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Our client's oak table and crank phone fit right in with the new period kitchen

The Cottage (part 2)

August 1, 2019

When the Red Beach cottage was built and by whom is still an open question. It has been added to and altered a number of times during its long life. Census records suggest occupation on that site as early as 1910. Structural tells found during the demo phase; square nails, hand planed beaded moldings, lath and plaster marks and extra wide old growth pine sheathing suggest an earlier date - 1860 to 1880.

Samuel de Champlain's 1613 map, Isle de sainte Croix. Red beach Cove upper left

The Cottage (part 1)

July 31, 2019

We celebrated the start of summer with the completion of our latest project; a kitchen/pantry renovation in a 100+ year old cottage, in the sleepy Calais suburb of Red Beach. Situated on the St. Croix River around a sheltered cove and first-rate mill stream, one would never suspect driving through this quiet residential district today, that it was once a vibrant, prosperous, self-sufficient community.

Our first kitchen featured a large custom pine pantry.

In Like a Lion

April 5, 2018

We just returned back from a ‘spring’ trip to the Hamptons; staying in a circa, 1810 Federal in our old hometown of Sag Harbor. This home was the site of our very first kitchen and baths renovations, some 20 years ago. Our former clients have become longtime friends.

Leaving Well Enough Alone

August 15, 2017

With the kitchen restoration in our project home, a circa 1850, Dennysville cape, nearing completion, our focus turned to a bathroom on the first floor of the main house. The room, that likely once served as a small bedroom (sometimes called the "birthing room") was turned into a bathroom, in the late 1920s by members of the Leighton family.

Water's Edge

April 29, 2016

During this unusually mild winter we stayed busy with projects ranging from upgrades to a lobsterman's summer cottage on the Passamaquoddy Bay, a guest room renovation in a circa 1840s cape on Water Street in Eastport, to Phase 2 of window restoration in an antique home on the Dennys River.

The period bath in the Haas-Lilienthal House with its centerpiece - the earthenware tub. Photo by Jody Stuart

The Case of the Dubious Earthenware Tub

May 19, 2013

I recently received a lovely compliment when one of our clients, a Calais, Maine native son and local town historian, exclaimed, "you're the Sherlock Holmes of restoration!" While it’s true I once lived on Baker Street, not in London but the “City by the Bay” - I’m not sure that that illustrious title quite fits.