Boathouse Bonfire, September 27, 2014 (Source: Geo Davis)
If September poems sound overly sentimental to you or if you’re inclined to a grittier observance of the almost-upon-us Autumn Equinox, I’ve got you covered. Soon. Stay tuned.
But if you’re comfortable lingering briefly — and these poems are, if nothing else, brief — in the seasonality and liminality of the present moment, then I’d like to offer you a few September poems. After all, sometimes the singing underneath doesn’t translate to images or longform exposition. So I’ve bundled a tidy bundle of verse celebrating my one of my four favorite seasons.
Susan in Carriage Barn, September 12, 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)
Haiku September Poems
Short and sweet, sometimes bittersweet, is the name of the game when trying to put your finger on something as poignant and humbling as the shift from summer to autumn (with the omnipresent reminder that autumn too will soon yield, and winter will shroud the colors and flavors and aromas away beneath a snowy blanket). But that can be an elusive errand.
There’s something ineffable about Septembering, but anyone who’s dwelled a spell in the North Country is familiar with this shift. (Source: Seasonality: Septembering)
Haiku’s economy offers a bold if foolhardy effort, so let’s start there.
•:•
Dusky zinnias,
harvest-ready to welcome
arriving houseguests.
— Geo Davis
•:•
Bountiful beans,
red-podded asparagus,
climbing the teepee.
— Geo Davis
•:•
Seasonal surreal:
autumnal art, alchemy,
tart transformation.
— Geo Davis
Sunset, September 6, 2015 (Source: Geo Davis)
Longer September Poem
I’m struck by the concurrently lavish spoils and humbling caution of September. In so many respects the bounty of an entire summer’s worth of gardening and orcharding comes due in September. Sure, we’ve been enjoying the gardens since May, but the this month full of contrasts is without doubt the most abundant harvest. And yet, even as we indulge to excess, the crisp nights and the sunlight’s increasingly anemic illumination remind us to prepare for winter.
When Septembering
honor abundance
as autumn will soon
yield to the drum roll
of hale and hoarfrost,
bitter wind, and snow.
— Geo Davis
This might be the first verse to a longer look at the point-counterpoint of this intoxicating yet sobering marvel of a month. It might also have reached its end. A little hibernation should help decide.
Cider Pressing, September 6, 2015 (Source: Geo Davis)
Sing-song Along
I’ve made no secret of the fact that this 2022 summer and autumn have been pivotal for Susan and for me. We’re surfing some seismic transformations in our lives, finally confronting inevitabilities and incongruities that have been evolving for a long time, and fortifying one another for significant choices and changes ahead. In all probability the liminal space we’re navigating underlies the vibrance and drama I’m noticing in everyday events. But I’m unable to disregard the rhymes, rituals, harmonies, and auspicious signs (cairns, buoys, vade mecums,…) as I immerse myself in the texture and artifacts of a decade and a half with Rosslyn, as Susan and I revise and remap and re-plot our next chapters.
So many friends and acquaintances have contributed to this new adventure we’re embarking on, often without even realizing it or intending to effect our trajectory. Influences have an uncanny habit of popping up at just the right time! And so I close this post with an invitation to you. We welcome you to join and participate in our quest. As fellow sojourners we’ll better bridge the valleys and better celebrate the lofty summits ahead. Grateful to be traveling together!
At the root of Rosslyn Redux is a question. What makes a house a home?
Simple question. Less simple answer. More precisely, the answers to what makes a house a home are diverse and possibly even evolving — slowly, perpetually — as we live our lives. What defines “homeness” as a child likely differs as a young, independent adult, nesting for the first time. And our first autonomous forays into homemaking likely morph as we live through our twenties and into subsequent decades, family and lifestyle changes, etc.
Let’s start with a playful poem by Edgar Albert Guest.
Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ’em each day;
[…]
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.
— Edgar Albert Guest, “Home” (Source: Poetry Foundation)
If you haven’t read this Edgar Albert Guest poem, I recommend it. And I strongly suggest you read it out loud!
I start with Guest’s insights because they’re thoughtful despite the playful affect. They capture both the breadth and the subjectivity of answering the question, what makes a house a home? And they hint at the protean nature of this inquiry.
Love Makes a House a Home (Photo: Geo Davis)
An Evolving Recipe
Just when I think I’ve narrowed down a reliable recipe for what makes a house a home, I question it. Whether catalyzed by a conversation with another homemaker, exposure to an especially compelling or innovative home, or a eureka moment totally unrelated to “homeness” (recently, sailboat design of 35-50′ sloops), my reliable recipe is suddenly less reliable. It needs a few tweaks. I remove ingredients less essential than previously believed, and I introduce new ingredients. A teaspoon of this, an ounce of that. Season to taste…
The mercurial nature of “homeness” is not really that surprising given the subjectivity of our residential tastes, needs, means, ambitions, and limitations. The rise of a thriving van life culture in recent years offers a healthy reminder of how little is actually needed for many individuals to feel at home. And yet, the proliferation of van life blogs and social media streams celebrate the individuality and subjectivity shaping perspectives on what makes a house a home. Overlanding in a tricked out van, living aboard a wind and water washed boat, or nesting on an anchored spot of terra firma, it turns out that what makes a house a home is profoundly personal.
One of the joys of homeownership lies in expressing ourselves through our surroundings… Most of us can hardly wait to put our personal stamp on our living spaces. It is, after all, part of the process of turning a house into a home. (New England Home)
The process of transforming a house into a home — fixed or mobile — inevitably encounters elements and conditions that shape the nesting process. In other words, our will and whim are only part of the equation.
