Yep, I'm blogging again, having taken a "break" since April (What is it now, September 6?) As you'll see, it was hardly a break. I'm blogging not because I think the world ought to care what paint colors I chose for a renovation, but because I think that when you've worked hard, you should reflect on it and celebrate it. And when you and your beloveds have gone through an enormous life passage, writing about it and documenting it is a good thing to do all around. So much happens that we forget, and I love having a written and pictorial record of so many life passages here on this blog. If you enjoy reading it, that's great! If it inspires you to make some changes for yourself, so much the better!
This July, Indigo Hill was host to a wedding celebration for Phoebe and Óscar, who had a bare-bones, unwitnessed courthouse wedding in Indiana in January 2024, just a few weeks after he came to America for good. It was a requirement of the "fiancé visa" that they be wed within 90 days of his arrival from Spain. I didn't even have time to get out there to witness it; they just marched themselves right in and did the deed. Afterward, they went out for doughnuts. Delicious doughnuts, but still.
We all thought there should be a little more hoopla than that...
We planned it around the flowers. Phoebe and I walked the meadows and watched, and it became clear to us over the last few years that the very end of July was peak for the wild bergamot, the woodland sunflowers, the purple coneflower. These would be the stalwarts, the backbone of our celebration.
In so many ways, it was always about the flowers. It was about the outdoors and what the skies were doing; about living on this land. So we tried to ascertain when the moment of peak beauty might be. June as a wedding month has been done. So has May. We wanted it to be in our time, in July, the month when we both were born, when the insect music swells, and all the late flowers are having a riotous party in the wildflower meadow. When the butterflies are dancing, and all nature is celebrating anyway. We knew we’d be at the mercy of the weather; one always is when planning an outdoor event. But we couldn’t imagine anything for the ceremony but being outdoors, where we're happiest.
And so in April 2024, I began mowing what we came to call the wedding grounds. And I began weeding and mulching all the gardens around the house with a bit more than my usual tenacity. I figured if I kept up with it, I wouldn’t have a horrendous push of clearing and weeding at the end. And that proved to be the case. Just a topoff weed and water, some fresh mulch and a couple of final mows and I was good to go. If I’m good at anything, it’s maintenance. Faithful to the task, no matter how long it takes, and how many times it has to be repeated. I just keep going, and I enjoy keeping going.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, and that's bad when you are a linear thinker like me. Because preparations for this wedding had started in December 2023, when I started purging my belongings for the renovation. Not that the house needed it, much. Oh Lord, did it need it.
The preparation all started in earnest on February 14, 2024, when I had all the floors redone and the walls painted. I was a full part of the two-man crew (Walt and Hero), here putting my fan together,
who swept through my house, making it beautiful.
My bigass new fan-that-looks-like-a-windmill is one of my favorite things in the whole house. It takes me to the prairie and makes a wonderful breeze!
These two West Virginians sure know what they're doing, and I'd hire them again in a heartbeat. It was a surprise to me how hard I had to work to clear the decks for them to do their work. Like, I popped out of bed when I heard their trucks pull in before daylight, and when they finally left in the afternoon, I was a limp, wet rag, done in. I was also the gopher for anything they needed from town, and many days I'd have to run in with a list and go into Lowe's Hell to try to find things I had never even heard of. That was hard.
Redoing the paint and all the flooring was like having to pack up and move, without going anywhere. Because we were replacing all the floors, we had to clear all the furniture out of each room, and find places to put it while the flooring went down.
Kitchen hell, full of foyer stuff while the yellow
foyer's being painted. A torn-up kitchen is always the worst, right? Because even though everything is torn to pieces, you still have to eat. When you're a half-hour from town, you don't just pop out to dinner. You deal with it. Thank goodness we weren't doing a full kitchen renovation, just paint and floors. The hard maple cabinets dating to 1999 aren't going anywhere, though I could sure use new countertops and sink. But I'll think about that later.
In the living room, my giant built-in wall of natural history books had to be weeded through so I could empty the shelves so they could be painted Northwoods Brown. UGH!! Awwwful job. I did that in the six weeks before the renovation began. This is just half of them.
The ones I wanted went in boxes in the basement for later, and the ones I didn’t also went in boxes, to be donated to Gorman Nature Center in Mansfield, Ohio, for distribution to biologists and field naturalists around the state, via free tables at conventions. That was deeply satisfying to me, and I thank Dave McShaffrey of Marietta College, biology prof and fine human, and Gorman Nature Center director Jason Larson for making my dream a reality, 567 volumes over.
