Bathroom progress

The bathrooms are really coming together and looking so good. Each has its own feel but they are all looking lovely.

Why Come to Windsor?

Why Come to Windsor?
My family and I recently finished a working vacation in Windsor. We had a great time, and it got me thinking that you don’t have to have family in Windsor to go there and have a great vacation. Here are some ideas for how you could happily spend a weekend in Windsor, Vermont.

*History Buffs*
Start off the morning with a stroll around Main Street. Start at the Inn at Windsor (106 Apothecary Lane, Windsor) and wind your way down to the Constitution House . Windsor was the first state capital in Vermont and the first constitution of the state was signed there. Many of the buildings you’ll encounter have been restored and preserved. Of particular interest are the Congregational Church , Inn at Windsor, the Evarts and Cox Houses , Snapdragon Inn and Constitution House.

For a hearty diner luncheon we recommend the Windsor Diner or Stub’s and Laura’s and as of today, The Windsor Station Pub. Each location will provide you with a great dose of an American institution, the local diner. Don’t forget to have a piece of pie. Relax with a stroll around Lake Runnemede From the lakeshore, you can view several properties in Windsor, including the Juniper Hill Inn.

For dinner, try Windsor Station Pub. The restaurant is housed in the former train depot building. And if you time your dinner right, you’ll be able to hear and see the train roll by on it’s way to and from Montreal. You can’t help but feel the history of the railroad and appreciate it’s importance to Windsor and the Upper Valley.

*Museum Fun*
My family and I spent a delightful afternoon learning so much about Windsor’s contribution to American industry and art.

First we started at the American Precision Museum. It boasts a delightful collection of antique machines. Through the well organized displays, families can learn about the discoveries and technologies that were developed in Windsor that pushed the industrial revolution forward. There is a small area where kids can touch some machines, including an old fashioned typewriter that was the favorite attraction for our 5 year old daughter.

Next we drove a short two minutes to the old Winsdor Fire Station building to the Cornish Colony Art Museum. We were lead on a tour of the current exhibit by a very friendly and knowledgeable guide who custom fit the tour to a family with three young daughters. The collection of Maxfield Parrish art and artifacts from other Colony artists is fantastic. We really gained an appreciation for the process involved in creating some of America’s finest artwork.

Our next destination was the Simon Pearce and glass blowing factory. This is about a 5 minute drive from the art museum. The whole family thoroughly enjoyed standing just a few feet away from a pair of glassblowers as they worked. Their skill and teamwork were artistic all on their own, never mind the stunning glass bowls they were crafting. You can also go upstairs to visit a large showroom that includes seconds, if you are in the market for some slightly less than perfect pottery or glass. There is also a catwalk on the second floor so you can walk above the glass blowing operation and watch it from another point of view. And best of all, it’s FREE. Unless you buy something spectacular as a souvenir! The pottery building is also open for tourists to enjoy watching craftsmanship of another kind.

We ended the day with a stop at the Windsor Vermont Mercantile. The kids had been so great all day that we rewarded them with a stop at the candy counter. Giant apothecary jars are filled with all kinds of goodies for kids to fill their own bags (with Mom and Dad’s help). I recommend the Lake Champlain chocolates for grown up tastes. Take a few minutes to peruse the fantastic line of home products at this modern version of the old-fashioned general store.

*Getting outdoors*
St. Gaudens National Historic Site
Pack a picnic and wear your hiking shoes. St. Gaudens is just over the river from Windsor in Cornish, NH. You’ll get to cross the largest covered bridge in the United States in order to get there. I can’t possibly explain all there is to see at St. Gaudens, so check out their website, it lists all the activities and tours for you to experience. We took the 28 minute Aspet tour, then wandered through the Little Studio, took a hike down the Ravine Trail to the Temple, then wandered through the New Gallery. We didn’t even make it to the Visitors Center. Next time we go, we plan to have a picnic near one of the gardens or just on the lawn in front of the Little Studio. Beautiful views of Mt. Ascutney are all around.

Later in the day, head out to Paradise Park for dinner and roasting of s’mores. Paradise Park was created by the Evarts family of Windsor, which treasured their town and wanted others to enjoy it as well.

In winter, Ascutney Ski Area is located a mere 10 minutes outside Windsor. So if you want the skiing without the hustle and bustle of a resort, the Snapdragon Inn would be an ideal location for your stay.

Windsor is full of New England charm and American history. It’s located centrally to other historic and scenic destinations such as Hanover, NH (about 20-25 minutes and home to Dartmouth College) and Woodstock, VT (home of the Billings Farm and Museum and the Woodstock Inn). It’s a beautiful town that would make a great destination to get away from it all and truly experience New England living.

--Joy

the newest snapdragon

apologies for the serious lack of posts but things got a bit busy right after that last one -- i was actually in the beginning stages of labor when i posted that--and we welcome our newest little snapdragon to the clan!

A year ago...

I thought I would take us back a year (2 days ago) to the beginning of this blog and the recording of this experience. What a trip--and we are all still talking to one another :) Let's see if we can get some comments from the Snapdragon crew about favorite memories from the past year. I have a few I am going to post now. I also enjoyed looking back to see how much we have done! Phew!

--Chris

And so it begins- July 08, 2008

We officially close on Friday on 26 Main, soon to be the Snapdragon Inn. Renovations have already begun, logos are designed, business cards are on order, color palettes developed and furniture is being hunted down. This will be quite the experience!

I won't try to give the whole overview in just one post, it's a bit too much. But we are an extended family who have gathered together (from points all over the globe) to the small town of Windsor, Vermont, where we are embarking on an adventure to turn an old house on Main Street into an Inn. We'll be using this blog to document the experience, and will cover renovation, the design process, our marketing plans, history on the building and the area, a little more about us, and probably some funny stories as we stumble along the way.

