Words to describe the last 6 weeks: chaotic, wonderful, changing, tiring, exhillerating, stress inducing, sunny (!), requiring patience, delicious, and with plaster dust everywhere!

A quick recap:

• I was joined by the inimitable Lisa Cahill and Amy Prendergast for performances of She’s Electric at the Midleton Mid-May Arts Festival. We took on Midleton’s Main Street provocatively wrapped in red tape marked “danger”. Vulnerable, brave, provocative. We had a wonderful response, especially from children (they aren’t afraid to look.) I’m not sure the town knew what hit them!

• The final push!!! Our amazing friends Cian & Aine came down from Dublin, and along with our neighbour Colm we got the last of the plaster down and out of the house. Then we grilled black pudding burgers and drank sangria. No one leaves here hungry after a hard day’s work.

• Colm was with us almost daily, weekends and evenings after work, for about three weeks. He helped us scrape clean the Victorian tiles we uncovered, move the rest of the furniture up to the third story, fill two dump trailers with rubble, and set up our new “studio apartment” in the back of the house. Literal blood and sweat (fortunately no tears). We are so grateful.

  Our friend Eugene, a dairy farmer up the road, helped us enormously by hauling away all the plaster that came out of the house. We filled TWO of these!!!

• We got a goat. Ivy (named for her favourite food) is eating away at the field; she’s amazing!  Unfortunately, Elvis the dog has had some issues with this new addition to our family, so we’ve had to scramble to fence off portions of the field for her to graze. A huge relief now that fencing is sorted. She’s lovely and gentle. 

• THE BUILDERS STARTED!!!!! It’s really happening. As usually happens with construction projects, there was a delay of a week. But now we’re really going. The new windows are ordered. The rotted wood lintels are being replaced with concrete ones. We found quite a lot of damage from the roof leak, but so far (touch wood) it’s the only major issue. The roof will be repaired soon, and a steel beam will be put in over a wide opening in the hall. I’ll try to post some photos soon.

  The first week in November is the estimated finish date.

  The contractor is not elated about our decision to stay in the house, and that’s fair enough. It makes their job more difficult as they work around us. We’ve got temporary water and electricity to the back of the house, but hot water is another story. So showers are limited. Ask me about our adventures in cleanliness in November. Victorian times. 
  

• Of course, the delay in starting meant the builders began just as my sister arrived to visit for two weeks, ahhhhh. Actually, it probably kept me out of their hair! I can definitively say that the Jameson Distillery tour in Midleton is way better than the one in Dublin. We ate a lot of tasty food, sampled many stouts and ciders, and marvelled at the buildings older than our home country. Also, we shopped.
  
  

  

  
  Cassie stayed in Tipsy, the caravan, and loved it. My mother-in-law helped me make new curtains and figure out how to cover the cushions. Here is a sneak peak of the fabulous flamingo wallpaper I put up, but I think the caravan make over deserves its own post when I’m all finished.

As we prepare to renovate, the question of where we will actually live has been on our minds. Initially we thought we could go up to the third story and live in the painting studio for the duration, but the builder is concerned about us having to move through the site to get up and down the stairs. Fair enough.

We have the caravan as a last resort, but are hoping Tipsy will be more of a guest house for the next few months.

Meanwhile, we had loan of a trailer and finally managed to recycle the 13(!!!) old mattresses left in the house when we bought it. It took two trips to the recycling centre. I won’t mention the box springs that had to be stripped and broken down by Hughie for kindling.

They had all been stored in the back room on the ground floor, which isn’t being renovated yet. The room flooded back in December. It was gross. It stunk. I never wanted to go near it, but once the mattresses were gone we could pull up the carpeting.

We expected to find a cement floor underneath, but instead were surprised with Victorian era quarry tiles in traditional red, black, and yellow!!!

Quarry Tiles

Of course, they were caked under layers of black carpet underlay and some kind of thick white film – maybe an adhesive? Or a sealant trying to keep the damp down? It took a steamer, elbow grease, and many hours of work to uncover it. Our friend Colm probably spent at least 12 hours helping me steam and scrape last week. It’s far from perfect, but has loads of character.

