrays the icehouse from the northeast some thirty feet or so up in the air. Perhaps a bird’s-eye view or a squirrel’s-eye view.
Overlaid across the photograph (with no implied correlation between the location of the drawing and the photo it marks up), the simple line drawing offers some rudimentary plans and relationships for further site work, finalizing slopes and grade changes. In addition it generally maps out the locations of stone edging/walls and stone steps that will be constructed out of locally quarried limestone that was salvaged from existing deconstructed foundations and cisterns during our 2006-8 home renovations as well as a more recent discovery of an old stone cistern while replanting the evergreen hedge along the northern perimeter of Rosslyn’s front lawn. In other words, these new hardscape features will be reimagined out of repurposed materials likely dating to the 1800s when the original homestead was constructed. New hardscape with an old history.
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…
It’s been a good week, and it’s not even over yet. Much gratitude is due the entire team as we move into a Friday with many moving parts and a growing balance sheet of synchronous progress in the icehouse, outside the icehouse, and throughout Rosslyn’s still muddy but increasingly springlike grounds.
A photo essay (think more photos, less essay) will offer the best glimpse into the latest round of accomplishments. And behind all of these photos — if not literally behind the camera, in all cases behind the wrangling and tasking and managing and juggling and multitasking and quality control — is Pam Murphy. Our gratitude to everyone behind this week of synchronous progress, especially the woman who keeps it all together!
Finishing Up Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In the photo above installation of the T&G nickel gap on Rosslyn’s icehouse ceiling is. Almost. Done. Rumor has it that tomorrow the ceiling will be finished. Fingers crossed!
March has marked plenty of plumbing progress in the icehouse rehab, most recently installation of the admittedly unattractive but practical mini split that will keep this oasis cool in the steaming days of summer.
East Icehouse Lamp Reinstalled (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Electrical headway includes reinstallation of the lamp next to the entrance door. Removed during installation of the insulated panels and clapboard siding, the patinated exterior sconce is now back in place.
New Marvin Doors and Architectural Salvaged Door in Temporary “Paint Shop” (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
The first of the Marvin Doors have been received from Windows & Doors by Brownell. We started the process back in August, and the still have a little over a month to wait for all of the windows. So for now we’ll get to work painting the doors and installing them. On the right of the photo is an old door that Peter has rebuilt and that is now repainted in satin White Dove by Benjamin Moore to match the rest of the icehouse interior trim.
High Tunnel Almost Ready for Planting (Photo: Tony Foster)
In other exciting spring news, Tony has done a remarkable job of preparing the high tunnel for early season planting. And check out that solar gain on a freezing day!
In addition to carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and gardening headway, some landscaping progress is also worth noting. In the photo above the lawn adjacent to the icehouse deck and terrace, has been crisply edged so that Bob Kaleita can fine-tune the site work and stone wall construction can begin.
A hat tip to our Amish neighbors who’ve accelerated the landscaping grounds work AND split up the massive ash tree that fell a couple of weeks ago. Plenty of firewood now curing, a geometrically impeccable extension to the daylily bed, and plenty of edging including the new hemlock hedge planted last summer by Patrick McAuliff.
Edging New Hemlock Hedge (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Crisp edging ready for mulch along the hemlocks. In the photo above the perspective is looking east toward Lake Champlain, and in the photo below looking west toward the Adirondacks.
Edging New Hemlock Hedge (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
And that’s just *part* of a busy week. Thank you, team!
Heck of a homecoming my frosty ferry ride into Essex two weeks ago on January 25. Damp-cold. Socked in. Snowing. I was dropping in for team time, scope shuffle, timeline tuneup, perspective pivot, and a revitalizing dose of laughter with friends.
Frosty Ferrying (Source: Geo Davis)
Team Time
As I’ve often touted, teamwork is the first, second, and third priority for us today and every day. When our crew is collaborating and collegial, progress is usually swift and morale is buoyant. But when team dynamics falter, for any reason, it’s usually evident even from afar. Headway stalls and morale suffers. But the cause (often) and the remedy (almost always) demand a closer inspection, an immersion in the daily doings and conversations.
So when forward motion on the icehouse rehab began to slow and spirit suffered, it became clear that I needed some hands-on team time to understand and improve the slide. And frankly, swapping video meetings and phone/text threads for in person, sawdust in the air, boots on the snowy ground, chalk line snapping, and overdue discourse dumping was enticing and necessary.
