It is important in any home to be able to create a special place for when you want solitude.

Sometimes you just need a place to kick back and read in a place where you can get away from it all.

Here it is all about simplicity. A comfortable wingback chair, a comfortable throw in warm sunlight offers a soothing and peaceful retreat.

I needed a pot rack here at the lodge. I couldn’t have one hanging overhead with cathedral ceilings in the kitchen and even if I could I didn’t want to interrupt the space.

I use my copper pots and pans. What is the point of having them if you don’t use them?

I have seen iron pot racks, wood pot racks, stainless steel pot racks and an assortment of others but I didn’t care for the designs nor the cost. I wanted a simple pot rack that I could mount on the sidewall. The pot rack needed to be simple, about 5 to 6 feet long and tight to the wall.

Read more about making a copper pot rack

Your front door says a great deal about you, your home and provides the perfect canvas on which to welcome your guests.

Whatever door color or style you choose pay just as much attention to the door knocker that you mount. Visiting a specialty hardware store one can find an assortment of door knockers from vintage to highly polished brass or chrome. Dragonflies, flowers, each a sculpture, each an expression.

This cast bronze trout door knocker was a gift from my family - I’m an avid angler. There is nothing quite like catching the rise or casting the riffles of the Esopus River. I use my grandfather’s cane fly rod and tie my own flies. The knocker seemed more than appropriate for the lodge.

Let your front door express your passions and take great care as to the door knocker that you mount.

I had been given this little refrigerator magnet of a twig deer head and thought it would look good life-sized and figured it would serve well as a rather whimsical way to greet guests to the lodge.

The charming but goofy looking little deer was of simple twig construction.

Read more about making a twig animal

‘Tis the season.

The Christmas light have been lit.

Does not feel like late November being that is has been so warm — although overcast today it was still quite warm. Don’t get me wrong — I hope that it lasts.

Ive been driving the old truck for the last several days — getting in those last rides in it before storing it away for the winter.

Its not that I mind the snow its just that I’d rather the warm weather not disappear for the next few months.

Some say this will be a year of heavy snowfall some say it will not.
Either way is fine by me.

It has come to the end of a long and productive week. Although I usually relax with a cup of coffee, this evening I’ll be enjoying conversation with good friends around the tap at the bar here at the Lodge where an inviting and refreshing glass of ice cold beer awaits.

The past several days of fine tuning designs and drafting new blue prints late into the evening and meeting with contractors for an upcoming renovation project of rather massive scale has left me numb. Yet I sit in calm. Soothed by the knowledge that my client that has fallen in love with the designs and progress.

Read more about plans for the workshop

Having worked from a home office for the past several years has been a pleasure. The office behind the bar provides comfortable surroundings and an enjoyable place to work, yet storage for files and office equipment has been difficult.

One situation is that I’ve never really had decent storage space for files besides a single standard two-drawer metal file cabinet from Staples. I’d end up with stacks of files all over the floor. I needed a number of file cabinets for personal and business documents but never ventured out to get any and hated the ugly metal drawers.

Read more on the home office

Sitting on the back deck, having a cup of coffee and enjoying the morning garden, I noticed that a new wren has taken residency in my most treasured birdhouse. This was a gift years ago from the folks at songbirdlady.com.

This is the second wren to occupy and feather the nest this year. This little terracotta and copper nest swaying gently above the columbine has fledged many a wren families over the years but this is the first time I’ve had two in one year.

Read more on the wren house