With a fresh coat of paint (the pink walls are killing me) and a good scrub we can move into the “tile room” while we renovate. It’s just beside the back door for separate access, and has a fireplace, too. Perfect. 

And it gets better.

Hughie started chipping away at the levelling compound in the back hallway.  It’s a high traffic area, linking the front and back doors to the kitchen, bathroom, and dining room, so the compound was already breaking apart. As the cement came up, he realised there was more limestone flagstone underneath, just like in the dining room!

We spent a few hours chiseling away at it on Sunday, and it looks pretty great. The damp weakened two of the stones, and the top layers flaked off making them uneven. I think we just need to find the right tool to smooth them out. You can see the darks spots in the picture on the left (below.) There are two more stones that are either missing completely, or are under a very thick layer of concrete. Hopefully we can replace them if need be. 

In other flooring news, we had our reclaimed pine flooring delivered by Landmark Architectural Salvage the weekend before last. It came out of a convent in the Kenilworth Road/Harold’s Cross Area of Dublin. We’re planning to put it in the kitchen and our sitting room. I’m still looking for affordable herringbone parquet for the library.

What I’ve learned from Irish weather: it often rains, but it rarely pours. If you let the rain stop you from doing things, you won’t ever do anything at all. The sun will come out again, eventually. And when it does, seize the day, literally. 

A more talented writer might connect this weather metaphor to her current situation more obliquely. But I’ll just tell you about the sucky renovation set backs we’re facing before we’ve even started building. And how I’m trying to stay positive about the changes we’ve been forced to make. 

I was so eager to receive the bids from the contractors so that we could make a choice and get started on the renovations.  They were due April 11, and I was anxiously anticipating them. Only one arrived on time.

We knew that everything included in the tender would likely be beyond our budget, but costing everything out would help us plan for the future. The figures we got back were astounding. More than what we paid for the house in the first place.

It’s been a bit of a shock, honestly. But we’re determined.

Take out the highest bid. Ask the remaining two builders to revise their quotes.

What can we live without?

The heat pump is out of the question. Even skipping the underfloor heating and going with all high efficiency radiators doesn’t save us enough. It will be a regular old oil system – very disappointing. But we can do the high efficiency rads, which means we could upgrade in the future (when we have an extra ten grand lying about, ha!) We can take out the ensuite and all the guest rooms will have shared baths. We can build the vestibule connecting the movement & visual arts studios ourselves. We won’t knock the side entryway and replace the utility room door with french doors right now. We can postpone the second fix for emergency lighting until we have filed for change of use and need a fire cert. Reflashing the chimneys can wait until we replace the third story windows in the future. We won’t wall off our office – I can use a wardrobe instead and wallpaper the back of it. We can’t put a wood stove in the sitting room, but we can keep the open fire.

Anthony, our engineer, revises the drawings.

April 28th, we received the revised quotes. We’re still over budget. By a significant amount. But we know which builder we’re going with. 

The VAT (Value Added Tax, at 13.5%) alone is brutal.

We will do as much as we can with what we have. We will reuse what we can. We will have to ask for help. (Has anyone ever installed & refinished reclaimed wood flooring?) Because there will be a lot of DIY. And that’s okay. 

Now, what must we sacrifice? We walk through with Anthony and the builder.

We won’t dry line the dining room, but the windows and door must be replaced. The limestone flagstone floor will stay as is – we can seal it instead of taking it up and putting a moisture barrier underneath. All interior doors will stay for now. We can’t reconfigure the master bath, which would have created space for a new guest bathroom. We can only fit a W.C. where the hot press is, though we can add a shower to the bathroom downstairs. We maintain the same number of facilities, but loose the convenience of both showers being on the same floor as the bedrooms. Not ideal. The writer’s den doesn’t shrink as planned, so the upside is it can double as a fifth guest room as needed. Most of the first floor won’t be dry lined, nor the ceilings replaced in those rooms for now. Five windows won’t be replaced (and they really, really need to be.) Repair will have to suffice for now.

It’s disheartening. I can live with the postponements. And secretly, I’m delighted to keep the stone walls in the dining room as is (fingers crossed it maintains enough heat and isn’t too damp to stay that way!) The concessions regarding windows and the bathroom facilities worry me more. But the hardest thing has been scrapping hours and hours of work I put into the new layout. I poured over graph paper, drawing walls, cutting out bath fixtures from little pieces of paper. Looking at the best ways to use the rooms. It was all for naught. A pointless exercise. Almost none of my ideas remain.

