Travel Review – Saratoga Springs Downtown

This last weekend we went back to Stefan’s hometown of Saratoga Springs NY.  If you’ve never been to Saratoga, it’s on my must-visit list. Excellent food, great shopping, and extreme quaintness to boot. There is also the racetrack in late summer funny hats and all. There is also plenty of arts and culture with the Saratoga Opera and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center nearby. It is the summer residence for the NYC Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In addition there is a yearly Jazz festival and tons of more popular music concerts.

Every time we go back, I fall in love with this town a little more.

We had a great time with all the kiddos.  Each of Stefan’s brothers have a 5 year old girl and a 3 year old boy.  The four of them get along great and are great friends. We played “Keep the ball up” for a good long time in the backyard at Mimmi and Poppi’s house.

Our niece Gabby is looking healthy and happy after some very serious medical problems over the last 6 months. It was wonderful to see her running and playing…and eating. She is putting away the food like I have never seen which was very refreshing to see.

Even without the cute Kiddos, Saratoga is a must see if you are an old house aficionado. Both of Stefan’s brothers and his parents have amazing houses which I’m sure I’ll have a chance to show you at some point but the real treat is just walking down the streets around town. Row after row of turn of the century beautiful houses.

We’ll be heading back again this summer and I’ll be sure to show you more of the town. Tomorrow I’ll be posting a photo review of the Yaddo Gardens. It’s a treat for the eyes let me tell you!

Sarah

Weekend Update: Finishing up the wiring

This past weekend was busy but we don’t have much in the way of pictures to show for it. We took care of some wiring in the kitchen and finished installing switches and lights in the closet and bathroom.

This isn’t the final center light fixture but it does the job for now. Vector was, of course, on the ladder and in the way for most of the work.

He’s so cute and Stefan spoils him tremendously.

After getting the closet lighting functional (YAYYYYY Lights) we went to work on the Kitchen where we discovered something odd. We cut a hole in the drywall and found a piece of plywood that they had apparently used as the wall earlier. It had this cute wallpaper on it.

The really odd thing was behind the plywood…there is finished wood back there. You can kind of see it here.

It looks like at some point there was some sort of exposed wood wall here. We think maybe the beams were exposed and finished as well to give a rustic wood feel to the kitchen. It’s so strange to peel back the layers of a room to see all the changes it has seen over the years.

Well, that’s all we got to this weekend. Nothing too exciting but lots of hard work.

I did prune some roses which gave me a chance to put some awesome smelling roses in the kitchen.

I should have a kitchen update later this week! I’ll give you a hint – it involves lots of sanding!

Sarah

My Parents are So Cool – Shed Time-Lapse

Here’s something fun for this Friday.

This is my Mom and Dad (and dog, Bella) building a shed in time-lapse.  Love the music choice too.  You can see where I get my Nerd genes and my Construction genes from!

Not bad for old folks.

I love them both and they’re coming to visit the 1st of May!! So exciting.  Dad’s gonna want to do a time-lapse of the bathroom tiling project I’m sure.  What a goofy goofy family I’ve got.

Sarah

Birdhouses in the Backyard

A few weeks ago, I put up a couple birdhouses in the back yard.  No birds yet but if they could house bats, that would be even better.  These are just some craft houses from AC Moore that I got for less than $5 each.

One I mounted on a pressure treated post that was in our scrap pile and stuck it in the ground almost inside the rose bush.  If I was a bird, I’d like the nice protection of a rose bush.

The other ones is screwed directly to one of the norway maples on the property line.

It has a nice view of the yard and I know some birds like to be able to lookout from their nest.

I’m hoping the birds will come but if not, the houses themselves lend lots of charm to the yard. I really like them.

Also on the list is a blue-jay nesting box (click on the image below for free plans from 50birds.com) in the yew behind the shed. Blue jays won’t nest in houses but they do like a roof to keep the rain off and a perch to nest on. We have some blue jays in the area and I’d love a couple more to keep the grackles away!

I mentioned wanting bats. Since they don’t have our roof to live in anymore, some bat houses would be great for keeping the mosquitoes down. I’d like to add a bat house up on that tree above the birdhouse. I’ll need to get out the big ladder but I think it’d be a great spot for a little family of bats.

This one from Home Depot is less than $20. I may have to order one!

We’ve had robins nest in the cherry tree both years we’ve been here. None made it to egg laying though 🙁 I’m hoping for noisy baby birds one of these days.

Have you ever had any luck with birdhouses? I remember the baby birds in a birdhouse in my Great-Grandma Dillman’s backyard in Iowa. I’ve been fascinated ever since but in Texas, the wasps are more likely than the birds to take over your birdhouse. I’m hoping I’ll have better luck up here in New England!

Sarah