Mantle love.

Look who's coming home to the shore house! And -- the man of the house gets all of the credit for this. We were walking through the old carousel building in Asbury Park, which is now home to a flea market on weekends. He spotted it almost immediately and thought it would be great for The Pool Room. He wanted to put up some sort of "drinking ledge" in the room, to which I responded by crinkling up my face like I had just caught a waft of dead fish. The mantle, with its compact size and seven inch ledge, would be the perfect perch for a pint -- and fit in with the character of the house. Sold! We still need to pick it up this weekend, so we'll see how it goes in it's new home.

The prices are a bit on the high side at this new flea but very negotiable. Take the mantle, for example. With no back-and-forth whatsoever we got it for $200 off the asking price (for $295). And -- the mister was also the negotiator. Who knew he had such flea savvy?!

Interestingly, when I suggested getting a mantle for The Napoleon Room several months back he thought I was nuts. "Mantle?...No fireplace?...Huh?"

He's come along so nicely. We're very proud of him.

Beach reads and surprise shore house guests.

The Fixer Upper is a new book by best-selling author Mary Kay Andrews that sounds like a good beach read for me. It’s about a woman’s quest to, “redo and old house, and her life.”…

“…Dempsey is in for a surprise when she arrives in Guthrie. ‘Bird Droppings’ would more aptly describe the moldering Pepto Bismol–pink dump with duct-taped windows and a driveway full of junk. There's also a murderously grumpy old lady, one of Dempsey's distant relations, who has claimed squatter's rights and isn't moving out. Ever. … All Dempsey can do is roll up her sleeves and get to work. And before long, what started as a job of necessity somehow becomes a labor of love and, ultimately, a journey that takes her to a place she never expected—back home again.”

For those of you in the Jersey Shore area, you can meet Mary Kay tomorrow, Monday, July 13, at the Spring Lake Library (1501 Third Ave.) 7:30 p.m. The library is a gorgeous Tudor building that is definitely not a fixer-upper. It's stunning, and was built in 1923 to serve as the Spring Lake community center, which it serves as to this day.

I've learned when owning an older home, you're kind of in a perpetual state of fixer-upperness. There are so many times we wonder about the history of the house, and about what might it might have looked like one hundred or so years ago.

So imagine our surprise last Sunday night, when two women came up to us..."Excuse me...our husbands were born in this house, and our mother-in-law is in the car...she drove by earlier today..."

Stop the presses! Grab mom and come on in!

Pat and Lenny bought our house in 1972. Apparently for $16,500. But let's try not to dwell on that. OK?!?! They've long since relocated to Georgia and were sadly in town for Pat's sister's funeral. It was their first time back in years and years. They were reluctant to knock on the door but when they saw us outside, they pulled over.

When they walked in the front door I could see from the looks and smiles on their faces that it was like stepping back to a happy time in their lives. (In fact, they had just been married and it was their first home together.) We thanked them for not painting over the gorgeous woodwork. They told us that in fact, they had to redo some of the woodwork when they moved in. So we thanked them again!

We decided not to gut the older kitchen, and instead opted to scrub, scrub some more, and do quickie updates. As we’ve lived in it over the past year and change, we’ve come to like the layout and the wood cabinets are so well made I’d hate to rip them out.

Well, turns put Pat and Lenny had them hand crafted by Amish carpenters over a nine month period! No wonder they’re so solid. I’ve been searching for someone to strip and refinish them, so if anyone has any recommendations in my neck of the wood, please let me know.

Pat’s also responsible for the toaster built in to the wall. That’s right; toaster in the wall.

Apparently it cost $250 in the 70s! But they wanted to be hip and modern so they went for it. We look at it and see “fire hazard” but it’s such a conversation piece I think it stays (but will remain unused, despite my friend Spence’s insistence we have wall toaster grilled cheese night).

The daughters-in-law were anxious to see their husbands’ nurseries…and I can’t tell you how cute I thought that was. Turns out the babies were in what is now the green room.

Pat apologized for the other small room they paneled. But reminded us it was the 70s and all. She seemed to like that we whitewashed it, but I was also glad to learn the original walls were under there should we decide to eventually take it down.

She asked if we still had the claw foot tub. Yup!

How about the gorgeous marble sink?

The WHAT? How anyone could have kicked that to the curb I’ll never know.

We told them of our plans to re-renovate the attic that had been “renovated” by the owners we bought from. The room was done a bit on the cheap, with bad laminate flooring and moldings fashioned from simple 2 x 4s. When Pat and Lenny lived in the house, apparently the attic had original woods floors and moldings, wainscoted walls, and an old skylight.

OK, that one hurt. And I was still smarting from the sting of the marble sink news.

