Construction Update

The construction at our house is now complete, including sod replacement due to the damage caused by the construction equipment when the back patio was expanded and a retaining wall was built. These renovations were supposed to come on the heels of the screen porch addition in June, but instead did not commence until mid-July. The timing was unfortunate, but now that it is all done and the grass is beginning to look better it was all worth it.

screen porch with new siding door

For the screen porch we decided to just order new cushions for the wicker furniture as we didn't want to wait on new pieces. With Covid still impacting all things in our lives, furniture orders are taking 6-8 months to fulfill. Surprisingly we were able to get our custom cushions in just three weeks. We did, however order a cafe height table and two chairs for that space back in June. Those will not arrive until November. 

Because we expanded the existing patio, we also felt that we needed some additional furniture there. We decided upon two lounge chairs by the same manufacturing company as the existing outdoor furniture. Those were ordered in June with the table and chairs, and should also arrive in November.

The back of our yard has a berm leading up to the high point of the yard. It just never made sense, other than to the developer I suppose. With the addition of a retaining wall, it now looks like it has a purpose. The last thing that needs to be done is the planting plan. Jim is working on that today, with the help of a local gardening specialist. Because we live in a different planting zone, with totally different soil, we wanted the advice of someone familiar with those variances. It is our goal to have all the plants put in this fall.

patio extension and stone wall

Once that is all done, we should have a fabulous outdoor entertaining space. The lake view is great, of course, but the plants should provide a nice foreground to draw the eyes to the lake.

Under Construction

front porch

We are halfway (maybe) through a construction project at our house. I never really thought that we would do so much work on a brand new home, but I guess there are always things you wish were different. Going through a builder in a new development, we had very few options for customization.

Our screen porch off the living area had a footprint with both pros and cons. On the pro side, the porch was enclosed on three sides by the house. It was secluded and very private. However, it was not very large at all. If you had more than 4 or 5 people in the space, it felt crowded. Plus the design meant that the air did not circulate in the porch. We decided to extend the porch out to the end of our bedroom so that we would be able to accommodate more people as well as a bistro table and two chairs for dining while looking out at the lake. We also wanted to add porcelain tile over the concrete pad in the porch as well as the front porch to give those areas a more finished look.

At the same time, the contractor was to take out the two windows in the living room, replacing them with a sliding door opening to the porch. This would also allow us to see the lake from the living room while sitting on the sofa, and also let more light into the room. The screen porch was completed last Thursday, but unfortunately the sliding door has been delayed until late June. That is too bad because it would have been nice to get all the messy work done at the same time.

screen porch before and after

We are really pleased with how the front porch and the screen porch turned out. We are in the process of deciding what furniture arrangement works in the rear space, which is a little tricky since the sliding door is not in yet. We would like to keep the wicker furniture we have out there as it is Lloyd Flanders and is good quality. But we may order new cushions as the ones we have are 15 years old. Lots of decisions to make, but that's all part of the fun!

On Retirement

My husband retired a couple of months ago after selling his portion of a design firm that he and his business partner had developed 20+ years ago. While he will remain on in an advisory role for 12 months, for all intents and purposes he is done working.  I have not worked in corporate America since 1997, though I did contribute to our organics company until we sold that several years ago. Since then I have been writing and doing photography, so I have been working out of our home for many years.

We knew that we would not want to stay in our 2 1/2 story Queen Ann-style home for much longer, so last year we began to talk about where we would want to move. We could stay in St. Louis, of course. But a lot of the work involved in moving would take place whether we moved a mile or thousands of miles away. That thought process opened up all kinds of opportunities to us.

When we moved to St. Louis in 1978 with our fresh college diplomas in hand, we thought we would be here for a couple of years and then would move on. Yet here we are, 42 years later. St. Louis has been very good to us, and was a wonderful place to raise our children. But they don't live here any more. We have got one on each coast of this vast country.

