We've been welcomed

We've lived in the same house for more than 26 years and I thought we'd be here forever. I still find it hard to believe that we are on our way to big changes.

Thanks to Sue Waller Fish, Secretary of the Lake Sawyer Community Club, we've been welcomed!

Preliminary Post Its

I love Post It notes. I cut out little to-scale pieces of them to represent the furniture in my new studio and stick them on velum laid over our designer's preliminary plans.

I moved into my current studio 24 years ago. Originally a double garage, my then-83 year old father and my husband Jay turned it into a wonderful space for me. My father was a carpenter/home builder and we were blessed to have his generous help; it was one of his last big projects.

He built-in-place a 5 x7 foot worktable and storage unit right in the middle of my studio. It has been used as table space for students, covered in carpet for framing art and covered in plastic for prepping painting grounds. It was a surface to set up the Christmas choo-choo train for toddler grandsons and most recently was a platform for an air-mattress bed for one of those toddlers who is now twelve. The only drawback to the table was that I couldn't move it, and I am a big fan of moving furniture around so I'm looking at rolling metal carts as a substitute in my new studio.

One of the best things about the new studio will be a storage room for supplies and for my flat files. I'm planning on two work stations: a pastel easel and an oil easel. There are so many things to consider and I haven't even thought about lighting yet. If anyone has studio lighting suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

knee-deep

When we first walked the property last spring, we were in knee deep grass making our way east, toward the lake. I just realized that three out of four of my posts have referenced "knee-deep." Knee-deep mud, knee-deep after falling through the floor of Old Smelly and now, knee-deep grass. Under all that lush greenery was STUFF. Old tires, stumps, boats, plastic, ants, bees. Our demolition/cleanup crew hauled out seven dumpsters full.

This is what the view east looks like now as we work with our designer on house plans.

Demolition Day

The little cabin was put to rest at sunrise September 20, 2013. It was surprisingly quick and of course necessary so our new Mill Pond Cottage can be built in its place.

Backstory: We could hardly wait to put "Old Smelly" in the dumpster. Jay and I both fell through the floor at separate times. He was strolling through the living room and suddenly found himself knee-deep, standing on the ground under the house. Later, I was trying to cross the kitchen to see if the sink that had fallen off the wall had any value. Debris gave way with my weight and worked as a slide. I found myself sitting under the house, the kitchen floor even with my nose. The only thing we saved was the yellow phone and that took some disinfecting.

1928-2013

In 1928 a vacation cabin was built on our property and was enjoyed for many, many years by the same family. There are stories of ice skating on the lake in the winter and learning to swim in front of the house where the lake bottom was knee-deep mud.

Eventually, the family used the cabin less and less and it became covered by trees, brush and blackberry vines. Last spring we got permission to walk the property and found the little 85 year old cabin looking forlorn as it peeked out at the lake.

our dream property circa 1920

The family story goes like this: When my father Andrew Benedetti was a teenager, he worked with his father, my grandpa, Fred Benedetti building boats for the loggers working in the mill pond at Lake Sawyer. As pay day came around, the loggers were a little short on cash so they offered my grandpa a portion of the lake in trade. My grandpa said, "I don't want no part of this blankety-blank swamp." And so, nearly 100 years later, my husband Jay and I have finally acquired the property for our new home, right where grandpa left it.

Boat photo courtesy Robert W. Benedetti,

 added here 2-6-2016