June 2015
Our house is turning into a home! At this point, besides putting up woodwork and painting some walls, all that is left is small projects. Due to our inability to find good and affordable workers in New York, we hired construction workers from Vermont to come down to do the roof and build the tool shed. Due to our expansive views of the river, we decided to have a stone patio installed on the side of the house. We hired local landscape contractors, Vasto & Son, to do the patio which houses the grill and a fire-pit made by Rick. The patio came out fantastic and serves as our favorite spot for summertime cookouts and fall s’mores. Since we got such a good price on the house, we decided to install a six-person therapeutic hot tub that nicely fits on our newly built patio. Nothing beats sitting in the hot tub looking at the passing barges. We had an above-ground swimming pool put in shortly after. We decided on an above-ground pool, as an in-ground would have been extremely expensive due to the backyard being all shale making digging costly. Our home, like all of the houses in the hamlet, is on a well and like many of them has water issues. Therefore we have to be careful when showering, doing dishes, doing laundry, and filling the pool/ hot tub. Once both the pool and hot tub were installed, we hired a water tanker to fill both. It is hard to believe with living on the Hudson River we have a water issue!
Besides the outside of the house, the pantry and coat closets in the den have been roughed in, now all that needs to be installed is the doors. Instead of putting new drywall up for the ceilings in the den and library, we decided to install corrugated steel roofing. This addition was cost-effective and brought an industrial twist to the decor of the given rooms. Most of the boxes are unpacked and for the most part, all the rooms are livable (at least for now).
Upstate Vintage Living 