Once upon a time
this handsome old house
became our new home,
and along with it
almost two hundred
years of backstory,
lives, styles, and lifestyles…
Snipped from my short poem about repurposing Rosslyn into our home, I’m acknowledging the property’s history and preexisting conditions. It’s a nod to inputs outside of Susan and my personal needs and desires. Just as these inherited inputs can be hurdles or challenges, often they introduce character and richness, add depth and texture, and even invest an aesthetic or programmatic cohesion that might otherwise be lacking.
I’ve frequently joked that no detail of Rosslyn’s rehabilitation escaped our fingerprints, [but] much attention was paid throughout to preserving the buildings’ unique heritage. My bride and I were far less preoccupied with our own personal stamp than we were with finding Rosslyn’s personal stamp, her DNA, and reawakening it to guide our renovation. (Reawakening Rosslyn)
I suspect that there’s often an even more abstract but profoundly important force at work in making a house a home. Intersecting our needs and appetites and the preexisting conditions, there exists an ineffable consciousness, even a conviction, that we feel at home. Can it be a sanctuary where we feel safe, happy, calm, nourished, revitalized, and creative? Can the house, as our home, become an oasis nurturing the sort of life that is indispensable to our wellbeing?
House of Dreams: Gaston Bachelard (Source: The Poetics of Space)
I understand that this wonderful old, living and breathing home provides for us in innumerable ways every day. I know that Rosslyn is a house of dreams and daydreamers. And for this I am extremely grateful. (House of Dreams)
This consciousness or conviction is totally subjective and deeply personal. Clearly articulating it can prove elusive. But we recognize the feeling when we’re fortunate enough to come across it. Sometimes the pull can be so powerful that we yield despite logical and practical considerations, and even despite obvious counterindications.
We had joked about how much time and money it would take to make Rosslyn habitable, categorically dismissing it as an investment. And yet it clearly had captured our hearts. If it were our home and not a short term investment, then maybe the criteria were different. Maybe the potential was different. Maybe the risk was different. (We Could Live at Rosslyn)
Many of us have found ourselves in this push-pull between the abiding rules and paradigms we use to navigate most of our life’s decisions and the sometimes conflicting passion we feel for a potential home. Over the last decade and a half that I’ve been trying to understand “homeness” and the curious exceptions that some of us are willing to make when it comes to our homes, I’ve picked the brains of family, friends, and total strangers when opportunities arose. And sometimes when they didn’t! I’ve been struck as much by the overlaps as the distinctions. There do seem to be some almost universal notions of what makes a house a home, and yet a beautiful bounty of unique attributes are at least as important to the individuals creating (and sometimes recreating) their homes.
Personal Mementos Make a House a Home (Photo: Geo Davis)
Vox Populi, An Introduction
Rather than pretending I’ve distilled the perfect formula, I’m going to showcase a relatively random but recent collection of perspectives and opinions gathered from family, close friends, and several contributors to our current projects. That’s right, I’m going to sidestep the tempting trap of defining what makes a house a home in lieu of broadening and diversifying consideration. Or, put differently, I’ll bypass my own bias by crowdsourcing the question.
I reached out a few days ago to a couple people with whom I’ve discussed this topic before. I asked them all some version of the following.
I have a quick challenge-type-question for you. I’m drafting a blog post about “homeness”, and I’ve reached out to a handful of people that I think might offer interesting perspectives. If you have 30 seconds, I’d love to include your thoughts. If not, no worries. No deep thinking. No fancy answers. No pressure. Just a spontaneous, off-the-cuff, candid response to the question: what does it mean to make a house a home? In other words, what transforms a house into a home?
I was so enthralled with the first few responses that I decided to postpone the post in order to solicit even more perspectives. What follows is a fascinating array of responses, starting with several collaborators on Rosslyn’s icehouse project (Tiho, architecture; Hroth and Eric, construction/carpentry; and Pam, project/property management) and Mike, a carpenter who works for us in Santa Fe (as does Hroth, although we’ve been fortunate to have his expertise at Rosslyn as well since July.)
Tiho Dimitrov: What makes a house a home? For me, it’s my books, my guitars, and the odd pieces of art that I own. It’s the art and the books that bring a sense of me or a sense of my spirit. Combine that with the smell of freshly brewed coffee, and you have a home. It’s the imperfections of a place that make it perfect.
Hroth Ottosen: Off the top of my head the difference between a house and a home would be family. But that doesn’t apply to my life. My circumstances are extremely exceptional. I consider my house in Mora, New Mexico my home because I built it from scratch without much help from anybody, and to my own specifications and desires. Not many people can say that. (Later…) While making dinner I thought about what makes a house a home. A name doesn’t hurt. I consider Rosslyn my home right now!
Eric Crowningshield: Home is the place where I feel proud and comfortable being! I joke around saying we are the dream makers because we try to take homeowners’ dreams and turn them into a reality!
Pamuela Murphy: A house is a house, but a home is where the love is. It takes love, hard work, and teamwork to make a house a home.
Mike Hall: To me it it means cozy and comfortable and someone to share that with. This popped into my head because my wife and I are at the Bosque del Apache celebrating our 31 anniversary!
Homegrown Food Makes a House a Home (Photo: Geo Davis)
My next pollees are family members, starting with my beautiful bride (Susan), then on to my parents (Melissa and Gordon), one of my nieces (Frances), one of my nephews (Christoph), and my cousin (Lucy).
Susan Bacot-Davis: It’s easy to see Rosslyn as my home. We’ve invested sixteen years of our life reimagining, renovating, and sharing her. But I learned in Côte d’Ivoire where I lived in 1989 and 1990 that home can be a place very foreign to me. I came to my village wondering how I would ever be comfortable there. I departed almost a year later wondering how I could ever bear to leave. It was my neighbors, my friends and colleagues, my community, and my sense of belonging within that community, not the concrete hut within which I dwelled, that embraced me and made me feel safe and nurtured.
