Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Lake House at Elmore

Hello Everyone,

I'm back. I was on a trip to my home state of Vermont. Hun, Lu, and I stayed at my cousin's beautiful lake house, we spent time with our wonderful friends, and visited some of our favorite places. I love it there... I miss Vermont. *sigh* ...Well, I miss it until I remember what it's like in February when it's forty degrees BELOW zero. Did you know that Fahrenheit and Centigrade meet at -40°? Now you do.

Then I was working on the house putting baseboards in the kitchen, adding some wainscoting and doing both of those things pretty badly. Yes, I will show you. You know that I love a horrible "before" especially when the "after" turns out well... Of course this is my house so the quality of the "after" remains to be seen.

Any-hoo, I thought I'd take you on a tour of my cousin's lake house.

Jon and Betsy Anderson are my cousins (OK, technically, Jon is my cousin) and they have a lovely bed and breakfast in Montpelier.


If you're ever visiting Montpelier, I recommend staying here, it's just as beautiful on the inside, you can walk to town, & Betsy makes a fantastic breakfast. If you're planning on being a "leaf peeper" you would need to call now for 2013, it fills up very quickly during peak seasons.

A few years ago they built this house on Lake Elmore. They spent years designing it. One of their goals was to make it look like it's been there for a long time. They succeeded! It blends in with the other older houses along the way. It also doesn't look as large as it is. They did a great job disguising the square footage from the road. It looks like a cottage but it's three times the size of our house!

I love the bungalow/arts & crafts feel to it. The turquoise is pretty awesome too.

Here's what you see when you walk through that door:

That's the dining area. I love the dark floors with the light maple stripes in it. 

When you walk around the table and look into the living room, here's what you see.

It's just so light. I love all of the windows.

Here is the view standing next to the fireplace looking back at the table.

Over in the corner there is the kitchen. Which is awesome.

Those are soapstone counter tops. Hun and I have serious counter top envy. Did I mention that I LOVE all of the windows!

Here you are standing by that table and looking back toward the living room.

Check out that sink.  

Upstairs is an office and two lovely bedrooms, the first floor has a bedroom and then there's a family room and two more bedrooms in the basement, which is where we stayed. Here is where Lu and I slept:

More windows. It's the nicest basement I've ever personally been in. 

Here is the room where Hun slept:

Both bedrooms have a french door out onto the lower porch. It was so nice to wander out onto the porch first thing in the morning.

Here is the back of the house:

Those are the windows to Lu's and my room on the right and Hun's window is on the left.

Here's the whole back of the house. Wow, right?


Oh, and we need a view of the lake.

Here is Lake Elmore at sunset:

It's a quiet, peaceful lake. 

Jon won a Better Homes and Gardens award for this house. 

Cool huh? I think they deserved it. 

Here are some of the other residents of the lake. Lu was feeding these guys every night. By the time we got back at night there was a whole host of them waiting for her. I'm sure that they missed her.

I was debating about putting a pic of the laundry room because it's so neat and organized, but I decided not to, just in case Betsy didn't want the laundry room loose on the web.

Needless to say, we loved staying at the lake house. Jon and Betsy are so gracious for sharing their home with us. Jon said that one of the reasons that they built the house was so that all of the descendants of my Great Grandma Hinckley could go stay there and enjoy it. It's a really amazing gift! We hope to go back every year for the 4th. 

See you tomorrow!
H

6 comments:

  1. Oh my GOSH! How did you ever leave? That house is stunning. All the modern things you'd ever need with old world lake charm. Perfect. Glad to have you back, though!

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    1. We really didn't want to go!!! It was sooooo lovely! And thank you my Dear, I'm glad to be back!

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  2. hiya heather! i've missed you very much. now i can't believe it gets colder in the winter in vermont than in maine. ??? your cousin's house is so beautiful. now i know where you get your fix-it ability from - some mutual relative! glad, too, that you had a lovely, relaxing time. you deserve it. joy to you, n

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    1. Thanks Noreen, I've missed you guys too! Talk about feeling out of the loop! Oy. It actually gets much colder in Gardiner than it does in Montpelier and I think it's because of the coastal effect. We're inland but not that far away from the water. I think Aroostook County is much colder than VT ;-)

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  3. Oh, I have lake house envy! How beautiful. And what a charming B&B, too. I've always wanted to go to Vermont and now I know where to stay! And I adore baby ducks : )

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    1. Thank you! It's a truly beautiful place.

      (BTW, they rent that house too ;-)

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