I tell myself I should be used to this, as a choreographer. Sometimes you work and work on material that never makes it to the performance. But usually these omissions strengthen the work as a whole. I’m not sure that is the case here. I tell myself it was an important part of the process – other ideas arose from it that we wouldn’t have arrived at otherwise. I’m angry we were allowed to get our hopes up – that we were dreaming, waiting to see, and we were so off the mark with what was actually possible. But who is there to be angry at?

Tomorrow we meet with the builder again to finalise plans, set a start date (early June????), and rough out a schedule.

Despite the setbacks, I’m still excited to get going.   

Enforced patience. Sideways thinking. No one said it would be easy.

I don’t doubt that we will be open in 2017.

She’s our new caravan. Well, from 1994, so she’s been around the block a few times. We collected her from Co. Tipperary today.  Her previous owner was a granny who frequented campsites in Tramore and Trabolgan (yay Cork!)  She gave it to her grandson to sell & put the money towards a car for himself. Very sweet, and great for us, as she was a deal.

Tipsy will spend the summer in the courtyard outside the house. In fact, as we renovate, she will likely be our home-behind-the-house. I’m sure it will be just like being on holiday. For the first five minutes anyway… Clearly we’ve gone mad.

She’s in fairly good condition, but could use some slipcovers on the cushions and some tidy-up in the kitchenette. Eventually, we’d love to give her a full makeover – new vinyl floor, exterior paint, wallpaper, decor – and set her back towards the wooded area.

Hopefully by summer 2017 she’ll be ready to host some glampers (glamping = glamorous + camping!). We’ll let you know when she’s up on Airbnb.

Some Pinterest inspiration for the future:

In February we got around to cleaning out the larger room on the top floor. This will eventually become the movement studio.

It was packed with stuff. Even more than you see here.

But one skip (dumpster) later:

Movement Studio (pre-renovated)

These are some of the treasures we uncovered: 

Jameson Whiskey Ashtray

For Holy Water

Violin, Top Hat, Bolwer

Headless St. Martin

Lampshades

The Virgin

Ledgers

Open Ledger

A fabulous Beard

Sewing Patterns

Old Adding Maching

The walls are beautiful upstairs, and we are planning to expose them

Done Deal is the Craigslist of Ireland. You can buy and sell just about anything. There’s also Adverts.ie, which is like a cross between Done Deal and Ebay. And because we are on a TIGHT budget for renovating the house and preparing it to become a residency space, I have been scouring these sites like a fiend.

I thought I’d share my best recent finds:

Antique French Wood Burning Stove

Supposedly this is from the 1920s, but could actually be a little older based on the style. This will likely replace our inset stove in the kitchen.

Three Antique Plaster Ceiling Medallions

These came from an incredible townhouse in Dublin. Townhouse might be an understatement. Semi-detached mansion on embassy row might be more apt – the property was bought for 4.5 million euro during the boom (though it sold for “just” 2.5 million after the crash, needing an estimated 1m in repairs!)

Four Belfast Sinks @ 20e Each
These aren’t the actual ones I bought, but it’s pretty much what they look like (photo from www.reclamation-yard.co.uk)

These were such a deal, though I did have to drive to Dundalk for them. That’s 3.5 hours away, almost in Northern Ireland. In the U.S., this won’t get you across most states, but to the Irish I seem mad for making the effort.

It was worth the drive, as I got to scope out an excellent second hand furnishings shop in Drogheda and pick up a flooring sample at an architectural salvage spot in Dublin. They have some reclaimed pine flooring for super cheap, but we need to find out if it is suitable for underfloor heating.

Anyone have opinions on underfloor heating (radiant heat)? We’re planing to go with an Air to Water Heat Pump. It’s like a refrigerator in reverse – it pulls heat out of the air and uses it to heat water to heat the house. Super cool, and very green. It works really well with underfloor heating, which we are considering for the ground floor. The upstairs will have radiators. You can share your thoughts in the comments!