How did I have 567 books to give away? Well, every time a book came in for review at Bird Watcher’s Digest, Bill, who never got rid of anything, brought it home. It was my job to find a place for it, and I had long since run out of space upstairs and started putting them in the basement. Please, make it stop! But he never stopped bringing books home. He just couldn’t say no to them. It took me a long time to go through all those books, and it was painful both emotionally and physically, but they were heavy and the great groaning shelves of them were unsightly and there was no reason to keep them all.
And that's why we don't do regular book reviews in BWD Magazine. Because we all work remotely, with a tiny staff, and there is no depository (namely, my house!) for all the books that would flood in if we did. Logistics rule, always.
Here's the after effect. Thoroughly weeded, space opened up (that has since been filled again).
My bookshelves are still full, never fear, but they look ever so much better, painted and orderly with a few nice knickknacks scattered through them.
When the living room lighting was out and the carpet was torn up...man. That was rough. And we started on Valentine's Day, so it wasn't very nice outdoors. But it had to be done. If not now, when?
Here's the before of the living room. It was green, and the walls and ceiling were thoroughly smoked from weeks of power outages when all we had was the fireplace to keep warm. Real tired carpet on the floor, that had been through two kids and a dog (though the Bacon never, ever peed on rugs!) and huge creamy coffee mugs being spilled on it again and again.
And here's the After. I went with all luxury vinyl plank flooring. I chose a Benjamin Moore color called Elkhorn for the walls, and Northwoods Brown for the beams. I wanted to work with the colors of the fireplace and make it feel cozy and denlike. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
Before the renovation, I never sat in the living room. I was either in the studio working, cooking in the kitchen, or I was in bed. The living room belonged to the kids and the TV. But after? Yeah. I actually sit in that leather recliner from time to time, and sometimes I nap on that nice leather couch!
See that giant white chair under the bird plates? I bought it for Curtis. And he refused to get up on it, using the couch instead. So I covered his end of the couch with a furry slipcover and he loved it. And, Lordy be! I sat in the giant white chair instead, and I loved that. I had a reading nook for the first time since I left Virginia! I had SO much fun hanging all my bird paintings on the walls. Finally, they had a place to rest, and I think they look awesome. The whole place is a gallery. Better on the walls than in boxes in the basement!
And then about a month ago Curtis decided he'd take over that chair that I bought for him. And it being white, it needed a cover, and he is in it ALL THE TIME and that, my friends, is that. I can't complain. I got it for $74 at Valu City Furniture, and it was meant to be his all along. It's the most deluxe dog bed any dog ever had.
The living room brings me joy every time I walk into it. Still.
The old kitchen accent color was Cantaloupe. I was sooo sick of Cantaloupe. I don't even like cantaloupe.
For the renovation, I chose an accent color called Lush, which is a gorgeous deep green that just seems to make the poplar wood trim sing.
And of course the plants look great against it.
The front door got a new coat of vibrant blue paint as well. Color is the thing. After decades in a tentatively-painted, mostly whitish interior, I'm a bit Iris Apfel about color. Not apologizing! The barn-red siding with the blue roof works for me, and I'm just moving some color indoors now.
Using Lush on all the accent walls really pulled the house together.
I used it in the studio, too, and it didn't cut the light all that much, which had been my rationale for keeping the studio white for 25 years. Dang it!
I needed some color in there, too! and I absolutely love it. It brings out the warm oranges and browns of my favorite wood colors.
Antique oaken flat file from Cranston Real Estate in Marietta. Purchased for $350, and priceless to me.
Crammed with original art. (I sorted and purged that, too, during the renovation. What a JOB.
I'd had this (photo) slide cabinet for 40 years. Slides. Remember those? During the renovation, I finally boxed up the slides in labeled boxes, tore out the dividers, and spray- painted that sucker with baby-chick yellow enamel. I can't tell you how much fun it was to figure out where all my pens and mechanical pencils and envelopes and drafting tools and paintbrushes would go; my boxcutters and external hard drives and bluebird field notebooks; my flash drives. paper clips. binder clips, and pencil leads...get you one of these old slide cabinets and go to town! As long as the drawers are labeled you're going to be able to lay hands on anything you desire. Talk about a clutter-killer and mood-booster!
I wanted a studio that would make me want to write and create wonderful things. And I wanted flooring that matched Curtis' brindle. Got both those things. Next it'll be time to create wonderful things. But first, there was the wedding to prepare for.
Well, this is an elephantine post, but I had to start somewhere. I'm going in a line with this, because it's a mighty big thing to try to throw a lasso around.
I got the sweetest email from a reader the other day, trying not to be obtrusive but just checking in to see if I was still alive, I guess, and to tell me she missed the blog. I thanked her and replied that I was working on a new series of posts and the reason(S) for my protracted absence would soon be revealed.
I hope you enjoy it. It's nice to be back.
Sunday, September 14, 2025
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