OK so you've seen the situation (plus I know I took some interior 'before' shots and I promise to post them as soon as I find them on the mess that is my hard drive) So lets get into the meat of the story. We packed up all of our belongings and put the entire house in storage on Monday, 19 Sept. The next day, the destruction began. What follows is a little photo essay chronicling the first week of construction...

First step is to remove the screened in front porch, which makes me very sad. We've saved the wood and they've promised to rebuild it when we're done. When we said we wanted to keep the old floor, our contractor (Mark Rist, who I love and will talk about more later) looked at us askance and mumbled something about us wanting it to look "rustic." What's wrong with rustic? The house is 150 years old, for God's sake.

Now the kitchen and bath get knocked down (bye!) and cinder block supports go under the corners to prop up the house. (oh please may there be no heavy winds for the next few days)

Enter the bulldozer (not technically a bulldozer, but I forget what it's correct name is.) Say good bye to the back yard.

more digging and cinder block wall building. All is going well until...

...unexplained water starts coming up from underground. At first they thought it was a stream, then maybe the septic tank, but no-- it was a long unused yet still "live" water main pipe that apparently runs straight through my parents' yard. It seems we accidentally ruptured it while digging under what used to be the kitchen. Ooops. It was here that I saw the masonry guy (also named Mark, also great) with his head in his hands. A bad sign.

Enter the emergency plumbing team to dig around till they found the main and plugged it up (Note how close we came to ruining my parents' nice brick path to their outdoor shower.)

The hole gets filled up, my parents' house survives (luckily I am the only one to witness this event) and, with a little sod planting in the spring, all will be good as new.

A year and a half ago (Feb 13, 2005 to be exact,) my husband and I did the unthinkable. We bought the house next door to my parents. Now before you dismiss me outright and click onto another blog, just look at how cute the place is and consider the pros: 

here's the house (please ignore the satellite dish):

and here are the pro's:

1) 1860's whaler's cottage in historic Sag Harbor (conveniently located on Long Island's tony east end, but not really a full fledged HAMPTON)
2) loads of family history (back in the day, my teen aged grandfather was a guest there)
3) price that can't be beat (as the previous owners were, in fact, my parents)
4)  enough $$ left over to actually do some work to the place

The con: will my marriage remain a happy one with the in laws so close at hand-remains unresolved, though I have to say so far, everybody's getting along swimmingly. Plus for us, it's only a weekend house.

So this fall, finally, after nine months of architectural plans, town review board and historical committee meetings (they are very particular about what you can and cannot do within the village historic district,) we've broken ground on what can only be called a total gut renovation of our little spot. By the time next summer hits, we will have hopefully torn down the front porch, dug a basement, destroyed our entire yard, put in heat and AC, moved our staircase, torn down the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, rebuilt them, plus added a bathroom upstairs, put in new floors everywhere, rebuilt the front porch and made a new garden with an outdoor shower. We're already a month into it.... I'll bring you all to speed this week. In the meantime.... here are some more shots of the place, so you can get the idea. Our poor little house had NO IDEA what was about to hit it.

here's the back of the house with my happy husband Josh (more on him later) and our little potted garden.