A fresh start

Meet our new, old house, an East Coast Canada fixer-upper on one and a half acres complete with barn and a couple of small outbuildings. We hope this will be a labour of love but we are bracing ourselves for the unwelcome surprises and hidden costs that come with long-neglected centenarian houses. When the going gets tough we will look to the water and remind ourselves that our view stretches beyond this pretty Nova Scotia inlet to the times when we will welcome friends and visitors to our Blue House, Red Barn home.

You’re welcome to join us on this renovation journey. We promise to share all of the tribulations and triumphs, our best ideas and our god-awful ones, our inspiration and our frustration.

And so it began…

A new coat of blue is in order, but no hue will ever be as lovely as the sky.

Greg strolls the lot, the first time, already looking at home.

I knew Greg loved this property from the slow way he walked its one and a half acres, around the sturdy post-and-beam barn in need of a fresh red paint job, beyond the traditionally simple Lunenburg four-square house, and down the gentle slope to the salt water below.

We strode through unmown grass, fading to yellow in the cool November temperatures, kicked at the apples that lay rotting on the ground, an offering left behind by deer that had clearly become regulars. The old homestead did not offer the rugged shoreline that is Nova Scotia’s hallmark but rather a gentler take on the East Coast – a shallow inlet, dotted with islands, beautifully still, with water the colour of steel. Read More