Time for a name change

We have met quite a few "neighbors" already. The cottage sits back off of a dirt road that doesn't get much trafffic.  So when you start trucking up and down the road, people notice. Some neighbors have stopped us on the road. Some, we've stopped to talk to. While others, stop as they are driving by. As we talk with these neighbors, one thing seems to be coming up over and over. "Oh, you're the ones that bought the redberry".  Everyone seems to know the place by "The Redberry", not the redberry camp or hunting club, just simply the redberry. So it's only fitting to simplify the name. It's still our sweet cottage but from now on, we're going to call it "The Redberry". Time to get the sign repainted!

Play day for Superman

August 22, 2015
It was a play day for Superman today. His dad, Wilmer, drove the roll back, loaded with the skid loader, up to the cottage for us.  After breakfast, the fun began.  Superman scaped away some mud at the end of, what will be, the driveway. He leveled out an area around the fire pit. But the real reason for the skid loader was so he could drop a steel beam into the basement so he could level up the house.

When it came time to put the beam in the basement, I headed upstairs. Superman and his dad jacked up the house a few inches. I actually felt the house move when he did it.  The crazy thing is, now our bedroom door closes! The beam is in the basement, but not in place yet. Superman is getting some 

jacks to raise up the house to put the steel beam in place, but the hard part is done. Actually, he said it went pretty easy.  

I spent the morning painting the new front door and I hung new house numbers. I also started scrapeing paint off of the porch. My jobs aren't quite as glamorous as Superman's.  

Later in the afternoon, our friends, Randy and Jen came back up.  We had and old fridge that we gave them.  While they were there, the helped with some more jobs. Jen helped Superman carry mud in buckets out of the basement. While Randy hung a chandelier in the diningroom for me.  What started as a simple project turned into an  almost complete cieling tear-out.  But look how gorgious those beams are.  As you can see, we are not keeping the bead board as referenced in a previous post. The bead board had to be cut into sections to be torn down. 

On Sunday, Superman pressure washed the porch roof. Jen had scraped all the moss off the roof the day before. 

My job was, once again, tedious. I washed the walls and floor in the dining area with

bleach water. Then it was time to start packing to head home.  It was another successful weekend.  Blessings, michelle  

What's all the buzz about?

Saturday, August 8, 2015.  The first thing on our agenda were the bees. The weekend before, we found bees in the kitchen wall. I was very excited about this. I wanted some honey! Our sweet cottage neighbor helped us with finding a local bee keeper. He was not interested in taking the bees but he knew someone who was. So first thing Saturday morning, they came out to check out the bees. It was interesting to watch them up close. The bees didn't seem to mind that they were being investigated.  Trying to find how far up the hive goes, they pounded the kitchen wall and listened with a stethascope.  They did not remove the bees that day, but went back on Monday.  I still don't know if there is any honey.

The rest of the day we cleaned up; Superman on the outside and me on the inside.
Superman removed some pieces of wood from some stumps where the driveway is going to be.

He also hacked down the tall weeds. Now we can see the outhouse!

I painted some old lamps that were here.

I also tackled the grimy table. Isn't she beautiful?! Look at those legs!!

Remember the scary bathroom? It's not so scary now.  Well, at least its less scary.  It's clean and it's functional with running water and everything!

Dewey came back up on Sunday to help Superman install a new front door. It looks awesome.

While the guys were putting in the door, I was tearing down ceiling tiles and a closet wall.

It was another successful weekend.

A secret passageway!

My cousin, Mark, helped me tear out some carpet and also remove some random paneling from the wall. I never expected this:

Okay, so no secret passage way and no money. But it's still pretty cool. We've decided to tear out the added drywal to open it up and build some shelves. 

Running water is a good thing....right?

Our friend, Randy, came to figure out why our water pump wasn't working. Superman can do a lot of things but electric is not one of them.  Randy worked his magic. It turns out it was only a fuse. Yeah!! So we have running water.  Later that evening, Superman was tearing out a sub floor from the bathroom. In the process, a water pipe got a crack.  While trying to see where the crack was, the whole darn pipe broke. Running water everywhere!!  He got it fixed and all is well.  See the video below.

Ladybug's first visit

It was our third time up to the Red berry cottage and we had a visit from our Ladybug and her mama. It was so fun watching her look around the place. She is very excited about having a ladybug room! But first things first; we had to find the perfect location for a fairy garden.

There's aren't many places for her to play safely yet, so she sat on our bed for a little playing with her "critters".  Then she went outside to help her mama burn some old wood that Superman carried out from the basement. 

Our bed and the little agate top cupboard are the only two clean places in the whole cottage. Ladybug and her mama made lunch. 

Where to begin?

 I wasn't kidding when I said she was rough.. Everything was just left. There were table cloths on top of table cloths.

 There was mouse poison EVERYWHERE! There were plenty of dead/skeletal mice everywhere too.

 The kitchen's wall paper is peeling and everything is musty and moldy.

 But amidst all the stuff, there were a couple of treasures. One being the agate top cabinet straight out of the 1930's.

Undernieth the five table cloths  was a beautiful table with four leaves. We took the leaves out and I will refinish the table; it's gorgious!

 We started with the living room. We threw all the furniture out the front door and then started ripping out the carpet. I scraped a little bit of foam off the ORIGNAL WOOD FLOORING!  Be still my heart. 

 

Then we headed upstairs to take out all the old wallpaper and sheet rock from what will be our room. It was a little bit scary, I'm not going to lie. 

The pictures above are the rest of the bedrooms just to show how rough they were. 

My cousin, Mark, and I hustled 8 sets of mattresses and box springs out of the bedrooms. 

My other cousin, Dewey, worked with Superman to level the wrap around porch. They raised it 6 inches! How in the world was it still hanging on?

This is what was hold up the porch. I use the word "holding" loosely. 

Each weekend we go up, we are making progress. It's been a great beginning so far. It seems to be the only thing Superman and I talk about and we find it hard to sleep at night, well, at least I find it hard to sleep at night. 

Welcome to the Red berry cottage

     The Red berry cottage was originally built back in 1932.  The story goes that it was built by a man for his parents.  In the 1950's it was sold for $500 to a group of 10 men for a hunting cabin.  That's when it got it's name; The Red berry hunting camp.  Many years passed and the camp was left to two cousins. It had been on the market for five years; that's when we found it. The minute I saw it on the web, I knew I wanted it.
     Ever since the kids were little (they're 29 and almost 31 now) we've wanted a place upstate of our own. I dreamed of having a cute little cottage decorated in red and white. Long before Pinterest existed, I had a folder of magazine pictures of what I wanted my cottage to look like. So here we are decades later and we finally bought a place. The Red berry Camp has a new name; The Red berry cottage.  She's rough, but she's gonna be beautiful.  I'm pretty sure the house smiled when I told the realtor I thought it was a gem and I was going to restore it. Follow along with us as we begin our journey of restoring the Red berry cottage.