We chatted a bit more, and wound up having a bit of a reunion in our front yard when they recognized another neighbor they’d lost touch with since moving. It was so lovely meeting them, and hearing in great detail what they did to and/or knew of the house (I could have easily made this a three-part post!). Pat gave us each a warm hug as she was leaving, and her husband thanked us for turning what started as a really awful day into something beautiful. At which point I got a little teary.

We plan on being in our home for a long time, but most importantly want to be good stewards for the next generation that will call it home some day. Like Pat and Lenny before us.

Cheers to good fixer uppers everywhere.

A kazoo is not a toy.

But it sure is fun!

Getting to march in the Ocean Grove 4th of July parade with the now-famous Days Ice Cream Kazoo Band was sort of the cherry on my sundae this past weekend. Who knew waking up early on a Saturday could be so much fun?

In fairness, I'm a seasoned kazooist. I marched in the Staten Island St. Patrick's Day Parade for several years in a kazoo band with my mom. I'm a bit of a natural.

The Ocean Grove band was the brainchild of Heather, who appears in many local theater productions and can be seen tableside on weekends at The Starving Artist, our favorite local haunt for breakfast (three words: breakfast potato skins. Yum! OK – that’s four words…). The owners also operate the popular Days Ice Cream in the same building, where lines can stretch for miles (or at least several yards) on a hot summer weekend.

Our fearless leader was Heather, capably backed-up by her equally fabulous boyfriend Mike. Here she is, rounding up the troops in the morning:

And here we are, off to the side learning the play list:

Once the march began we really got into it...

In fact, here I am below with a rare triple-chin laugh. That’s quite something.

The beautiful weather (finally!) brought out crowds of happy people...

...and the parade's eye view was also a great way to see the houses of Ocean Grove decked out for the holiday:

I hate to play favorites, but I think my favorite band member was Mister T. Mister T. was very recently saved by a rescue group from a kill shelter in North Carolina. He’s half basset, half black lab. (Try not to think about the logistics of that too much!)

Is he handsome, or what?

The only sour note on an otherwise beautifully orchestrated day was hit as we turned the corner on Main Street. Nagles, which definitely would be considered a competitor to The Starving Artist/Days, decided it would be hilarious to soak our kazoo band. They launched a super-soaker attack from the crowd and from the second floor balcony at Nagles. The act was carried out mostly by teenage employees (as noted by their Nagles’ tee-shirts. Nice touch with the branding.) but also by a couple of pseudo-adults who kind of looked old enough to know better. They hit infants in strollers, people with digital cameras. No one in our group was really spared.

What can we learn from this?

Don’t be a jerk.

And eat at Days.


Days Ice Cream
Ocean Grove, NJ
48 Pitman Avenue

(732) 988-3297

Sweet land of liberty.

How lucky was I to be gifted with these amazing Ladies Liberty pillows from Sue at Rue Mouffetard? Her and the lovely daughter were in Hoboken, NJ, to take the quilt class I did (or as I like to call it, Quilt Boot Camp) after reading about it on this here blog. We met for dinner after their class and Sue gifted me with these pillows she made, with photos of the Statue that she took herself (clearly she's a more advanced sewing-crafting diva than myself). Who thinks Sue needs to open an Etsy store? I do!

She knew I love the Lady, because, well...

Her daughter (who incidentally has one of the cutest kids ever) is also super talented, and gifted me with four beautiful vintage dessert plates. They will be making their blog debut soon...I've gathered so many fabulous table pieces over the past few months, I think it's high time to unite them for a party. Frankly, any excuse for a party is fine by me.

Today was a big day at the shore. For one, the sun came out. Secondly, we marched in the local parade. In the kazoo band. That's kind of worthy of its own post.

On the way back from the parade, I stopped at a yard sale (I know you find that shocking) and picked up this photo:

While other people's family photos typically don't "do" it for me (I have my own family, thank you very much) I fell in love with this patriotic picture. Maybe I was caught up in the holiday; maybe I was romanticizing the story of the people in the photo -- how perhaps it was their first July 4th in the States, and this was their first of many patriotic celebrations. Or maybe I was just crazy/dehydrated from blowing a kazoo all morning. Whatever the case, I bought it for $3.

I hope my friends in the States are having a lovely holiday weekend! I'll be back with a kazoo update soon.

It's not always chic at the shore house.

I love to share the "pretty" stories...the ones that involve decorating rooms, thrift store/yard sale finds, baking, beaches, and all sorts of things that put the "chic" in "shore house chic." Some things aren't as eye-candyriffic, but fabulous nonetheless.

The man of the shore house ripped out our basement stairs and put in new ones. I had no idea I had such a handy man! It took him a couple of weekends. Looking back, he said he'd gladly pay someone else to do the honors.

He redid the stairs in preparation for a little mold remediation project (at the end of last summer, our lawn chairs grew moldy *fur* in the basement. For. Real.). Once the stairs were in, we in fact did pay someone else to come in and scrape the mold out of the basement (worth every dime) and to paint with a waterproofing base and two coats of oil-based paint.

