Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved (28 page)

On my second day away, I checked in, and Sandy reported on the progress. “You have walls in the hallway, and you almost have a ceiling now. It looks great. You’re gonna love it when you get home.”

She was right. The hallway is gorgeous. The wood is warm; the angles are dramatic; the combination of horizontal and vertical lines is perfect. I’ve chosen tongue-and-groove pine to cover the walls and ceiling. The lower boards are wider, with the groove running up and down. At the point where the roof used to begin, the boards run side to side, with a smaller interval between the grooves. The plywood floor looks like hell, and the holes in the cottage wall need attention, but the hallway is gorgeous. I think back to the late summer, remembering the roof appearing beam by beam, my feeling that my ceiling touched the sky. Now November is closing in, and the light is changing seasons. The sky is steel blue, but the ceiling still soars toward it, unafraid to touch the coming cold. John is pleased and Ed is ready to leave for Florida again. “I’ll be back around Christmas,” he says to me. “We’ll probably finish up a few odds and ends then.”

Indeed, we are down to the odds and ends. The big John-jobs are done. “I gotta work on a roof before the weather gets really cold. But on the rainy days, I’ll be here. Change out that bedroom window, make the closet you want in the bathroom. All the small stuff. And the floor, when the boards come in. Howard will finish the painting meanwhile.” John’s referring to my most recent list: Painting Tasks, Interior and Exterior. We’d talked it over and decided Howard was the man for the job. There’s just too much on the list for Tony to do it, especially now that he has a full-time job. Howard has already painted the ceilings in the cottage; his work is careful, neat, thoughtful.

We decide he’ll start with the exterior painting, which must be done before the weather turns even colder. Howard begins work on the cottage windows, which require reglazing. I did a round of reglazing when I first bought the house; it came out fat and wormy. Even as I gained on-the-job training, my capacity to make the glazing smooth and unobtrusive did not improve. A few years later, when Harry and Tony painted the trim, they redid my work, most of which was cracked and missing already, a consequence of weather and lack of storm windows—and the horrible mess I’d made of it the first time.

Howard knows exactly how to glaze a windowpane. I watch him with the putty knife and the glazing compound, and wonder how he makes it look so easy. I’ve noticed that his hands sometimes shake with age, yet his touch is steady, sure. His strips of glazing compound are smooth and just wide enough to do the job. Watching Howard, I tell him about my bad job, confessing that the glazing was actually visible from the inside, that it was wider than the wooden mullions. He laughs, but does not share his secrets. I am grateful for his age and the experience he brings to this job. New windows do not require glazing, and I imagine that Howard’s will soon be a lost art. I think of John, who has declared his open hostility to painting. I cannot imagine him mustering the patience for this painstaking work.

Howard has all the patience, and all the time in the world. After he completes the glazing, he suggests a coat of oil-based exterior paint to protect his work, followed by the latex I’ve chosen. I’m not a fan of petroleum-based products, but he convinces me that this is the good old-fashioned way, that the glazing and window trim will hold up much longer in the face of the elements. “You’re in charge,” I say after some discussion, and he sends me to the hardware store to pick up what he wants.

We settle into a routine. Howard arrives every morning promptly at eight. He’d come earlier, he says, but he doesn’t want to get caught in the hospital traffic when he crosses Hyannis. I am glad for this logistical slow-down. Those seven o’clock mornings with John have taken their toll. By eight, I am up, showered, presentable. I’m usually in the kitchen making breakfast when he arrives. Egypt is out on patrol, and the side door is unlocked. Howard taps twice, lightly, on the French doors, and lets himself in.

“Good mowhning!” His voice is loud enough to rouse me if I am not in the immediate vicinity. He has a true Yankee accent, and I love hearing his dropped
r
’s and extended
ohh
’s. He sings his morning greeting more than he says it, and I find myself answering in kind. “Good morning, Howard,” I reply, a five-note response to his musical call.*

*
IT IS QUIETER NOW.
There are no more compressors or nail guns, no radios, only the sound of Howard whistling between brush strokes. I miss the activity, and I consider how strange it will feel to live alone again, to live without the project that has absorbed me for so many months, to live without a crew of men around the house. I’m glad that Howard is here for awhile longer. I’m glad that there are still decisions to make, paint colors to mix. I am not ready to become a woman without a project.