Things I’m currently hunting for on the cheap, in case someone has any leads:

• Antique light fixtures (ceiling & wall)
• Double-ended clawfoot bath tub
• Chesterfield sofa
• Upright piano
• Rugs, large and medium sized
• Bricks or patio pavers

And if you’re feeling generous, we’d love donations of:

• Good condition white sheets (double or single), duvets and towels for our guests.
• Tools and gardening equipment
• Books by Irish writers or visual/performing arts books for the library

In need of restoration, but it has loads of character. We love that it says “Cork” on the face. We do have the missing wood detail on the right side.

Everything I know about clocks I learned from John Joe on the Late Late Toy Show: https://youtu.be/tRMYdzREgAM

November marked the best news we’ve had in ages: We sold my grandparent’s house in CT! This means we have the funds in hand to begin renovating this year. And we’re off to a great start.

We’ve been working with Anthony Kenneally, our engineer, to determine the most functional and cost effective solutions to the multi-faceted renovation-puzzle. It turns out the more walls you move, the more expensive it gets! Of course, our budget isn’t large enough to do everything we would like to just yet, but certainly we should be open by 2017 (fingers crossed)!

Elevations Survey

Anthony had us begin by writing down what our goals were. This first time I did this I missed the mark. I told him what we were planning to do with each room. But what he really wanted us to do was to figure out what we need from the space, functionally, in order to live here happily and for the residency to be a success. As with any creative process, it’s good not to get stuck in one way of seeing things, or be too precious about an idea. Stepping back from the details allowed me to try new configurations that I hadn’t thought of before.

These are some of the points we came up with:

• Big kitchen & cozy living space for us.
• Major upgrade of master bath (clawfoot tub a must!)
• At least four guest rooms and two guest bathrooms (or separate toilet/shower rooms.) One guest room has to be close to our room, in case we have a kid someday.
• A movement studio, visual arts studio, and a space for writers that would overlook the river.
• A dining room that could convert to a classroom or meeting space
• A library and a music room, which in the end are being combined.
• Guest kitchenette
• A private office

Here are our best ideas after inhabiting the space for 6 months:

We are also working on budget allocations. I have spent a lot of time pricing kitchens, appliances, flooring, wallpaper and most recently, windows. Anthony is helping us allocate for plumbing, electricity and the builders. We are looking at installing an air to water heating system, which draws heat from the air outside and uses it to heat water. While more expensive to install, your heating costs are quite low.

The kitchen is planned with the most detail. I think it may even deserve its own post, so that’s all I’ll say for now.

Over the last two weeks I’ve spoken with a few different window joiners. I knew the figures would be shocking – we have 14 windows across the front of the house alone – and have 33 total in the parts of the house we are renovating!!! We may have to wait to replace the third story windows, as the quotes are nearly one-fifth of our total budget…

In the front section, built 1767, we want to honor the heritage of the house by replacing like for like. I love the wood sash windows. They have these little horns on the frame called joggles that originally had something to do with weight and balance, but now are more of a decorative feature. In the rest of the house we will probably use PVC windows to keep costs down.

Typically, a Georgian building would have had 6 over 6 windows (I’m talking number of panes of glass.) In the Victorian era, 1 over 1 (non-bar) became popular as a way of showcasing wealth because the larger sheets of glass cost more than the tiny ones. In our world of double & triple glazing (layers of glass filled with gas for insulation), the opposite holds true. The multiple panes require more work for the joiner, are harder to paint, and the glass for small panes isn’t cheaper.

The Georgian-style 6 over 6 windows are unfortunately off the table, but should we stick with 1 over 1s or maybe do 2 over 2 (centre bar)? The benefit to the 1-over-1s is that if we can’t change all the windows at once, everything will still match

Here are some older photos of the house, along with a more recent one. What do you think?

Victorian times? Looks like 9 panes with the top row blocked out

Still from the Killeagh history video

From the Inventory of National Architectural Heritage

Early December marked our first trip to a live auction. I followed the advice of my cousin Deb, who owns an estate sale company in Connecticut:

1. Know before you go what you are going to bid on and how much you are willing to pay. Don’t go over that amount in the heat of the moment!