Two days after he finished, we got water in our basement for the first time since moving in. Ahhh...the joys of home ownership.

We're attributing the leak to the fact that it RAINS ALL THE TIME. It's raining now, in fact. On my day off. Some "holiday." Hrmph.

We also embarked on a scary home improvement journey...the installation of central air in a hundred year-old home with no duct work. I'm trying to keep my eye on the prize, but when I come home to things like this:

And I can see clear through to the room above...

...I get a little tweaked.

We're trying to maintain the historic integrity of the home as much as humanly possible, but it's hot as a pistol in here in the summer and having a huge window unit in each room last summer prevented us from opening windows on nice days. When we bought the house we figured the cost of the HVAC installation into our offer price, plus the great state of New Jersey is offering rebates and incentives for updating the energy efficiency of your home. So we figured may as well knock out the project now and enjoy it.

I'm not enjoying the clean up, though. But at least it's raining out, so I'm not missing much. (Plus, truth told, I'm procrastinating by writing this blog post.)

Hope everyone stateside has nice plans for the holiday weekend. I'll be marching in the local parade tomorrow in a kazoo band. And no; that's not a typo.

The Last Minute Baker

Blue eggs from the farmers' market. Take that, Martha!

Yup; I waited until the last minute again to execute The Daring Bakers' challenge. Which could only mean more spastic kitchen adventures for me. Good times, indeed.

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.

The recipe calls for ingredients in weight measurements. I hemmed and hawed and reluctantly bought an inexpensive kitchen scale (made more inexpensive by my 20% off coupon) from Bed, Bath & Beyond yesterday. I set all of my ingredients out on the counter this morning, and popped the scale out of the box.

The scale was broken.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’d say what I did: “Well that just figures.” (I may have said something else, too, but no need to share that particular gem.)

The later part of the morning was spent trying to figure out exactly how much flour 225 grams is. I was flashing back to high school math. Not good. “If 30 grams = ¼ cup, then 225 grams = 1 ¾ cups + a schtickle.”

And that’s what I wrote on the recipe.

We were instructed to add a layer of jam, preferably homemade, under the frangipane. So this morning I also made peach jam. Don’t get too excited…by “made peach jam” I mean chopped and heated two ripe peaches and some sugar (a schtickle?) until it looked like this:

I layered crust and the jam in the pan and got all fancy with the leftover crust I trimmed off.

My crust set up nicely, but felt a little tough…I’m not sure my fuzzy math helped. It was still dotted with butter (important for flakey goodness) so I’m hopeful.

OK…we’re out of the oven. Not so bad:

And, better dusted with powdered sugar:

I’m bringing it to a big housewarming party in about five minutes tonight and if it’s not a hit I’ll totally deny I brought it.

Check out a couple of my favorite bloggers Mille Fiori Favoriti and Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives for their incredible projects. Both have the recipe posted.

Update: Yum! Not a slice left. I would have actually added a bit more fruit, but the frangipane set up perfectly -- definitely more tart than pudding. Someone at the party even asked what bakery it came from. Fabulous!

The tents are back in town.

Anyone who's familiar with (the many oddities of) Ocean Grove, NJ, knows there is a thriving community of tent dwellers. One hundred and fourteen tents, to be exact. I wrote about them last August (click here for that post).

At the start of the spring they begin popping up around town. A tent is considered ready when its residents put their front doors on. These two were the first ones I saw that were "done" this year, doors firmly on hinges. The one with the blue doors was the official "first tent up" in 2008:

But when I got in a little closer to read the note taped on the front door, looks like they were beat to the punch this year:

Oh, snap! Tent smack talkin'.

Towards the end of May, most of the tents were up but the residents (and doors) not yet in place. I wandered into a few of them and spotted some "grandma graffiti" in this one...

By flag day, this whole row was dressed and ready to go:

It's pretty much been raining ever since, so the seasonal residents don't seem to be in too much a rush to move into their canvas summer homes this year.

The tents are always a topic of conversation, and tend to mystify first-time visitors. When the cable guy came last week, he asked what they were. The conversation went something like this:

Cable Guy: Um, what are those?

M: Tents.

CB: What are they for?

M: People live in them in the summer.

CB: ::: Blink. Blink. Blink, blink, blink. :::

People also inevitably ask me if I've been in one of the tents. Is the sky blue? (Actually, it's not. EVER. So maybe that's a bad analogy right now on the East Coast.) They're quite fabulous inside. Here's one I went in last year:

And you can take a look inside, too. The Ocean Grove Historical Society's annual house tour is on Friday, July 17. You'll tour two tents as part of the deal. And you may even leave wishing you were a tent person (don't get your hopes up -- the leases extend year over year with little turnover. Word has it the waiting list is 10 to 12 years.).

I guess you could say that I'm hooked on tents. Head over to Hooked on Houses to see what everyone else is hooked on.