Stan is still finishing up—installing the smoke alarms and the light fixtures in the hallway. They are outdoor lights, weathered copper with little panes of glass. I have chosen them as a tribute to the once-exterior walls that now enclose the hallway. I want to create a visual reminder of the outdoors coming in, the two houses becoming one. I selected two more fixtures with the same finish, one to replace the fixture over what was once the kitchen sink in the cottage, and one for over my kitchen sink, where I’ve never had quite enough light.

Stan and Howard are an unlikely pair, but it is clear they enjoy each other. Stan always gives Howard a full-voiced good-morning and Howard smiles a big, broad smile whenever Stan turns up. Last week, Howard asked Stan about plastic molding to cover wires, wanting to know where he could find some that he could paint to match his daughter’s living room. She wants to cover up the stereo wires, and, Howard tells Stan, her husband is hopeless when it comes to even the most minor home improvements. Very smart and a good provider of course, but hopeless with a hammer and nails. Howard has mentioned his daughter’s husband to me before. Though I can tell that it puzzles him that the younger man would rather hire out than learn how to do a job himself—I think it disturbs his inclination toward thriftiness—I suspect Howard likes coming to his daughter’s rescue in the area of home repair.

Stan knew exactly what Howard was looking for, and he arrived the next day with more than enough wire molding, for which he would not let Howard pay him a penny. This small favor sealed the bond between the two men. “Are we expecting Stan today?” Howard asks me, and I can tell he hopes for his company.*

*
I HAVE HEAT NOW,
and hot water. I followed Kevin’s recommendation to get a bigger tank on the hot water heater. With one hundred gallons of warming water, and my soon-to-be-installed second shower, two people will be able to shower at the same time. The fact that Kevin mentions this as a selling point reassures me he doesn’t view me as one of those fifty-gallon old ladies—not yet, anyway—and gives me hope that I may not grow into one.

After the hot water tank was installed and the pipes were laid, the furnace was moved from kitchen closet to cottage basement without incident. Maybe because the weather was colder, or perhaps because I was uncomfortable following the plumbing crew into the confines of my back hall closet, I didn’t watch the move with the same deep curiosity that I have brought to many of the other aspects of this project. I provided a garden hose so they could drain the boiler, and I took a few shots of the shiny debris they tossed into the yard as they worked in the cramped back hall: nuts and bolts and tubes and pipes and screwdrivers and odd bits of wire. I also got a shot of the relocated boiler connected to an array of gleaming copper pipes in the new basement: a labyrinth of indoor waterways, some carrying hot water up to the new cottage baseboards and over to the not-yet-installed shower and the ancient sink, others moving warmth across the basement, through a hole that once held an orange cottage-landing strap, traveling under the hallway and over to the house.

I’m grateful for the heat, especially when I am sitting at my desk, and I think Howard is glad for it, too. It helps his paint dry, and it means he doesn’t have to wear so many layers when he’s working inside. As Howard stains and paints and sands and spackles, I begin clearing space and moving furniture in the living room. Much earlier in the process, Erika sent me an e-mail: “I dreamed about your house last night. It was beautiful. It felt so spacious and full of light.” I am determined to create exactly that reality. I start with the books, sifting through, boxing up what I don’t need to own. I go through paperwork that I have tucked away in odd places. I clean. I clear. I breathe. I’ve finished up both of my big consulting projects and I can focus on the house, claiming my space and my winter place. It feels good.

In the stark December light, I contemplate my increased wall space. I dig out unframed prints I’ve had buried in closets for years, and I make several trips to the frame shop. I know the framing will add a few hundred dollars to the mounting total for this project, but I have resolved to stop worrying about the money. I’ll end the year with no spare cash on hand, and a lot of bills to pay, but I will also end the year with a new home. It will cost almost twice our back-of-envelope estimates, but my banker assures me adding on has doubled the value of my house. That means in terms of equity, I’ve made a significant net gain. And more important, it means it’s more likely they will approve a new mortgage to pay off all my construction debts.*

*
ONE RAINY MORNING,
John shows up. Howard spots the white truck out the bathroom window at the same moment I hear the familiar beep-beep-beep. “Is that John?” Howard asks me, excitement in his voice.