Melissa Davis: I’d say home needs comfortable spaces for you to do the things that you like to do. That means you need to know what those things are! So I need a place to sit and write, draw, type, pay bills, and address Christmas cards. And I need a place for the related “stuff”. And homeness means music in the places I do my activities as well as space to actually do the activities (room for yoga mat, comfortable chair/bed to read paper and books, do crossword puzzles, and drink coffee). House becomes home with enough outdoor space to grow something to eat! Eventually a home has memories throughout it which solidifies its homeness, and that requires people who are important to us.
Gordon Davis: Takes a heap a livin’ to make a house a home. And snacks.
Frances Davis: What makes a house a home in my mind is the few mementos that hold special memories or are sentimental for any reason, which we bring with us to each new place we live in. For example, random mugs collected over the years, or certain books, or even a sweater that we wore after high school grad. Whatever they are, these items carry significance in our hearts and bring our past into whatever new building we’re in to make it our home.
Christoph Aigner: Home is a place that draws people in, a space that makes one feel comfortable and at peace. It is familiar to those who call it home, and it reflects a person’s or family’s values and the life they live.
Lucy Haynes: Bringing the outdoors in – branches, plants. Living things. Also – antiques and pieces that have been used. And enjoyed.
On to friends, diverse personalities with whom we’ve fortunately become acquainted across the years.
Kevin Raines: The word home has it’s roots in the old English word ‘ham’ and means a place where souls are gathered. I like that idea because as a house is lived in it grows rich in memories that welcome and enrich the inhabitants and guests who frequent the structure. Through the gathering of souls space becomes an extension of self, past, present, and into the future.
Lisa Fisher: Home is not the house where you live but your relationship to it. If within the space you feel comfortable, yourself. To be “at home” is to have a sense of belonging — to a place, to the world you have made within it. I think it was Heidegger who came up with the notion of individual worlds, meaning the stuff we surround ourselves with, including ideas and beliefs, but also our physical realm. Homenesss speaks to the human element of habitation: the inhabiting of a space.
Alexander Davit: The stories that are created while people are living there.
Miriam Klipper: House is the structure. A home is all the things you’ve put in it — including memories. By the way, memories include selecting every painting, carpet (remember our visit in Turkey?), crafting the most beautiful house, every perfect detail…
Amy Guglielmo: What makes a house a home? For me it’s comfort and color! Soft natural textures, local art and touches. Softness, coziness, calmness. Always views for us. Aspirational space to dream. And accessibility to community. Beach, pool, recreation. Close proximity to nature. We’re wrapping up designing our new home in Ixtapa, Mexico, and we’re only missing books and games at this point. But I think we nailed the rest!
Roger Newton: Love.
Jennifer Isaacson: Surrounding yourself with things/objects that hold a history and meaning to you.
Lee Maxey: What transforms a house into a home… One word “life”. Living things, people, animals, plants, and any items that support or enhance life. Cooking implements, cozy blankets, music, well read books on a bookshelf, and signs of soul. Today is the 2nd anniversary of my mom’s passing. I have just spent a couple hours going through photos and crying and writing in my journal. One of the things I miss most are the smells. Our smells make a house our home.
Denise Wilson Davis: For me, simply, what makes a house a home is the feeling that love resides there. That, as an owner you’ve put love into it… from the care and fixing to the furnishings and found objects that bring joy or remembrance. Home is an intimacy — a reflection of your heart and creative soul — that welcomes guests and makes them comfortable.
David Howson: This is similar to the saying, “at home”. When one feels “at home”, they mean they feel a certain kind of comfort and peace. One wouldn’t say, I feel “at house”. I fondly remember the first night I stayed at Rosslyn. While it wasn’t my house, you and Susan certainly made me feel “at home”.
Ana June: I think of home as curated and designed. It is a space where your heart is visible in your environment.
I’m profoundly grateful to everyone who offered their quick thoughts. And I was warmly surprised by how many wanted to expand the exchange into a lengthier conversation. So many intriguing notions of “homeness” and personal perspectives on what uniquely distinguish their own living space. Often relationships, shared experiences, and love wove their way into our discussions. I’ve abbreviated this post, and yet I realize that I’d like to dive in a little deeper with many of those I’ve quoted here. With luck I’ll revisit again in the near future.
Pets Make a House a Home: Griffin, April 16, 2012 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Until then, I’d like to weave in one additional thread that I personally consider an indispensable component of our home. Pets.
While Susan is the beating heart around which our small nuclear family orbits, we’ve never been without a dog for more than a few months. For us family and home are intrinsically connected with Tasha, Griffin, and Carley. Although Tasha and Griffin are chasing balls in the Elysian Fields, they remain with us, surfacing every day in our memories and conversations. They’ve left their imprints in the ways we live and play and entertain and in the way that we raise our current Labrador Retriever, Carley. On occasions when our little threesome is temporarily divided, for example this past October while I was away in California while Susan and Carley were in Santa Fe for a couple of weeks, our home felt incomplete. Despite good adventures with good people, Susan and I both acknowledged the voids we were feeling. Our home was temporarily divided. Returning to my bride and my dog instantly made me feel complete once again. So, for us, an important part of what makes a house a home is all of the beings — human and not-so-human (although our dogs differ on the distinction!) —that inhabit and visit our dwelling.
Undocking 2022: ready to remove the docks (Source: Geo Davis)
Once upon a time undocking referred to a boat pulling away from a dock, a ship disembarking from a pier. At Rosslyn we also use the term to describe the annual autumn removal of docks (and boat lift) from Lake Champlain once the boats have been hauled and we begin to prepare for the North Country wintry. There’s also a more modern conotation in recent decades that summons grainy video footage of a spaceship uncoupling from the space station, or in a more quotidian context disconnecting technological devices or applications. For me today, in this post, undocking is all of these and more, a sort of metaphorical undocking, uncoupling, disconnecting as well.
