So here is a photo of the house on November 18 that I could have also taken yesterday (over a week later...) That plywood sheet is in the exact same tilted position, those two 2 x 4's still rest jauntily on the table...

So here's the house, about 10 days ago. The basement is done (though it's still a cinder block bomb shelter and there are some leak issues that need addressing...) Now that the framing has begun, I'm finally beginning to understand what the place is going to look like when it's done, which is truly satisfying. This is a really fun phase, where progress is made in leaps and bounds and lots of interesting things are unearthed in the process. To wit:

How cool is THIS??? We found this underneath the old insulation in the back of the house, dating this part to 1895. Get a load of the prices on those dresses... We are all living in the wrong time.

After a rainy, umbrella-less Wednesday am walk through Yellowstone National Park (wearing stupidly trendy Adidas hightops and a designer wool coat) to check out, and swim in, the boiling river, I flew down to Mexico City for another shoot for the February issue. After the shoot, I headed to Valle de Bravo and the home of an old friend who forsook insane NYC for warmer climes (and a fabulous husband.) How nice is the view from her pool?

Her house is filled with great ideas, like the wood treatment around the door to my bedroom:

Maybe we can use some of the old basement beams like this. Click on to see more...

Here's why it is so cool (and so dangerous) to be a Domino editor. Last week, I was lucky enough to spend the first part of the week in Livingston, Montana working on a story for our February issue. You can see why they call it big sky country. Anyway, while at the shoot, I fell in love with the stove below:

That's right folks, a La Cornue. Made in France. God forbid I just be satisfied with a Viking, the range that my father (a fabulous cook) bought himself a few years ago which has changed his life. And made us all actually want to cook Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' place. La Cornue's company tag line even includes the word "covet." This is bad news for the bank account. At this rate, You'll be looking at photos of our unfinished plywood floors and plastic tarps for windows. But dinner's going to be delicious. Sigh. Later on today I'll call them to find out how much these babies cost. Pray for me.

To everybody who's checked out this blog,

I've just gone back and read all of your great comments.... Thanks for all of your help/support/advice, etc. I'm hoping to have lots more for you all to weigh in on as the project continues. I thought I'd take this moment to respond to you guys... I'll try to do this every 10 days or so, as it's a good way to keep this conversation going.

Blumbey, I am SO with you on the laundry-in-the-basement-sucks position, but our space is so limited that we don't have a choice. As for the basement feeling like a dungeon, this is one of our MAJOR issues. If you have any ideas re how to avoid that pitfall, I'm all ears. Clearly, the cinderblock is going to need to be covered with something... I'm thinking right now that the answer is a fully finished basement with lots of good light.

Victoria recommends butcherblock for kitchen countertops, which I had ruled out for some reason that I now cannot remember. I'm feeling very pro butcherblock this second-- does anybody have any thoughts?

My parents thank jayegipson on the compliment re their house. Their big reno happened 25 years ago-- I wish I'd paid more attention to their process but hey, I was too busy buying Parliament Funkadelic 45's. Which I still have, of course. So, homeboy, you bring your Floyd and I'll bring the funk and we'll have a party when the whole thing is over.

I just read alexmay's reno blog (all the way from Australia!) which I must say has made me feel bad about not having a dedicated room for our home theater... but I am going to check out those waterwise distiller tanks she mentions.

Inside photos are coming, I promise, and yes mzmartin, I have considered renting out my husband. Maybe we could trade husbands for a weekend, I'd get some paintings on my walls and a cool song or two and you can get your contractor into shape. Let's talk.

Stay tuned to check out the cool things I saw when down in Mexico that I probably can't have in my own home but I love nonetheless...

Till next time,

Brooke

Figured I may as well take a minute out of this action packed story to give you a bit of background on the people who are floating down this little river of renovation with me...

As I mentioned before, the house is right next to my parents' place, which is great because they help oversee the goings on, don't mind when their front yard gets destroyed and provide us with a place to stay when we go out to check on the place. Plus, they are my parents, and I love them.

The Mother: Here's my mom trying to hold up the house while my very patient husband (note the different mood in this picture) stands by.

The Father: Here's my dad, WHO KEEPS EVERYTHING, actually rooting through the dumpster looking for treasure. I blame him entirely for my inability to throw anything away.

The Architecht: Here's Carl Hribar, our architect and long-time family friend (I babysat his daughter when I was 15). We are very proud of ourselves for choosing him to do the design because a) he has a nice sensibility and knows how to stay true to the spirit of an old house, b) he lives in Sag Harbor and knows how to draw up plans that will be approved by the various review boards, c) he's a close friend of my parents, so they will be forced to love whatever we do because he designed it, and d) he is a truly patient man, and doesn't seem to mind when Josh turns up with hundreds of little drawings of his own. He doesn't have a website, or I'd send you all to it. His studio number, however, is 212.989.7608. (note vast progress on house in background... more on that next time).

The contractor: Equally old school, Mark Rist (Rist Builders 631.723.1301) barely has email and never looks at his computer, but I have yet to hear a single disparaging word about him, and I know probably 10 different people (including my parents) who have worked with him. He won't let me take his picture, but here's his hand, for good measure.

So there's the team. I feel like we're in great shape. I pray I don't look back on this entry in sorrow and anger. Fingers crossed. Right now, I'm actually in Mexico City on a shoot for Domino and I ate lunch next to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appeared to be wearing make-up. How strange is that?

So here I am, all excited about the fact that we have a basement at all, but not really paying attention to the fact that what I'm looking at bears little resemblance to the plans drawn up by our wonderful architect, Carl Hribar (more on him later). Ok to be honest, I did notice, and even asked Mark the basement dude about it, but backed down when confronted with tales of the extra complication involved in digging to our original specs. So instead of having a basement that roughly follows the shape of the house, we have a 7 1/2 foot wide by 30ish foot long cinderblock bomb shelter.

Here's a view looking towards the front of the house (in the last post, this is where the big hole was)

Enter my husband Josh, who has transformed the meltdown into an art form:

He's gone out a few days later to check on the progress and is none too pleased. Ok, he's f*4king FURIOUS and talks to me on the phone for 45 minutes during which time I worry that he's going to just torch the whole thing leaving us with a pile of ashes. But then, and this is is gift, he gets super productive. Click on the continuation to see what happened in the end...

So the unbelievable has happened.... An entire basement has been dug under the house without the whole thing collapsing onto itself. I was soooooo relieved when I arrived to see the whole thing still standing! Mind you, our front yard is just a giant hole, the satellite dish is still there, and the beautiful evergreen tree barely escaped being ripped to shreds by the digging machines, but I can now stand up underneath my house. And look what we discovered when we went down there.....

Check out these crazy beams underneath the floor on the front part of the house. They are literally logs that have been cut in half and then fit together with grooves (no nails!!) Mark (Rist, the wise contractor) tells us that this dates the house back to the early 1800's, rather than the 1860's we had previously thought. I want to keep them as the basement ceiling but am told in no uncertain terms that they aren't structurally sound-- especially now that there's a full basement/cellar-- so we're going to have to remove them. We'll save all the wood and use it in other parts of the house, though, so all is not lost. We're trying really hard to keep the integrity and spirit of the house intact. It would suck to start out with a 150 year old house and end up with something that looks brand new...