Catskills - Sullivan County - Ulster County Real Estate -- Catskill Farms Journal

So most of you know that my good dog Bella passed on here about a year ago, actually the exact same day I closed on Cottage 1, which was sort of a push pull emotional situation. Our good friend Gib McKean, a local real estate legend, was talking the other day at breakfast about this dog. The dog's owner got sick about 6 months ago, spent 5 months in a nursing home, and then passed away recently. So a few of this man's friends, Gib being one of them, were looking after the dog as best they could, stopping by to feed it, water it, etc... but the dog definitely wasn't living large, tied to his dog box all winter, without much affection being tendered his way.

Any way, Lisa and I took him home, without his dog box which was too big for 3 guys to move - plus, I'm not sure Chapin Estate would have been too excited with me driving into the project with some big old dog house hanging over the sides of my pickup, hay and roof shingles flying off the back.

So old Stormy now gets walked twice a day by Lisa and sometimes Lisa and Amy, and even though she is 11 years old, I could easily mistake her for being absolutely no older than 9.

The best part of the story is the owner who passed on owned 4 german shepards over the past 40 years, and he named them all Storm. Kinda like my grandpapa who always had these mini-dogs around and they were all named Pal. Should be a pretty glorious denouement to her dog's life, living at Chapin under the deck, getting lots of lovin from Lisa, and getting to experience first hand the insanity of the kitten we adopted from Brooklyn.

While we are still monkeying around framing new roofs, replacing studs, adding windows, leveling floors by jacking up the house and adding steel beams, tearing off two layers of siding, i.e., everything but moving quickly forward. I would guess at this point we would have encountered about $17,000 of extra work if this project was for a client, based on unforeseen and concealed conditions. Juxapositoned, Cottage 7 and Cottage 8 are well on their way to being closed in, while twice as much labor and money has gone into half as much progress at the Ole House.

Oh well, we all know romance is expensive and unpredictable.


New Roof system augmenting existing tree limbs.

Planking on the wall, covered with ancient newspaper. Jack hammer and pry bar stand at the ready.

Another archelogical find - first some sort of cardboard composite siding (seemed be the 'tin man' option of the 60's), then 'poor man shingles', which is a type of exterior covering which rolls out over the house, and then the original wood clapboard underneath. Many times homeowners covered up the wood siding with 'new' materials not because the siding was decayed, but because the expense and inconvenience of painting grew tiresome.

This pic below illustrates 3 distinct time periods of american home construction.

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"Out of nothing at all..." (for all you Air Supply soft-rock 80's fans) -

Cottage 7 springs from the ground, kind of like the ferns, tree blossoms and early flowers since spring has arrived - sunny, sunny, sunny -

4 days - and now starts the roof.

Cottage 6 is a simple 1300 sq ft cottage with a lot of care in the details. It's not everyday we installed duel heat lamps in the bath, a steam unit, a movie room, salvage barn siding flooring, and exposed rafter porches. Here's a pic of the house while climbing the hill from the brook.

And a shot looking eastward.

Standing in the kitchen/dining room looking into the living room. Note the elements - 2 chalkboard doors, exposed rafters in the kitchen, perfect old floors with hand cut nails.

A pic of the bathroom under the glow of the duel heat lamps. Clawfoot tub, vessel sink, and local bluestone on the floor.

Very large and roomy shower/steam room with glass tiles and bluestone flooring.

The office/spare bedroom.

Living room looking into the kitchen and up the stairs.

We started this cottage in November and worked pretty hard at through the winter. The owner was only able to visit 3 times during construction so our ability to understand the direction of the homeowner was put to the test since the collaboration was mostly pictures and phone calls. I think it's safe to say it worked out just fine.

Another architectural gem to decorate the landscape of Sullivan County.

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