Undocking 2022: docks removed (Source: Geo Davis)
Undocking v1.0
Let’s start with those first two photos above. Before and after autumn dock removal. In the first, an early morning photo, I sent the drone up for an end-of-season portrait of Rosslyn’s waterfront. A moody moment as if the lake and sky and the forces of nature were brooding, perhaps wavering, second guessing this seasonal transition. Less than a couple of hours later the boatlift sits high and dry (just barely visible north of the cottonwoods and west the multi stem maple) and the docks are lined up on the beach, their temporary home until late fall / early winter when they’ll be moved up onto the grassy terrace.
Undocking 2022: ready to remove the docks (Source: Geo Davis)
This third image, an aerial view directly above the boathouse, dock, and boatlift, offers a better perspective of the waterfront before undocking. And the photograph below offers virtually the same view except that the docks and boatlift have been stored on shore.
Undocking 2022: docks removed (Source: Geo Davis)
Of course, before proceeding with dock and boatlift removal, there’s an important prologue, disembarking in the Nautique ski/surf boat and the Chris Craft picnic boat for the final time of the season. So last Friday we hauled both boats for the winter, and today we removed the boatlift and the docks. Undocking complete, we’re —metaphorically speaking, at least — one step closer to our big seasonal transit. We’re temporarily unmoored. Unvesselled.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiCnGSnAgab/
Undocking v2.0
In the spring of 2021 I sold a 31’ sloop that I’d sailed around Lake Champlain for seven seasons. In retrospect, I suppose it was one of my pandemic pivots. Although I’d been considering selling it sooner rather than later, I had expected to hold onto the sailboat for at least another year or two. I was contemplating a move to a larger boat, and I was beginning to wonder aloud with Susan if it might be time to start thinking about coastal sailing, a step toward blue water sailing that has long beckoned me. I’ve explored my rather sudden decision to sell Errant elsewhere, so I’ll curtail that narrative here. But I’ve brought it up for two reasons.
For starters, selling Errant was part and parcel of an ongoing period of transition with roots well before — but catalyzed during — the pandemic. But there’s something more germane to the present context.
Usually when I headed out to sail it was for a span of hours. Maybe half a day. If lucky, maybe a day. But sometimes, when opportunity allowed, I would depart for days instead of hours. On occasion Susan would join me. More often I sailed solo. And whether heading out for a few hours of wind chasing or setting off on a multi day sailing adventure, I would experience a euphoric wave as I hoisted the sails. An exhilarating wave simultaneously deep in my gut, high in my heart, and even higher in my head would sweep over me. A sort of high that would fill me with enthusiasm and hope and a profound feeling of freedom.
Helming 6-tons of home, vessel, food, and plans into a stiff chop and a swift blow is one of my “happy places”, as the saying goes. A plan and an itinerary but also a comfortable awareness that circumstances and conditions could shift unexpectedly, that sailing by definition presupposes a state of fluidity and flux from undocking (or untethering) to setting anchor or returning to harbor.
To some degree this euphoric state is present every time I set out in any boat, any journey, any transition. Our seasonal migration between the lush shores of Lake Champlain and the high desert southwest is one of these undocking rituals. A setting out. An ending. A beginning. Closure. A fresh start. A new adventure. Another chapter. Seasonality writ large…
But I’m digressing and meandering. Back to the present, to removing the boats and storing them for the winter, to removing the docks and storing them for the winter, to winterizing the waterfront for the coming cold, the snow, the ice…
The present undocking is even more significant for us than usual. Or at least I have the sense that it is more significant. As we navigate a period of curated liminality, I am especially conscious of the uncoupling. The untethering. Sometimes a simple, familiar seasonal ritual — falling out of summer and into autumn, undocking vessels and the temporary means by which we secure them — turns out to be an integral constituent part of a larger, more profound transformation.
This is what I see when I look at the aerial photographs above. It is an awareness, a conscious yielding to the change(s) underway. I’m confident that Susan and I are both attuned to this liminality, that we’re aware and willing to embrace the shift, to immerse ourselves fully into what is feeling like a monumental shift in the proverbial seasons. I believe that we’re in the flow in a way that has eluded us in recent years. In many years really. This present undocking and its various rhizomic permutations feels more significant than its predecessors. In fact, this undocking is increasingly reminiscent of our transition from Manhattan to Essex 16 years ago. It’s still early. And it’s still unclear what exactly were moving through, moving toward. But we are journeying toward greater clarity each day.
Welcome to springtime in the Champlain Valley, a glorious but slightly schizophrenic transition — sun, rain, wind, hot, snow, sleet, etc. — when springtails make way for dandelions.
This visual meditation captures the haltingly springlike transformation of a small corner of Rosslyn’s back acreage over the last three months. A meadow’s margin. A fallen tree. A setting sun…
The video was made by compositing photographs from a trail cam captured between March and May 2018. Unlike most of my previous trail cam galleries and videos, this series is thin on wildlife. For some mysterious (and a bit unsettling) reason, wild critters appear to have been less abundant than usual. Or more savvy to the presence of my camera? Nevertheless the seasonal transformation offers a soothing, meditative perspective on the end of winter and the arrival of spring. I hope that you enjoy it.
If you missed previous posts with photographs from the wildlife/trail cam, check these out:
Now that I’ve downloaded the most recent image I’m pondering where to place the camera this summer. Watch the garden grow? Document the orchard’s fruity bandits? Spy on the waterfront for minks, ducklings, and my water-loving Labrador Retriever?
Phew. With Rosslyn’s icehouse insulation installation complete we can collectively exhale, confident and warm. Today I’d like to offer huge holiday shoutout to Kevin and Joe from Adirondack Spray Foam for wrapping up 2022 with the winter-proof armor we need to keep the icehouse project going fullbore over the coming months. Bravo!
Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Those were my thoughts a couple of weeks ago when we started installing spray foam insulation. If phase one was a relief, completion is resoundingly reassuring, like a bear hug from the universe. Things are going to be alright. Winter will huff and puff, maybe even blast us with blizzards and deep freezes. But we’re cocooned snuggly inside a protective force field.
Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
And combine the insurance of a thoroughly spray foamed building with the just completed ZIP System insulated sheathing swaddling is from the outside in? Aaahhh… It’s warming to just think about it. Ongoing rehab can continue afoot despite the taunts of our Adirondack Coast winter.
Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
As I’ve explained previously, we installed 1-1/2” structural insulated panels on the exterior which provides R-6. The 3” of spray foam inside the walls adds another R-21, and there’s a bonus between the two synthetic insulation barriers. When the size house was built in the late 1800s, they filled the interior 2 x 6 walls with wood shavings for insulation. Although we removed all of that in 2006 while remediating rot, the exterior of the framing was sheathed in two laters of T&G separated by about an inch baffled with shredded newsprint enveloped in tarpaper. So these walls should now do a remarkable job of keeping winter cold out, and summer cool in.
What about the roof?
Adirondack Spray Foam installed 7” on insulation between the rafters which will amount to an R-49 thermal barrier sandwiched between the ceiling and the roof.
Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
A decade and a half ago we wrestled with the best way to balance insulate Rosslyn. Ultimately, we concluded that our historic rehabilitation needed to balance heritage and environmental responsibility. Although we also use recycled denim insulation and mineral wool when appropriate, we’ve come to trust the energy efficiency of spray foam.
Insulation Installation Complete in Time for Winter
And then it was done. With our insulation installation complete, we can rest a little easier. January will inevitably plunge us into all manner of meteorological challenges, but we’re now in a much better position to power forward.
Insulation Installation Completed by Adirondack Spray Foam (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Although blue green doesn’t exactly *look* warm, the icehouse now can be warmed with a space heater. We’ll see if reality meets expectation this week.
Insulation Installation Completed by Adirondack Spray Foam (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In addition to wall-to-wall insulation these last two photos capture the post cleanup tidiness. It’s the perfect tabula rasa to start framing this week.
Spray Foam Insulation Mashup
Let’s curtain call this post with an almost meditative mashup of the last lap of spray foam installation.
Teeter-Tottering: Should I stay or should I go? (Source: Geo Davis)
To borrow a turn of phrase from Shaye Elliott, “I’m teeter tottering between” being fully present in Essex and departing for Santa Fe, betwixt summer’s curtain call and autumn’s debut, between and betwixt scores of less-than-precisely delineated transitions.
Should I stay or should I go now? — The Clash
Fair warning: I’m mixing metaphors today. Like fusion cooking and creative cocktail concocting, I’m hoping that purists will forgive my transgression(s) and sample the experiment with an open mind.
I’ve already shared a couple of quick riffs on the push-and-pull of seasonality, wrapping up the re-decking project, re-starting the boathouse gangway project, launching the exciting new icehouse project, and recovering from August 30 storm damage. I need to flesh out all of those transitions in fuller detail soon, but today instead I’ll touch on our autumn changeover from the Adirondack Coast to the high desert southwest with an unanticipated delay for COVID and a perhaps peculiarly drawn out rumination on teeter-tottering. Fair warning!
Teeter-Tottering: Should I stay or should I go? (Source: Geo Davis)
Teasing Out Teeter-Tottering Metaphor
I’m struck, I might add, by the strength of this teeter-tottering metaphor. The teeter-totter, a seesaw, with someone sitting on the other end, riding the teeter-totter seat down to the ground, close enough to toe-touch. When fortunate, bringing the soles of both feet to rest on the ground and bending knees to squat and push off, sending teeter-totter up into the air as a friend on the other end returns to the earth.
I recollect that there’s another challenge (and distinct pleasure) to teeter-tottering as well. Sure, it’s exciting to tip one another up and down, but balancing is also appealing, both friends suspended in mid air, neither touching the ground, neither rising, neither falling. Equilibrium. Balance. A quivering stasis that requires focus and collaboration between both friends.
Obviously the principal thrill of balancing on a teeter totter is that it’s incredibly difficult. And just as obvious is the indisputable fact that teeter-totter equilibrium is it best temporary. Eventually one or the other person will come back down to the earth, planting their feet on the ground, while the other will lift skyward. It’s impossible to postpone indefinitely.
So if it’s obvious, why am I explaining it this way? I think that the allure of the teeter-tottering metaphor — at least for me, right now — is that it so perfectly conjoins otherwise dissimilar sentiments.
I’m thrilled, exhilarated, and yet anxious about the abundance of thresholds upon which we are currently balancing. Certainly there’s a very real exuberance in the moments where we shed some gravity and float high. There are butterflies in the belly (and whirlwinds of worry in the belfry) when lofty ambitions come plunging down. But like that teeter-tottering youth of my memory, I often find that we’re endeavoring to maintain some fragile equilibrium, knowing full well that we can’t maintain it forever, and yet hoping to stabilize the teeter-totter for a moment, just another moment,… Or maybe a day? A week? This is not to say that we’re in denial about the inevitability of some pretty major transitions, but it speaks honestly about our hesitance in at least some cases.
You’ve possibly noticed a parade of posts recently addressing the transitions and transformations that we’re navigating. I apologize for too often talking obliquely, speaking around the issue rather than addressing it directly. Sometimes that’s part of the process, I’m afraid. Sometimes the prologue serves the needs of the storyteller even more than the reader.
In short, please bear with me. I recognize that not everybody enjoys teeter-tottering, so thank you for your patience, and in many cases, thank you for your generosity and advice and coaching.
Know then that this curiously kaleidoscopic time and space we’re teeter-tottering through (I warned you about mixing my metaphors!) will yield to more candid sharing when the time is right, with updates aplenty including:
The exceedingly handsome garapa deck rebuild that was completed a few weeks ago.
