Rankintown Notes is MOVING

Well, after a frustrating experience trying to change a few things on this site, I have packed up and moved to WordPress.

Here is the new address: Rankintown Notes

Plans

I spent last night and much of today with the plans. I got them all together, and weeded out the old versions -- the one with the courtyard and the one with the parking area in the back. The contractor (or GC, as I'll now refer to him, because that's the lingo I learned today -- more on that later) has the real plans. I realize something he said the other day about windows in the kitchen cannot work, and it's fairly obvious why. This makes me nervous, a bit, because shouldn't he know that? However, he had spent the day knocking out all the old bricks from the front porch (picture of pile in the last post), so I'm prepared to not worry about it. I want to talk to him about it, though.






The plan is to build a symmetrical wing on the west side of the house. The front of the new wing will be covered parking, the rear, new living space. The house is about 2000 sq. ft. now, and will increase to a bit under 3000. The clerestory/cupola thingamajig will be over the kitchen. I wondered if it could be an observatory, but there's really no way to get up there. Perhaps with ropes and pulleys! It's really just for light and because the architect drew it and we thought it looked great.





I spent part of my time with the plans spread before me. I'm not terribly good with spatial stuff, so it's taken me a bit to fix everything in my mind. I realized for the first time today that I truly understand what's going where. And enough has been demolished that I can see what it will be. It's starting to feel like the place it will be.

So with that in mind, I spent the rest of my time with the plans not spread before me, but in my mind. I asked a question at Readerville about induction cooktops, and a poster there very kindly sent me over to the Kitchen Forum the Kitchen Forum at Garden Web. This is where I learned about calling the contractor "GC." Well. My questions about induction cooktops were answered pronto, and I'm well on my way to deciding that I really want soapstone counters. A worthy home for the cheese and crackers.

It's hard to write about kitchens without sounding trite. It's where everything happens -- most of the laughing, arguing, deciding. I don't want a shiny, showy kitchen. I want everything to work, and I want a lot of shelves, and I want a stove which will heat up and cools down quickly (unlike this which DOES NOT), and a big sink. I don't need an AGA or a steam oven or a marble baking counter or hand-made English cabinets. The soapstone is entirely practical, of course.


Soapstone

Opening

So -- Rankintown. That's the name of the original settlement back in the far away long agos, when the Rankins came to the county. They were there long before the surrounding towns were settled and were your basic yeoman farmers -- good solid Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who came down the Great Wagon Road. I'm not going to go into a lot of the area's history. That's Richard's department. Plus, I want this to be more a chronicle of the progress of the house.

Anyway, the house is down to the studs, pretty much. I told Richard I can practically hear it sigh with relief. We're tearing out all the horrors perpetrated upon the poor thing by years of hillbilly-inhabitants and their pack of miscreant dogs. I want the house to remember its past as the scene of beautiful parties and Sunday naps. I want it to forget having its feet chewed by mongrels, and a yard strewn with old tires filled with mosquito-y water, and the sullen, humorless people it was reduced to sheltering. Now it's standing half-bare on its hillside, with light shining through gaps in the old panelling.


Renovation. I know, even without checking the OED, that "new" is in there somewhere. I've debated whether this is renewal or rehabilitation. Of course, it's both, but I think I'll have to plump for "renovation." We're bringing the place back to life. Richard said today he hopes the new house will be a "cheese and crackers" kind of place, which was sort of brilliant. Cheese and crackers and NPR and wine on the porch and cool people walking up the hill and a blue and yellow kitchen and a screened porch with a bird book perched on the railing. Maybe a bottle tree. And a fire pit and a metal roof to keep out the wet of rain but let in the sound. And I'm certain there will be this smell -- this cool damp smell of ferns and creeks and fallen trees -- that will roll up the hill in the evenings and in the morning. Right now, the house is open to the breeze, which it needs.

We're going to call it Sugahaw, which is an invented word. Sort of. Many of the old place names around here are white people's versions of Indian words. I found a Catawba Indian lexicon online, and I made up Sugahaw from the word that meant our house. Suga like sugar. It sounds like an old place name, so I've pretended that I've invented history with my invented word. We mentioned to the architect we were thinking of using this name, but in truth we hadn't really decided. On the first go-round of plans, however, he printed Sugahaw, and that was it for me. We had named the place. Sugahaw. And now I think of the house sighing, and the breeze blowing through its skeleton, and Sugahaw doesn't feel invented, it feels inevitable. Like it really was there all along. Before Rankintown, before anything. Except that smell of ferns and creeks and fallen trees.