2. Don’t bid straight away because if there are no takers the auctioneer may lower the starting price.

While I didn’t get the amazing laundry/kitchen table from Cork’s Presentation Convent, I did come away with a Victorian roll top desk where I sit writing this post. According to the brass plaque on the front, it was presented to the Reverend Mother Teresa on her Golden Jubilee in 1909. I also got a painting of a woman from the 1960s. I’d love to decorate a wall with quirky portraits. As the auction house is only 20 minutes away, I’m sure we’ll be back for more!

We had a lovely, quiet Christmas with Hughie’s family in Wicklow. It was hard to be away from my family in the states, and I’m used to a much more raucous Christmas Eve. In Ireland, Christmas Eve is usually mass, followed by the pub, which closes at midnight. It’s a great time to celebrate briefly with friends, and hopefully you see them again on St. Stephen’s day (the 26^th) which is a holiday here, as well as a big night out in the pubs. Think the night before Thanksgiving in the U.S.

Just after Christmas we got hit hard by Storm Frank. I give him a resounding F*@&! YOU for the flooding we got. We had about two inches of water accumulate quite quickly on the ground floor. Thankfully, our kitchen (aka base of operations) somehow stayed dry. Because we are prepping to renovate, there was no flooring or finished walls to be destroyed. We had to act fast to move some furniture up and out of the water, but largely it was just a big dirty mess. All of the plaster rubble we’ve taken off the walls was on the floor, and is now sodden. The empty boxes and packing materials from unpacking our shipping container got soaked, too.

Water above my ankles in the back garden

The river raging

After getting most of the water out

Water nearly breaching the back door

This was an unprecedented amount of rain and the river rose above its banks, enough to potentially cover the drainpipe from the front of the house. The top of the pipe was blocked as well. The back garden flooded about 8 inches, and no one in Killeagh can imagine that ever happening before. A section of the main road to Cork was closed for two weeks as massive pumps tried to clear the water.

That night I was grateful for good neighbors, who helped bail the water out and unblock the drain. Our neighbor Andrew literally came out from behind the bar, armed with his headlamp, a shovel & a broom to give us a hand. He later hopped in his car and returned with sandbags. I was grateful that this happened before renovations, so we can be prepared should this ever happen again. I was grateful that nothing major was damaged. My heart was breaking for the people in neighboring areas who weren’t so fortunate, who had up to three feet of water destroying their homes and businesses.

I continue to be impressed with the dance community in Ireland. I have been attending an improvisation class at Firkin Crane, in Cork City. Everyone has been warm, but Associate Artist in Residence Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín has been especially welcoming. So has choreographer Amy Prendergast, whom I’m hoping to have some performative adventures with in the future. It feels great to engage with other dancers without the exclusivity of the New York City scene (of course, that’s a blanket statement, but in my personal experience people here just seem so much more approachable – though part of that could be where I am in my life, too.)

Firkin Crane is the major dance presenter in Cork, and I fell in love with Junk Ensemble’s Dusk Ahead when I saw it there in November. Created by twin sisters Megan and Jessica Kennedy, it has just the right amount of mystery, golden lighting, curious song, and intricate movements that combine to make me excited about live performance.

Also in November, I attended the Light Moves Festival of Screendance at Dance Limerick, and got to participate in a brilliant workshop on dance for the camera with instructors Lucy Cash and Marisa Zanotti. I loved being back in an academic frame of mind and the festival did a great job of combining art, practice, and scholarship. Thoughts are percolating now about making a film in the house before we renovate. I’d love to create a dance film installation where the footage is projected onto objects found inside the house. I’d better get going on it, though! More about plans for the house in Thursday’s blog post!

I’m looking forward to learning more about Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh. This Must Be The Place / The Great Island, five weeks of programming from January 26-February 26^th, raises a lot of questions we can relate to:

What is the role of an arts centre in a small town? Is it a place where art can be seen? Or experienced? Or made? Or discussed? Or bought and sold? Is it a community centre? Is it a place for participation? Education? Social interaction? Social development? Is it a civic building? Is it part of the academy? Is it autonomous? Is it inclusive? Exclusive? To whom? Is it part of a community? What community?

I feel like multiplicity is the answer to sustainability for us. We will be an artist’s residency and _______________????