The boathouse gangway rebuild v2.0 which we’ll be relaunching soon (or at least as soon as the new team can demo the dangerously misguided fiasco left behind when TFG finally admitted defeat and quit.)
With those considerably more interesting transformations in the offing soon, I’ll conclude this post with a slightly more personal teeter-tottering anecdote.
Susan and I had prepared to depart Essex for Santa Fe considerably earlier this year than we habitually do. We’d invited some friends together for a last hurrah, and Susan had prepared impeccably as she does to enjoy a comfortable journey cross-country with our dog. And, given that our friend, Hroth Ottosen, would be mirroring our north-by-southwest migration as he returns from Santa Fe to Essex to take up residence at Rosslyn while we’re away (more on this including an introduction soon) our early departure was intended to allow comfortable breathing room between our departure and his arrival. But, as they say, the best laid plans…
After exercising caution and safely eluding Covid for 2-1/2 years, Susan fell ill about a week prior to our departure. And within just under a week I followed suit. Although my recovery was fortunately quick, hers was not. In fact we were both startled with how much more pronounced her symptoms and how much longer the duration of her illness. If Covid affectively debilitated me for two days, it knocked her out for more than two weeks.
Needless to say, our pre-departure fête and our travel plans were scuttled. Throw in Labor Day travel challenges, and we ended up postponing our departure even further. Perhaps this was the universe’s way of reminding us not to become overconfident in our planning, not to assume that we can orchestrate our way out of unpredictability, setbacks, and topsy-turvy crisis management that these times of transition typically engender. All this to say, the teeter totter tumbled!
Hankering for a hammock huddle this morning, so I’ll I revisit the photograph I shared on June 6 depicting a herd of hammocks near the orchard. Yes, the color is a little over juiced. And the shadows are dark almost to the point of feeling ominous. Or cozy? But this moment beckons this morning given yesterday’s storm damage. (I’ve included another image below capturing just how close one of the fallen trees came to both the icehouse and the hammock huddle.
Hammock Huddle Haiku
Together apart,
plein air cocoons canopied
beneath maple trees.
— Geo Davis
Pandemic Precursor
While quarantining during the early months of the pandemic Susan and I spent time exploring and experimenting with aspects of our property that we’d never considered before. Or not recently, at least.
Sixteen years have lulled us into habits, ways of living and looking at Rosslyn that have possibly become more confining than we’d realized prior to weeks-on-end of quarantine.
We spent many afternoons and early evenings on the lawn of the abandoned clay tennis court (located west, northwest of the icehouse). It started because the early spring sunsets were best visible from here, but it continued because we discovered a fresh and inviting space and perspective that we’d previously overlooked. And this new vantage, this new ritual catalyzed a shift in our thinking. Wondering, really. We’d inadvertently stumbled upon a liminal space. And the longer we spent hammocking together near the glowing Solo stove fire pit gifted to us by our older nephew, bundling up as the evening grew chill, witnessing another pandemic sunset, the more our conversations and questions raced into exciting new places. Our wondering wandered further and further into liminality.
Transitions. Flux. Liminality. Interstices. Inflection. Evolving… We are awash in transitions! (Source: Transitions)
Three years later we’re navigating a tempest of transformation. But I’m tickling a tangent, so best to stick with our hammock huddle for now.
Ensemble Hammocking
Our earliest ensemble hammocking in this location, back in March or April 2020, was nestled up together in this wooden arc stand.
Pandemic Hammocking 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)
Needless to say, no side-by-side reveal since we were quarantined, and we weren’t super swift with selfies…
We’ve long loved hammocks, stringing them up throughout our property, so it occured to me that it would be fun to create a group of hammocks hanging together in the hopes that soon we’d be able to be joined by friends once again. Recumbent social distancing!
The hammock huddle shown at the top of this post was born. The same is shown here, minus the giant maple tree that used to tower nearby.
Hammock Huddle (Source: Geo Davis)
As it turns out, the hammock roundup has been a hit. For the third season in a row we’ve enjoyed group hammocking among the still adolescent stand of maple trees growing between the tennis court and the orchard.
Yesterday‘s storm damage was distributed throughout our property, and the immense maple that succumbed in the photo stood right next to the hammock huddle. Guided through the forceful blow by some benevolent force, the towering tree exploded onto the ground without damaging the hammocks, the maple trees in which they are suspended, or for that matter any of the adjoining trees save a few branches here and there. It’s remarkable really. Even the gate through which we drive the tractor was unscathed. And, as I pointed out yesterday, if the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, the maple would likely have destroyed the icehouse that we are just beginning to rehabilitate. Instead, we have a new aperture of visible sky this morning and a year’s worth of firewood.
I occasionally question my choice of Redacting Rosslyn as the catchall category for the nearly decade-and-a-half process of documenting Rosslyn’s rehab ad infinitum or — more precisely — of telling the story (distilling the spirit from the collage of details, filtering out acerbic and delicate dregs, blending the best into a balanced and cohesive whole.) Aspiring toward a collection of converging vignettes, I nevertheless succumb to segues and siren songs, wondering and wandering wayward. Again. And again.
If only I could harness the haiku’s seductive simplicity…
Converging Vignettes Haiku
Looking through layers entangled textures, voices, converging vignettes. — Geo Davis
UnHaiku & Long-form
But wrangling a love affair with a home (and the layers of living that have accrued over sixteen years of Rosslyn homing) is less haiku than kaleidoscopic collage. Or mirage!
And while I often turn to haiku (or poetry in general) to capture what more prolix prose muddle or obscure, long-form is invariably useful to transform life into words. Fortunately it’s usually just a preliminary step, a zero draft or rough draft, that will condense and streamline through editing and revising. After all, sometimes unhaiku can amplify and dilate and reveal what a haiku can surreptitiously obscure. And long-form as a process can prime the proverbial pump, facilitate insights, expose patterns and possibilities that might have slipped past undiscerned in the lived moment.
