Summer Place

One of the only "completely finished" rooms at Flippist World Headquarters is the summer porch, the youngest son and I made it over about four years ago. We thought about heating it and adding electricity but we limited our efforts to the walls and windows, retaining its early 20th century character.

It's a summer place, a place to take coffee in the morning, a place you can relax and listen to the birds sing, a place to read a book or do the crossword, a place to nap. It is a peaceful place- it never has the wearisome din from a television or stereo. The raw cedar shakes don't need a finish and the dark tongue and groove planks on the ceiling have never been touched by a brush since they were installed many years ago.

When we moved in, in 1984, the porch was a sad place. It had a broken door to the outside, its windows were warped and drafty. The roof leaked above it, and the previous owners had used it to store junk (still there when we moved in!) We often wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. We removed the junk, eliminated the door and have used it every summer since.

The nights have been cool lately, we'll have a few more hot days, but the nightly chorus of crickets has now begun to sing "Autumn- autumn." When the last warm days of October are finally behind us the porch will rest until spring, its only visitors being cooling pies or other overflow food prepared for Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts.

Note: The panoramic "stitching" distorts at the doorway- that wall is flat, the windows on either edge of the image connect in a flat wall as well. Click on image for a larger view.