Well, the garage doors are purple now. We put up the nifty picket fence on the left, and had a monster tree overhanging the house removed, but: The house went up in1865 as a one room log cabin, and the living room ceiling consists of LOGS. Then the place grew a bit, into 'Italianate', the 2-story block on the left consisting of the main house, a style popular in rural NY in the late 1800s. The bit to the right of the front door was added maybe 40 some years ago, and has a seperate entrance, if needed, skylight etc and is the studio. Photos from 1880 show a shed in back. This was the cobbler's house, and that was the workshop. The shed was dragged up and became the garage on the right about 70 years ago, before there was a connection to the house (studio, just mentioned). The garage is in scary shape, and we put on the garage doors after we moved in, but the roof and part of the foundation posts....other than that, the previous owners tore the inside of the house apart and remade it beautifully. So, it is a brand new house inside a very old house, good roof, insulation, new wiring and lights and appliances and cupboards, even new bathroom stuff. Two doors down is the old mill, now apartments, and 100 years ago the river behind us was dammed, and there was a huge mill pond back there. The dam was removed some time ago, but our property line remains the original bank of the pond, which you can see now as a steep dropoff that slopes down to the river. We don't own that, the mill owners house is behind us, across the river, and they still own all the woods and river bank around us, which is good, because they pay taxes on it and I DON'T. And they can't do anything with a floodplain anyway, so its not like a McDonalds will be built back there someday. The slope leading down to the river is covered with ancient junk. There are old whiskey bottles and buckets, nothing younger than 1890.
8 comments:
Boy, that certainly IS purple! I like it. A house with history is an amazing thing.
Dude! You didn't tell me about the junk. We could have gone digging.
Why yes, cm, the junk is abundant, and the bottles are not neccessarily broken and you don't have to dig. They sit there, everywhere. Blue, brown, etc. It is interesting junk, portrait of a small town in 1880. As you know, people saw a mill pond and just tossed stuff into it, and it is there still, even with the pond long gone.
Gordo: the last owners bought the house 4 years ago, a husband -wife architect and builder team. The place was a wreck, and they did a lot of work. Friends of theirs rented for a year, and planned to buy the place, BUT when they came home one day last fall, and found that the house was painted purple, they backed out of the agreement and bought a white house down the street! One man's purple house is another man's opportunity. Of course, it had been painted bright lime green before, and bright purple is considered a big improvement.
I'm with cm ... A mill pond full of bottles and things? I'm coming down with scuba gear .. :-D
Ah, but gordo, the pond is dry, the stuff sitting there for the taking. I was looking at it this morning, just now, and there is what looks like a safe down there. Could it be.....?????
Even better! :-D
you live near a former mill...again! hmm, wonder what that means.
I should see what that looks like a safe thing is. And Denis, sometimes a mill is jus a mill.
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