Over the last few months that I’ve been re-immersing myself in years of Rosslyn ramblings, photographs, notes, and miscellaneous artifacts, converging vignettes have begun to reveal themselves. Are they mirages? Perhaps, but they’re familiar mirages rooted in memory. There’s a clarity to their contours. Perhaps the passage of time (and repetition of patterns) underpin discernment. I’m not sure. But I’m relieved and grateful that so far revisiting the past and overlaying the present is rendering… something. It’s premature to define it, label it, confine it, or restrict it. But there’s a profoundly exciting coalescence happening.
So where does this leave me/us?
Convergence
In an effort to continue catalyzing this convergence, I’m concurrently diving in and stepping back. Immersion and withdrawal. Total intimacy and distance. If convergence requires the merging of distinct entities and the progressive movement toward union, then I will commit to this process. I will deep dive into the tangled textures, the reverberating voices, the layers upon layers of life. But I will concurrently discipline myself to exercise some distance. Filtering and discarding. Disentangling and simplifying.
And I will revisit Ways of Seeing after many years in the hopes of better articulating what the heck I’m talking around!
Predawn: carriage barn and icehouse (Source: Geo Davis)
Today, predawn, shortly after 5:00 AM, low 40°s, crystal clear. Distant crows, further distant rooster, bats above, swooping, pinging, chimes chiming beneath the cedar,…
We’re on the cusp of a perennially bittersweet transition. One among many. A seasonal migration mid a monsoon of transitions. Such flux. Such disconcert. Unsettled and evolving. If you’re curious, comfortable with unpredictability, inspired by inflection, then I invite you to join us. I’ll be waxing romantic-but-honest in the days and weeks ahead. Change, inside out, for the hale of heart. Bumps, bruises, and blemishes. But also predawn profiles emerging out of the obscurity of night; stark silhouettes and crystal clarity; the beginning of the end of a familiar, comfortable chapter and the end of the beginning of a still-enigmatic and wonder-filled new chapter. I will stumble. But with your patience, your guidance, I will get up again. And I will emerge on the other side, ready.
Starting in about 2003 I initiated an unfocused real estate hunt for a “fixer-upper” in the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley. I’d returned from four years in Europe with enough savings to justify some idle time, a reprieve I hoped to plough into a long languishing novel while tinkering with the vestiges of a web-based business I’d launched in Paris a few years before.
But I couldn’t shake the renovation bug that had bitten me quite unexpectedly while bringing a luxury vacation rental to market in Paris’ Faubourg St. Germaine.
I’d made it into my early thirties without owning a home due to my intentionally peripatetic lifestyle, and despite an aesthete’s appetite for buildings and furnishing and gardens, I hadn’t the least interest in settling down. No biological clock ticking. No nesting instinct. No yen for taxes and maintenance and burst pipes and snow shoveling. No desire whatsoever for the trappings of a settled, domestic life. I understood why it appealed to others, but for me the commitments and encumbrances far outweighed the pride and financial wisdom of home ownership.
Until recently.
Something had changed, and I couldn’t quite figure out how or why.
I’d spent the better part of a year and a half immersed in the acquisition, renovation and marketing of a grand Haussmannian property that promised tourists an opportunity to enjoy Paris à la Parisienne. My business partner and I joked that it was “Versailles in the heart of Paris”, which was a gross exaggeration, but fifteen foot ceilings, 3,200+ square feet of living space including three master suites, a grande salon, a petite salon and a formal dining room invited exaggeration. Magnificent marble fireplaces, intricate plaster moldings, hardwood floors and meticulous finish details exuded Parisian elegance by the time we started booking the accommodation, but it hadn’t always looked so inviting.
The property underwent a top-to-bottom transformation between the day we received the key and the day we shot the photographs for our brochures and website. Half of the property had been gutted and rebuilt from scratch. One bathroom was remodeled and two new bathrooms were created from scratch. Walls were moved, electrical systems were rewired. Carpets were ripped out and herringbone hardwood floors were hand sanded and resealed. Magnificent crown moldings were painstakingly restored, and sconces, chandeliers, and period hardware were refinished.
No architect. No designer. No engineer. Just outsized self confidence and a hepped up learning curve. I scribbled construction drawings on walls and fumbled through French and Portuguese until contractors seemed to understand what I wanted. With the Lebanese contractors I gesticulated, made funny sound effects and scribbled some more. That we completed the project at all was a miracle. That the results were exquisite, a mystery that still awes me. Though I’d grown up assisting my parents with a couple of renovation projects, I’d never before undertaken anything so ambitious or complex. Or so rewarding.
Although our business plan involved duplicating the process in Italy and in Spain, the woman I’d been dating for two years lived in New York City, and after two years of cycling through Paris, Rome and Manhattan on a roughly two week cycle, I opted to trade the business for the woman I loved. I dissolved my interest in the business, packed up my apartments in Paris and Rome, and moved back to the United States.
Some progress is pretty. Framing new window aprtures, for example. And some progress is practical. Installing helical piers, for example. Insulation installation is *indisputably* in this second category. And yet, aaahhh… What a relief to have the first phase of insulation complete!
The crawlspace beneath the main floor is now isolated from what will become the first floor by a whole lot of insulation. If you look closely in the photo above you’ll see small furring strips installed at the bottom of the floor joist. We installed 2″ rigid foam insulation board on top of these and then sprayed in XXX of closed cell foam insulation.