“I think it is. He said he’d be here on a rainy day.” There is a thrill in my voice, too. We’re like two kids, which I guess puts John in the odd position of favorite uncle. You know, the one who stirs things up—who tosses the babies up in the air, who lets you order a double-dipped even if it’s before dinner, the uncle who likes the same radio station you do, who takes you to your first PG movie.

Peter’s truck pulls up behind John’s. Two of them, I think. We’ll get a lot done. And we do. They stay late into the evening, hauling out my bedroom window and replacing it with two windows that Peter has donated to the cause. The window we installed in the cottage bathroom came from Peter, too. “You should see his place,” John said to me once. “He has so much stuff! Don’t know how he finds anything, but he does!” I imagine a basement filled with discarded windows, doors, shutters, doorknobs. A couple of sheds out back, all filled up too, according to John. I can relate. I’ve been saving windows and doors and all manner of things on this project myself. If I were on a different job every day, the temptation would be great to take home the castoffs. In the meantime, I am glad for Peter’s hoarding tendencies, which have brought me the two four-over-fours that will grace my bedroom wall.

John’s plan for today didn’t include this installation. But when they finished installing the fir flooring where the cottage sink and stove used to be, and were all done building the bathroom closet, it was only three o’clock. John decided to yank out the old window while he had Peter on hand to help. Once they got it out, they were all revved up, even though it was quitting time. With no discussion, they made the new opening for the second window and framed and fitted both new windows into place. They look great from the hallway, where I have been documenting the process with my camera. We all move to the other side, into my bedroom, to get the full effect.

Oh.

God, they look awful. This is a case where what I imagined and what I am right now staring at are not the same. I don’t say anything. Could I have made such a really horrible design decision? I stay quiet, because I don’t want John to know I think the chocolate-paned windows look like hell.

“They need a windowsill,” John says. “I was thinking one long sill. Maybe a little deeper than your standard sill, so it would be more like a shelf.”

“Yes, that sounds good.” A sill, I realize, will make a huge difference, and so will trim, and most of all, a few coats of paint. I think more than anything, the dull brown of the mullions against the peach on the bedroom walls looks like hell.

“I’ll come back tomorrow and trim it all out. And I’ll do the trim on these other windows too, if you want.” My bedroom windows suffer from clamshell molding—a mistake I made as a younger homeowner. I want to change it to the simple flat pine that matches the rest of the house and cottage.*

*
HOWARD RECYCLES
the piece of drywall we removed to insert the second window, using it to fill in the space left when we took out the original longer window. It takes a lot of joint compound and paint, but it’s better than tearing down all the wallboard and starting from scratch. It looks okay—not great, but passable—by the time he is through. The windows, on the other hand—joined by a single sill, trimmed out and painted in Coconut Milk white—the windows do look great. John has rounded both ends of the sill ever so slightly, a perfect touch. I stare at the two windows, joined by a single white sill, and think back to my hopeful New Year’s wishing. Wishing for a cottage, wishing for a man. Hoping the man would come if I made room for him.

Two old windows, not looking their best, a wall twice-broken to accept them, reinforced to support them. New paint and a pathway built between them. Some trim to enclose them, and a good washing. I push my bed against the patched wall under the windows and contemplate the intimation of Bedroom Future. The one that will not have my desk staring at me when I lean up against the new headboard the Bog Boys have made for me. Egypt joins me. I reach for him and give him a pat as I lie back. Up through the windows, I see the new pine boards of the hall ceiling and a patch of sky. I kneel to take in another view. Across the hall is the tiny French-style window over what used to be the cottage kitchen sink—both panes swung open, deep blue against the bare wood walls of the hallway; beyond that, the office-to-be, empty now, the floors refinished, gleaming. I stand to see beyond that—the full-view door to the floating deck; and beyond that, the treetops of the bog. I move my fingers across the smoothness of the sill before I join Egypt again on the bed. This is a version of exactly what I want: a connection with a view, a union that invites light.