Scope Shuffle
Personnel particulars won’t be part of this post since who does what, when, where, why, and how is Susan and my concern. Teams coalesce around a common cause, and when necessary, teams adapt. Sometimes the cause shifts; sometimes the team shifts. My time at Rosslyn enabled me to ensure a clear understanding of the needed change(s) not just from my geographically challenged perspective, but from the diverse perspectives of the members of the team. What’s going on? What needs to change? Sometimes these reorganizations are awkward and uncomfortable, clarity elusive. But in this case there was broad consensus about what had been hampering progress and what would restore progress.
Within a week of my arrival we remapped the coming weeks and months, shuffled incremental scopes of work, and made a few adjustments to the plan to better account for the new vision (and to accommodate a few tweaks that became clear to me being onsite that hadn’t been so clear in plans and photo/video updates.)
Frosty Ferrying (Source: Geo Davis)
Timeline Tuneup
Today and yesterday I’ve been massaging the new scopes of work into the calendar. Roughly halfway through our start-to-finish timeline in terms of actual months allotted and permissible (October 2022 through May 2023) but less than halfway through the scope and schedule, the days and weeks ahead will require a significant uptick in productivity. For my part, that demands a thoughtful timeline tuneup that makes sense to Pam (project manager), Peter and Eric (carpentry leads), Ben (plumber), Brandon (electrician), and everyone else on the team. It is imminently doable. But careful coordination, clear communication, and steady productivity will be critical.
There’s still some sourcing and sorting to complete. The map forward is apparent, but the individual journeys and when/how they are sequenced is still firming up. In the mean time, collective confidence and enthusiasm appear to be rebounding.
Perspective Pivot
It’s worth noting that a perspective pivot — mine as well as everyone investing their time, expertise, and passion — is actually a really important part of any project. It’s altogether too easy to settle into a pattern, allowing vision and expectations to narrow, simply bumping forward from one day to the next. We all do it sometimes. And yet we all benefit from voluntary and even involuntary disruption that challenges us to think differently, to dilate our our vision, to alter and amplify our expectations. Team dynamics are never static. They can feel static. For a while. Until something disrupts collegiality or workflow.
I’m feeling reinvigorated by what was an unanticipated and unfortunate disruption in our team dynamics. I know that everyone on the team similarly desired and endeavored to avoid the eventual disruption. But the change catalyzed over the last few weeks is dramatic and profoundly positive. Our individual and collective perspective pivots have reawakened our sense of purpose and our confidence in the ability for the team to accomplish the rehab in a timely manner that will make us all proud.
Laughter with Friends
No sojourn to the Adirondack Coast would be complete without at least a few friends gathering. I’d initially tried to limit social time during my stay because the punch-list was ambitious. But the universe has her own ideas, and we’re wise to pay attention. I was reminded how fortunate we are to be part of a community that is thick with good people — smart, creative, cordial, civic minded, and caring — and despite my speedy sojourn I was able to share some meals, cross-country ski, laugh, and catch up with some of the many who enrich our Adirondack life.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoZ1pmDAvi_/
Moody Midwinter Mashup
With all the warm-and-fuzzy updates top loaded, it’s time to acknowledge the moody vibes of the video above (if you can’t see it, try loading the URL in a new browser tab). My midwinter mashup isn’t an artistic feat by any estimate, but the black and white sequence, shot for the ferryboat upon approaching Rosslyn’s boathouse on my way from Charlotte to Essex, really does feel like what I was feeling upon arriving. And the less-than-perfect weather conditions emphasized the mood over the first 36-48 hours. Fortunately the weather improved and talk time with the team (and friends) restored the levity I usually associate with a return to Rosslyn. That said, it feels important to acknowledge that it’s not always rainbows and bluebird skies, neither literally, nor metaphorically. Sometimes life shades into shades of gray, and we have to cope, to come together creatively to restore the technicolor lifestyle we love.
Frosty Ferry Crossings
I’ll close with an acknowledgment that a frosty ferry crossing may not be the picture perfect memory that we conjure when relating the joys of community by ferryboat, but I’ve experienced so many meaningful moments just like this. Rainy, snowy, stormy,… The imperfect moments shape us as much as the sunny ones.
Special thanks to Rob Fountain whose February 27, 2015 photograph in the Press Republican deftly captures these sorts of experiences.
With temperatures below zero and a brisk wind, a Lake Champlain Transportation Co. ferry pushes through icy waters heading for Grand Isle, Vt., Tuesday from Cumberland Head. For many cities in the Northeast, it was the coldest February on record, and some places recorded the most days of zero or below temperatures. (Source: Press Republican)