--McKay

Some web links as the rain pours

image from Apartment Therapy

The sky just opened up and literally DUMPED water on Windsor. We had sunshine earlier and totally pleasant weather and then BAM!

Here are some articles on the web I found pertinent to the Snapdragon in one way or the other as I stay dry in my house:

1. Things We have Um...borrowed from Hotels via Apartment Therapy.

2. A blog dedicated to Floors and sanding them

3. A list of the top Romantic Inns in the country via iloveinns. Looks like there is space for one in Vermont :)

Wuthering Snapdragon

I love how moody this shot is of the Inn. N8 was playing around with some layering of exposures in Photoshop. So cool. So Wuthering Heights.

At least we aren't doing this anymore, right?

Oh the days of wall paper stripping in a house that was 30 degrees.
Man, we have learned a lot!

Thank you Sun God

The Sun is Back...for now and it is the absolute perfect summer weather. Although all the rain from last week sure has made our world GREEN! Thanks to family for having us over for some pool time so the little snapdragon people could get some summer time and the big snapdragon people could as well!

Life Journal--Stay Tuned

There is quite a vast bird life around the Inn and we are going to start keeping track of what we have in our midst. Luckily, we have some real birders in our group. Anyone keep a life journal out there?

--Stay Tuned

Bathroom...the final decoration choices.

Bathrooms are about to go from 0-60. With painting and trim painting on the third floor nearing completion, we are already placing fixtures to line up final installation. These will most likely be the accent/trims used in the bathroom to match the pedestal sink faucet and toilet finishes. Coming to a Snapdragon Inn bathroom near you...

Refinishing Cast Iron Claw Foot Tubs

We hope this post is a quick summary of your options when finishing cast iron claw foot tubs. After a lot of research and dead ends, we have decided on a refinishing process developed by a company called Miracle Method.

There are a couple large companies with franchises operating in the tub refinishing market. The two largest are Permaglaze and Miracle Method. They each have their own proprietary methods, but the general process (for all tubs) is:

1. Clean bathtubs and remove old caulking and sealants.
2. Mask around the bath tub and cover areas not to be refinished.
3. Remove fixtures and overflow cover.
4. Set up ventilation fan to vent overspray and odor outside.
5. Lightly sand entire bathtub.
6. Depending on the service you choose, the tub may also be etched with acid to help the coatings adhere (Miracle Method does not etch.)
7. Vacuum bathtub.
8. Fill chipped, scratched, or worn areas, then sand smooth. If there is extensive damage, the restorer may charge nominal extra fees for this.
9. Put down drop-cloths and covers over cabinets, sinks, fixtures, toilet, etc.
10. Spray-paint up to 3 coats of a primer; let dry.
11. Between 3-4 layers of top coat mixture are spray-painted.
12. Miracle Method comes back a few days later for a final buffing. Permaglaze does not do this because they say that their process does not lead to imperfections that would necessitate buffing.

With a claw foot tub there are some variations as you are actually dealing with the entire tub and not just the facing or "liner" as some people call it. So stripping and priming he exterior and the feet of the tub may also be part of the process.

In addition to these two companies there are a number of independent operators out there, but they seem hard to find and really word of mouth reference is the only way to check their work. With one of the large firms there is a guarantee of training, a franchise evaluation, and usually a guarantee on the final product. Miracle Method offers a five-year guarantee, but with proper cleaning, it should not have to be redone.

Doug Painter, who is the Miracle Method franchise owner in Vermont, came by the Snapdragon Inn to inspect all three of your antique claw foot tubs. While exact dating on all the tubs is hard to pin down, we know at least one of them was manufactured in April 29, 1925. That is an 84 year old tub.

The other two tubs have the following markings:

Doug provided us with three options on the antique tubs. We could finish the inside only, finish the inside and outside with some labor on our part, or have Doug complete the entire job.

Due to time restrictions and other projects underway, we chose to have Miracle Method complete the entire job. The quote is approximately $850 per tub including refinishing the interior, stripping the exterior, and priming the exterior--which will allow us to paint them as originally intended when they were constructed.

By comparison, a new cast iron tub of high quality is about $1,400, plus fixtures, plus shipping. We have purchased a beautiful new one for the third floor, so we know.

Everything kicks of Tuesday so we will provide before and after pictures along with out thoughts on the process. We know these tubs meant a lot to the Perkins clan and their extended family, so we are happy to restore them.

Up close at the Inn Gardens

Macro Photography may be my favorite so lucky we are wanting lots of macro shots for the guestrooms of the Inn. We want to have a myriad of shots from our garden or here in Windsor--local local.

Eventually we will have all the photographs available for purchase in our online gallery as well.
So if you see something you like, let us know!

--Chris

A closer look at just how bad

Here is a closer look at how bad the front entrance stairs really were--so much better now, phew.

Back when it wasn't raining

All the rain sure has made the grass grow fast! I enjoyed watching one of our little snapdragons help his dad mow the Inn lawns. Well I don't know that they were mowing as much as they were just hooning around. We like to teach 'em early around these parts.

Cool Hotel Redesign

Last week (on one of our many trips to Logan Airport in Boston) we opted to spend the night rather than make the early morning return to Vermont and stayed in a Fairfield Inn by Marriot. To our suprise they had gone through a redesign. It was quite cool for a chain hotel and we liked many of the elements we saw: white linens, pops of color, black and white photos on the wall, a cohesive color palette (quite trendy actually), interesting furniture pieces, and a runner along the bed that would look great in our Snapdragon custom fabric.

I found this article and this video that mentioned the April Redesign. Kind of funny.

Our custom Snapdragon linens and towels are set to arrive in the Boston Port tomorrow--hooray!


Stay Tuned.