As we started discussing where we might like to live, several things became clear. First of all, the benefit of being with the same person for over four decades is that you do tend to think alike. We both wanted a location that has all four seasons - just a little less of the winter season. That automatically ruled out a number of retirement spots such as Arizona and Florida. We have zero interest in owning and maintaining two separate residences. Neither of us wants to live any further north than where we are, or to spend way too much of our retirement savings in expensive cities like Washington, DC (where our son and daughter-in-law live) or Los Angeles (where our daughter lives.) Being adverse to worrying about our house being demolished in a hurricane, the coastal United States was off the consideration table as well. That still left a lot of options to examine.

view from the community center

North Carolina made the top of our list due to its natural beauty. We had visited the state and loved it. It also seemed that anytime we wanted to fly somewhere out of St. Louis we had to go through Charlotte to get where we were going.

We thought we found the perfect place in a community called The Coves. Located in northwestern North Carolina equal distance between Charlotte and Asheville, the development would allow us to buy as many acres as we would like and to build a custom home. With 3,600 acres of land, it offered a community center, hiking trails, a riding stable, a vineyard and community garden, rivers, waterfalls and miles of hiking trails. On paper it looked perfect. For a number of reasons, it was not right for us once we visited in June of 2018 even though the mountain views were quite pretty. On that trip we looked at a several places in central North Carolina as well as the Charlotte area and didn't fall in love with any of them. We were back to square one.

After talking with a number of my pickleball friends who either travel extensively or own second residences, we began to think for the first time about 55+ active adult communities. In a million years, we never thought we would even consider such a concept. But the more we read about them, the more intrigued we became. People are drawn to them because they want to make new friends, have a variety of activities available, have their yard maintained, and be able to "lock and leave", knowing their home will be safe and looked after when they travel.

I decided to give the Charlotte area another shot due to its great international airport and good health care reports. Did you know that Charlotte has 38 of these kind of communities? Holy smokes! That says something about the area to me. I could eliminate a lot of them because they were too large or too small, or they focused on an amenity (like golf) that was not important to us. I was left with a list of 6 or 7. Through my search I found Roger Holloway, the YouTube star of 55+ communities in the Charlotte area. I reached out to Roger, who is a buyers agent, and we set up a time to go to Charlotte and see some of the communities. That happened in February of 2019, prior to our Southern Caribbean cruise out of Fort Lauderdale (because yes, we had to fly though Charlotte to get there from St. Louis.)

We were very impressed with the design and amenities of the Trilogy development, which is about 50% built out. All the people we met were friendly and gracious, and the community center and gathering spaces were incredible. The only problem was that the most desirable (in our opinion) lots were already taken. We were not interested in a lot that backs to a retaining wall, or the neighbors screened in porch.

Imagery by Lennar

Then we went to see Imagery by Lennar. It is the only community that is built on a lake - Mountain Island Lake, to be specific. So new that there were not even models built that we could take a look at, this 320 acre development is being constructed on land once owned by the Bechtler family, for whom the art museum in Charlotte is named. They had a home on the land as well as 6 or so large cabins, where visiting artists could live in residence while creating their art. When the Bechtler's sold the land, a commitment was made by Lennar to keep the "artistic" feel of the property, including the house and cabins which will become activity centers for the new community. While it is a little hard for some people, me included, to visualize what the community will become, fortunately Lennar has a similar community nearby that we could visit. Tree Tops is not located in a lake, but it gave us a good sense of what Lennar is going for in the new development.

As it is so new, lake view lots are available. Well, once you see that you cannot unsee it. We knew we would not be happy in a home that did not offer us a view of the lake from our own property. We just were not sure that we wanted to live through the pains (and noise) of a construction zone for quite some time. We headed off to our cruise, enjoyed going over all the pros and cons with our friends on the trip, and came back to St. Louis to think some more.

proud owners of Lot 33

After a couple of weeks we decided to make an offer on a lot and one of the house plans that was available to go on it. Following a little back and forth, we came to a mutually acceptable price. And just like that we were landowners - in a new land. With these communities, you must have them begin construction pretty much right away. While that pushed us some, we like the fact that people aren't buying lots and then just letting them sit, which is pretty much what is going on at The Coves. With a construction timetable of 5 months, we selected a closing date of October 31. Happy Halloween!

We quickly kicked into purging mode here on the home front. It has been a dirty, challenging, frustrating, and somewhat freeing process. The unusable has gone in the trash or recycling bins, but three truckloads have been picked up by the Salvation Army and a couple of other loads delivered by us in our pickup to their store. We will have at least one more load before it is all said and done.

