Although Andrew and I were not able to go up to the North Country over Labor Day weekend this year, Andrew and my mother went up earlier in August. My Aunt Jan (mom’s sister) rented a house in Saranac Lake to host a gathering of her kids and grandkids. Since Mark and his family are in Florida, and Bethany and her kids are in Alaska, getting all of them in one place is no easy feat; further, with Jan now living in Florida instead of nearby Garrison, NY, it’s even rarer for my mom to see her neice and nephew and all the grand-neice/nephews. Mom and Andrew stayed in Saranac Lake for a night, then drove over to Essex to stay with my great-Aunt Frisky for a few days.
While he was in Essex, Andrew went over to Green Bay to check the renovation progress. Originally, the Fritzes hoped to have Green Bay ready in time for their August vacation in Willsboro, but construction realities were such that the house was nowhere near ready by then—no big surprise to anyone who has ever been involved in such projects. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made since my last update, and Andrew generously provided me with a series of new photos to document it.
On the exterior, most of the shingling on the wings and the upstairs dormers has been completed. Instead of the former white paint scheme, the Fritzes are going with a very light yellow-beige; I haven’t heard if the shutters are being replaced, or, if so, if they will be green or some other color. The north (bedroom) wing looks rather bare without shutters, but the kitchen wing has more windows more closely spaced together, so shutters there might not work. Obviously, there’s no room for shutters on the upstairs dormer, except possibly at the center and either end.
At the southern (kitchen wing) end of the house, I’ve been told that the stairs you see in the picture at right are temporary and that the porch will be accessed only from within the house. The old circle driveway will be removed and turned into lawn, which should make the porch a very pleasant place to spend time. The new entrance (“back door”) to the house is around the corner to the left, where you can see a smaller entrance portico.
The interior is where you can see the most progress. Last time we had pictures, framing had been completed but little drywall had gone up, making it difficult (in a two-dimensional picture) to visualize the shape of the new rooms. Now, with the walls largely in place and with a sneak look at the blueprints, I’m able to say more about the new rooms and give you a better sense of where they are.
At left is the new entrance into the kitchen wing, taken facing west from in front of the “old” back door (which is now the entrance to the porch). I’m assuming that this space will be used as a mud room, perhaps with hooks for coats. I’m also guessing that the doorway visible to the right of the entrance is either a closet/storage space or a bathroom.
At right is a view down the kitchen wing hallway towards the doorway to the patio, taken from the same spot as the previous picture but looking north.
The hallway walls end about two-thirds of the way down, opening into the new kitchen/family room at the right (through the columns) and the new dining room at the left. The doorway in the hall at the left is either a storage room or a bathroom. A new doorway onto the patio is at the end of the hall, and just to the left of that you can see new french doors opening from the dining room onto the patio.
The next photo shows the new dining room, viewed from the kitchen/family room looking west through some scaffolding. The french doors leading out to the patio are on the right side—assuming there are screen doors attached, these will make for a lovely dining experience when opened onto the patio in the evenings. 
I can also see how this will make for easy entertaining as guests move from cocktails on the patio to the meal inside, or manage a buffet with the food behind screen doors and seating on the patio.
Although I have pictures of the kitchen/family room space, aside from putting up dry-wall and some painting, the space remains essentially as seen in prior photographs. The new fireplace has been faced with stone and lined with brick, and looks a lot less stark as a result.
As previously described, the center section of the house has undergone major reconfiguration. A new hallway now traverses the west side (patio side) of the structure from the door to the bedroom wing to a new doorway leading into the kitchen wing. This hallway is really a “T” as it intersects with the original front hall at the patio doorway. The remainder of the former dining room, pictured at right looking west towards the new hallway, is a new library with a large angled fireplace in the south-west corner of the room. Judging from where the stone facing ends at the left side of the fireplace, I’m guessing there will be bookshelves built into that wall.
The remainder of the living room, now a den, is even smaller, since between the den and the transverse hallway is a small laundry room. The picture at left shows the fireplace, rebuilt but in the same location as the original living room fireplace, with a soon-to-be-installed mantlepiece. Although I cannot be sure of this, the mantlepiece appears to be the original one, which pleases me—the den’s fireplace will look essentially the same as the old living room fireplace, and with a comfy chair placed nearby I can still picture my dad there, an echo of the old house.
Upstairs, the addition of the walls now makes the new layout much clearer. This next picture shows a walk-in closet/dressing room in the space where the old bathroom used to be. You can see the original door to the attic above the bedroom wing. I’m told that the Fritzes will continue to use the cedar closet that my grandfather installed in that attic, which makes sense considering how well cedar protects clothing from moths and other creepy-crawlies.
Taken from about the same place, but turned to face east, this next picture shows the stairway leading down to the front hall in the center and the door to one of the two upstairs bedrooms at left; just visible is the entrance to the other bedroom at the extreme right edge of the photo. The Fritzes intend the upstairs to be their master suite, so I am guessing they follow the English custom of separate bedrooms for husband and wife—or, they may have decided to share the upstairs with a guest room.
Turning further to the right, facing south, is a view of the new upstairs bathroom. I had wondered if the old claw-foot tubs were being retained, and it looks like they are, at least in this location.
The next picture shows the interior of the southern upstairs bedroom, looking south-east. The one feature of the remodeled house that continues to bother me is the new upstairs dormer on the road (east) side of the house. It just looks out of scale with the rest of the structure and has none of the charm of the three old dormers. However, from the inside, as this picture clearly shows,
the new dormer does create a fantastic space with tons of light and great views over the fields towards the lake and the Vermont mountains. While I earnestly wish a different solution could have been found, I certainly understand why it was done and what the benefits are to the interior space.
The bedroom wing continues to be the least changed in general layout. A new jack-and-jill bathroom is shaping up between the two east (road side) bedrooms, and the two original bathrooms are being reconfigured to open directly into the west bedrooms and not the hall. The hallway alcove that contained doors to the patio, the guest bathroom, and the linen closet has been walled off, with most of the space going to an expansion of the guest bathroom (now the bathroom for the first of the west bedrooms). The former master bathroom no longer opens onto the hall, instead opening into the other west bedroom (ex-master bedroom). I’m not posting pictures of this as, except for some painting, there’s no real changes from the last set of photos.
My next trip to Willsboro will probably not be until one of the holiday long weekends in January or February. I would imagine by then the house will be essentially complete, and if I’m allowed to go in I’ll make sure to document the end results.