Because this is an historic rehabilitation project, preserving the original stone foundation was critical. Successfully pinning the new foundation to the old (ensuring structural integrity for new construction) prevented us from isolating the thermal bridge (old stone foundation plus new concrete foundation and slap). So we framed in a gap around the entire perimeter of the building that allowed us to create a spray foam insulation barrier, minimizing the transfer of cold exterior temperatures during the wintertime. We also foamed the entire curb inside the crawlspace, to further isolate the thermal bridge and reduce interior and exterior temperature exchange. The photo above shows the framing gap around the perimeter, filled with foam insulation.
After Insulation Installation…
Once the spray foam insulation installation was complete, it was time for a subloor.
Supi guided this important step forward so that we can set up staging to frame the west and east gable end windows.
Icehouse Subfloor Installation Almost Complete (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In this final photo you can see the last narrow strips of subfloor are about to be installed. Not bad for a day’s work!
Insulation Installation and Subfloor Mashup
Haven’t done an exceptionally thoughtful writeup with this post, so perhaps remixing into a begin-to-end recap of the first phase insulation installation and subfloor installation will fill in some gaps. Hope so!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cl_Sk_Gg7Xo/
Thanks to Kevin’s spray foam insulation team and everyone else who helped us to reach this next significant milestone. Just imagine once the walls and roof are insulation and the ZIP System panels are installed around the interior exterior envelope. Might start to warm up a little…
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: Matt and Justin framing double hung windows. (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
It sure is fun to see the three double hung windows emerging on the north elevation of the icehouse. And the three fixies above. And the three fixies on the south elevation. And the freshened up window aperture in the southeast corner, opposite the new bathroom in the small anteroom (once framing, well, and everything else, is complete.)
I’m talking about window apertures. And the transparency that all of the new windows (and doors) will bring to Rosslyn’s icehouse. The transformation will be dramatic!
Icehouse Window Apertures: Matt fine-tuning framing for “fixies” (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
With the north elevation becoming so porous, the team added plastic weatherproofing to ensure that an early December storm doesn’t punish us. In the photo below, you can see the in-between stage that probably should have appeared before the first and second photos above, the progression from opening up the sheathing for the three double hung windows and the three small fixies above.
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: covering up new apertures (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
This time of year we’re working on borrowed time, racing winter, keeping our fingers crossed that temperatures and moisture will remain within a favorable range. But, we’re also realistic. And practical. Better safe than sorry!
Icehouse Apertures: Matt fine-tuning framing for “fixies” (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Keeping with my out-of-sequence chronology, I’ll double back again. This time to Matt putting some of the finishing touches on those upper windows. When everything is said and done, these three small window apertures will echo those in the carriage barn stables visible from the west and northwest, adding a handsome cohesion between the two buildings. And they will augment the transparency that is fundamental to this repurposing project. Just as the west wall is transforming from a solid first story and a small service opening on the second story (ostensibly to help pack in the ice?), to a window-filled, view-filled gable end, we’ve integrated a constellation of windows in the northwest section of the north elevation, dramatically shifting the transparency of the interior.
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: Matt and Justin opening up the new double hung windows (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Again out of sequence, the photo above and the next one below offer some insight into the process. The team first framed in the window bucks from within the icehouse. Once everything was secure, they cut through the two layers of existing sheathing and the “air gap” which is filled with shredded newsprint insulation (all original to the icehouse) to open the apertures.
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: Justin tuning up double hung window framing (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
To the right of Justin (in the photo above) you can see the third double hung window and the three small windows (“fixies”) above framed and ready to have the sheathing cut out.
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: Matt manning the mitre saw (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
All six window frames have been cut out in this photo. Jarret, cutting framing material with the mitre saw, is bathed in natural light even though all six apertures are covered in semi-opaque plastic. Try, if your imagination is feeling nimble, to imagine those apertures a few months from now. The large, lower openings will receive six-over-six double hung windows that can be opened to allow a nice breeze to enter on the north side of the building. And the three small windows above are the non-operable square “fixies” that echo the stable windows in the carriage barn.
Although the drama today — at least in terms of apertures and fenestration — is found on the north elevation of the icehouse, there’s also some headway being made on the south elevation.
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: Matt and Jarret fine-tuning new “fixie” (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
The new fenestration in the western portion (open area of icehouse with vaulted ceiling) repeats the high (clerestory) windows windows from the north façade, albeit with slightly different spacing. This southern exposure will introduce plenty of natural light to the principal space in the icehouse while editing the view of the carriage barn. Although these new apertures will not result in the same elevation transformation as the north side, they will significantly augment the natural light and the transparency.
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: Matt cutting out sheafing from new window (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Although windows will not be installed until spring, we have the ability in the short term (before exterior paneling is installed) to preview the inside-outside blurring — or would that be, outside-inside blurring?!?! — that we’re hoping to accomplish by introducing so many apertures into this small building.
And one more window is now ready for temporary paneling and spring installation of new casement. In the southeast corner of the building, directly to the left upon entering from the east, an existing window has been reframed and replaced with a matching but high efficiency Marvin window (that will be installed in duplicate on the north elevation, one in the same location as previously but now located in a bathroom, and another in the new mechanical room).
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: shoring up window framing for existing aperture (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
For those of you familiar with the building as it stood prior to this remodel, that aperture is unchanged.
Icehouse Apertures and Transparency: Matt and Zack framing new window (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Although the location (and window design) remains the same, Matt and Zack are fortifying the window buck to ensure exact location and structural integrity.
In my last icehouse rehab update I caught you up on the internal window framing. Now we’ve taken the full leap!
There are still two windows in the north elevation the need to be framed and open, and then there are all of the hight level windows in the two gable ends of the icehouse. This latter project will take place after first phase of insulation and subfloor installation (both scheduled for next week) so that staging can be set up to work so high up. Updates will be forthcoming…
In closing, a heap of gratitude to Pam, Hroth, Tony, Eric, Matt, Zack, Justin, and Jarret. Have a great weekend!