The toys and games of our children were boxed up separately for them to review. They both came home recently and went through the boxes. Andy took what he wanted back to DC in his pickup, and Katie has 2 plastic bins that we will take with us and store for her. Her apartment in Los Angeles has no storage space, and she couldn't have taken them on the plane anyway. The remaining toys were taken to a charity.

I've also had some fun with a Facebook group called Webster Groves Buys Nothing. Local residents are always putting out a call for something they are looking for, such as the original "Home Alone" on VHS which I gladly re-gifted. On the opposite end, people like me are getting rid of things, so a simple photo on the site usually results in multiple people vying for the free item. It is fun to see that others will enjoy things that we no longer want.

Less fun has been getting the house ready to go on the market. More on that in my next post.

St. Louis Public Library

Front of the St. Louis Public Library

Last weekend was a big one for libraries in the St. Louis area. In addition to the reopening of the newly remodeled Webster Groves Public Library which was discussed in my last post, the main branch of the St. Louis Public Library held a ribbon cutting ceremony on Sunday. Following two years of construction the 1912 Carnegie library's $70 million renovation was revealed to the public.

I had been in the library a couple of times in the past to do some house history and land research, and had admired the beauty of the architecture. But this renovation has really transformed the place, opening up some original detailing that had long ago been covered up. An additional 50,000 square feet has been made available as public space, including a large auditorium. With all of the people at the event, it was hard to take everything in. I only had my point and shoot camera with me as I anticipated that they would not allow cameras. I definitely will go back with my DSLR camera and get some more photos. And I am eager to explore the history and genealogy section of the library as well.

one of the ceilings

another ceiling

a third ceiling

original file cabinets

in the teen area

outside the children's area

one of the stained glass windows

lamp base outside

How blessed I am to live in an area that treasures not only public libraries but also the historic buildings that contain their holdings.

Webster Groves Library

Webster Groves Library front

Several years ago the citizens in my community voted for a tax levy to fund an addition to our local library. Though we have had a library of some sort in Webster Groves since 1890, the existing building was constructed in 1951. Over the years the auditorium was re-purposed as the area for children leaving no space for author visits, educational seminars or community meetings. Existing technology was also a little behind the times. Construction began on the remodeling and addition over a year ago, and the library reopened to the public last Monday. I ran in to take some photographs (and check out a few books), and I am just amazed at the transformation. I am usually a little cool towards uber modern additions on old buildings, but the new space is open, airy and spacious. I can't even imagine how happy the staff must be in their new surroundings. Here are some of the photos I took.

Webster Groves Library rear

new atrium

reading room

seating area

children's area

rocking chairs

children's seating area

The official ribbon cutting and open house was on Saturday morning, so Jim and I went to it so that he could see the changes. It is always interesting to go to something like that with him as he has a different perspective on buildings than I do since he has a design degree. He agreed that it was a remarkable improvement. Now I am eager to go back and take a closer look at the reference room and materials. I think there may be some things I can find on my Shrewsbury research there, and I am always looking for house research resources that I can add to my Webster Groves House Research Facebook page.
 

What's That Again?

Last night Jim and I went to see [title of show] in the Studio at the Repertory Theater. I admit to being a little confused when we first got the tickets in the mail. I should explain here that a friend of ours has great season tickets (second row, center) at the Fox and (fourth row center) at the Repertory Theater. He and his partner also own a condo in Hawaii, so when they are out of town we get first dibs on their tickets. This year for whatever reason the Rep had assigned them tickets to Rep and Studio shows for the same night, January 31st. Luckily they asked no questions when I called to exchange tickets, and we saw "39 Steps" Sunday night and the other show last night.

Anyway, when I saw that the tickets said [title of show], I assumed that the play had not yet been selected. Wrong - that is the name of the play. It turns out that it is a play within a play within a play. Mind boggling, I know. It is actually based on a true story of a couple of friends who wanted to write a play and enter it into a competition, where the winning play would be performed in a theater in New York. They just made the play up as they went along. It is a musical and a comedy as well, and we very much enjoyed it. Evidently we aren't the only ones as they added a second week to the production.

We are through with plays for the rest of this month, which is fine with me. I like them spread out a bit so I can anticipate date night with my hubbie. In the meantime, I now have construction dust from one end of the house to the other, so I have plenty of work to keep me busy. Yuck!