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unicorndukeI'm at my brother's place, the family came here for Christmas for the first time and it was my first time visiting since he bought it in April.
I came down Thurs and the drive was fine until I got on the NJ turnpike, it was raining and no one knew how to drive in the rain for some reason??? Traffic literally was going 60mph the entire time I was on the turnpike. Between making a pit stop before entering NJ and the fail of drivers, it extended a 4 hr 45 min drive to almost 6 hours. It wasn't the worst drive but it was infuriating because the rain was not that bad. It was not pouring. It was a steady decent rain. idek.
But I arrived and have been doing a lot of relaxing. We've played a lot of video games, walked the dogs around the property, played card games and just chatted.
My brother's house/property is really cool too. The main part of the house was built in 1816 and the last owner was an engineer who worked for a big corp and 1. did a nice job doing renovations on the house and was a woodworker so the stairs, doors, and cabinets are handmade and beautiful and 2. scavenged things from big corp to: build an outbuilding from bright safety blue tubes with cables run though them, grates for outdoor stairs, sliding glass doors for the 2 floor rotunda he attached to the south side of the house, department store windows that are on the south side of the kitchen, a pulley system to get furniture to the second floor through the sliding glass doors of the rotunda because the main stairs are spiral and very small, an HVAC system, a toilet with a button on the wall to flush and SO MUCH MORE.
This guy stuck so much stuff in the woods too, 8 acres of trees, brambles, vines, and metal! Cables! Trees that may have been falling over at some time and cabled to another tree! Pipes! Fuel tank!
So my brother has a lot of work to do. It's honestly delightful to me how wacky this place is. There's a giant pool room attached to the old part of the house that was built with extra large bricks to mimic New Orleans (?), but someone filled the indoor pool in so it's just a giant room. I thought I had a wacky house, but we've got nothing on this one.
It also borders a 5000 acre state park that used to be Ye Olde Riche Person Property that the state acquired when the estate was sold and the park is really well maintained and beautiful. Lots of horse people around and the park is very popular with them, so much that almost every house around here has horses or pastures with gates leading to the park.
Only reason my brother got the property was because everyone else trying to buy the house wanted to bulldoze the house and stick a mcmansion in there and the person selling (nephew of the person who owned it) didn't want that to happen. Someone apparently offered 100k over asking price in cash and the seller turned it down over my brother's offer. Wild shit.
But lots of long walks outside and in the park even with the cold weather we had. Mara just wanted to be outside all the time of course. It didn't quite get below 0 but it was in the single digits during the day with some wind chill. Wasn't too bad to be honest! My parents rolled in Christmas eve since they delayed driving during the rain right as it was freezing up.
Today we are heading over to my brother's girlfriend's house to have nice dinner with her parents and then heading up to my parent's place tomorrow.
My parents gifted me a new drill because I mentioned offhand back in November that my drill was not up to the task of shed prep because the batteries were dying so that was very nice!
I came down Thurs and the drive was fine until I got on the NJ turnpike, it was raining and no one knew how to drive in the rain for some reason??? Traffic literally was going 60mph the entire time I was on the turnpike. Between making a pit stop before entering NJ and the fail of drivers, it extended a 4 hr 45 min drive to almost 6 hours. It wasn't the worst drive but it was infuriating because the rain was not that bad. It was not pouring. It was a steady decent rain. idek.
But I arrived and have been doing a lot of relaxing. We've played a lot of video games, walked the dogs around the property, played card games and just chatted.
My brother's house/property is really cool too. The main part of the house was built in 1816 and the last owner was an engineer who worked for a big corp and 1. did a nice job doing renovations on the house and was a woodworker so the stairs, doors, and cabinets are handmade and beautiful and 2. scavenged things from big corp to: build an outbuilding from bright safety blue tubes with cables run though them, grates for outdoor stairs, sliding glass doors for the 2 floor rotunda he attached to the south side of the house, department store windows that are on the south side of the kitchen, a pulley system to get furniture to the second floor through the sliding glass doors of the rotunda because the main stairs are spiral and very small, an HVAC system, a toilet with a button on the wall to flush and SO MUCH MORE.
This guy stuck so much stuff in the woods too, 8 acres of trees, brambles, vines, and metal! Cables! Trees that may have been falling over at some time and cabled to another tree! Pipes! Fuel tank!
So my brother has a lot of work to do. It's honestly delightful to me how wacky this place is. There's a giant pool room attached to the old part of the house that was built with extra large bricks to mimic New Orleans (?), but someone filled the indoor pool in so it's just a giant room. I thought I had a wacky house, but we've got nothing on this one.
It also borders a 5000 acre state park that used to be Ye Olde Riche Person Property that the state acquired when the estate was sold and the park is really well maintained and beautiful. Lots of horse people around and the park is very popular with them, so much that almost every house around here has horses or pastures with gates leading to the park.
Only reason my brother got the property was because everyone else trying to buy the house wanted to bulldoze the house and stick a mcmansion in there and the person selling (nephew of the person who owned it) didn't want that to happen. Someone apparently offered 100k over asking price in cash and the seller turned it down over my brother's offer. Wild shit.
But lots of long walks outside and in the park even with the cold weather we had. Mara just wanted to be outside all the time of course. It didn't quite get below 0 but it was in the single digits during the day with some wind chill. Wasn't too bad to be honest! My parents rolled in Christmas eve since they delayed driving during the rain right as it was freezing up.
Today we are heading over to my brother's girlfriend's house to have nice dinner with her parents and then heading up to my parent's place tomorrow.
My parents gifted me a new drill because I mentioned offhand back in November that my drill was not up to the task of shed prep because the batteries were dying so that was very nice!
no subject
Date: 2022-12-26 03:20 pm (UTC)Trying to visualize your brother's new place as a whole has my brain holding up an "are you kidding?" sign. Sounds like a great place!
Yay, useful gifts!
Safe travels to all.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-26 04:54 pm (UTC)Love the sound of your brother's house!
no subject
Date: 2022-12-27 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-27 01:30 pm (UTC)Good to know I can get cheap batteries for it though! I may pick some more up.
My brother's house and property is just delightfully weird and amusing to me!
no subject
Date: 2022-12-27 03:26 pm (UTC)My current favorites are DeWalt and Milwaukee.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-28 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-30 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-31 01:19 am (UTC)