I'm thrilled, but a little sad, that we've sold the Setzepfandt House, in Bellevue, Iowa. The new owners are a young couple who I'm sure will have the energy and gumption to keep the place up to the standards it deserves. I hope one day they encounter this blog and can see the photos of the work we've done. I also hope they'll meet some of the neighbors who have generational attachment to the place. These were the folks who were so kind and generous to us when we first arrived in Bellevue, back in 2010. Pictured here are some of their ancestors, date unknown. I suppose this means the end for this blog. Thank you all for reading. Please visit me at JulianneCouch.net. It would be great to stay in touch.

Now that I no longer live on the banks of the Mississippi River, I'm trying to stay mindful of what I loved about it. I could stand at my second story east facing window and see over one row of rooftops, and see the water backing up just above Lock and Dam 12. Just north of the dam, where I stood, is Pool 12. Just a few blocks south, is the section of river called Pool 13. When I needed a moment to soothe my mind and put aside the chaos of daily life, I looked out the back window through the spotting scope and observed trumpeter swans, canvasback ducks, bald eagles, Canada geese, various seagulls,and the occasional boisterous group of sand hill cranes. Boating on the Mississippi River, as we're doing in this picture just below the dam, is the best anti-depressant ever.

My goodness, it has been a long time since I've posted to this blog. I have big news --- after more than 10 years, we are leaving Belleve, Iowa, for another Iowa town, even more northerly than this one!
That means the Setzephandt House is on the market. Here is the listing http://associated-re.idxbroker.com/idx/details/listing/a654/144846/609-N-2nd-Street-Bellevue-IA-52031 You will love the mix of old and new within this historical house. From the striking exterior with its copper finial and wrap porch to the numerous bay windows, you can imagine the builder of this 1880s home carefully considered each detail. Inside, many original elements remain, such as the interior staircase and woodworking details. The house has been thoroughly updated where it counts, including plumbing and electrical systems, and central air conditioning. The spacious kitchen includes a Wolf cooktop with infrared red grill, a stainless-steel farm sink, quartz countertops, and custom cabinets. The backyard is inviting, with its concrete patio, and a powder-coated steel spiral staircase leading to a second story Trex deck with views of the Mississippi River.

Record Cold Iowa Winter

As we've heard, this has been the coldest winter in northeast Iowa in 35 years. Ah yes, 1979, I remember you well. Anyway, in addition to the cold, we've had some snow. Actually, we've had even more snow since Ron took this photo about a month ago.
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The finale: holiday open house

The house renovation is far enough along that we were able to include the Setzepfandt house in the annual Holiday Tour. This event is a benefit for the area Chamber of Commerce, and we were proud to participate. Here are a few photos of how the house looked just before guests arrived. Wish I could say it still looks this good now!

Front porch restoration

We realized that repairing the old front porch piecemeal was not a good approach. Not only were the floor boards rotting, the columns themselves were sagging and the whole thing was a big mess. So Ron and Marty took a week or so jacking up the porch, removing floorboards, discovering & replacing rotted or insufficient support lumber underneath. I helped with staining the replacement boards and placing the lattice. Here's the way it looks now.

Pilgrim's progress

Apparently I only blog on major holidays, based on the fact that my last post was New Years Day. We pilgrims to the Midwest have made great progress, thanks to carpentry help from Marty Jess of Bellevue, and the dogged painting skills of Al Thielen and his crew: JR, Laurie, Mitch, Dustin & others who dropped in to work a few days or even a few hours. We appreciate it immensely. Here are a few scenes from the last several months.

Our second New Year

We have marked our second round of "the holidays" here in the Setzepfandt House in Bellevue. No fireplace to cuddle around but a twinkling Christmas tree, a warm sofa and a snuggly dog make up for it. Last year we didn't have enough of the house in place to really decorate.

This year we did a little better. Next year, look out!

Remodeled Guest Room and Revisited Blog

This morning I received an email from Scott Setzepfandt, a great-grandson of Gustav and Marie, the originally family in our home.It was so nice to hear that he was pleased were moving the house along. That reminded me I hadn't posted any pictures of our guest room yet. We've already had three groups of guests but we hope we've not exhausted the possibilities yet. Here's a photo.

July 4 and Bunting

Ron took a few nice photos of our house decked out in bunting for the holiday. Not only did he take the picture, he located and purchased the bunting and hung it up.

Bellevue Iowa Heritage Days Parade

Yesterday we attend our second Bellevue Heritage Days parade. Great crowd, huge mob of tractors, plenty of great old cars, but sadly, very few horses. We really appreciate you, Bellevue Horseman's Club, for your contributions and your efforts. We hope one day the horses, buggies and wagons will make a strong comeback to this wonderful community event. In this photo, our boat, parked in our yard, is in the foreground. Tractors, using our street as a staging area, are behind it.

Home remodeling Sunday off

We are officially on strike today. Ron worked the last several days on piecing together an authentic baseboard and molding for our kitchen. Spent a lot of time slithering around on his stomach, and running up and down the basement stairs to measure twice, cut once, and not spew sawdust into the living space. Lord love him. Goofing off today, then back at it tomorrow. Marty Jess will probably come help again this week, finishing the exterior wood-rot problem. Still contemplating ideas for the upper balcony and ground level porch. Our original ideas for improving those spaces would have cost us more than we could comfortably spend. Back to the drawing board. Anybody want to paint a huge, looming house? The other news is that the bats in the belfy seem to have thinned out this year. By golly, it helps when the mamas breed someplace in the bluffs instead of the attic!

House Restoration: Exterior

I just noticed I'm blogging in slow motion, both here and on my Power Tourist blog. Note to self: one blog is plenty. Meantime, Ron and I are getting lots accomplished here at the Setzepfandt House. This is the Summer of the Exterior. Case in point, the exterior siding of the kitchen bay window has long been rather mushy. We enlisted the aid of Marty Jess who came over yesterday to work with Ron on ripping out the old rotted wood. We're awaiting some replacement lumber--you might be surprised how many sorts of shapes, sizes and species go into a simple area under a window. We hope to round most of the things up and get the repair completed by early next week.

Renovation: Painting and Decorating

We've accomplished quite a bit on the house since my last post, but those accomplishments have been of the tedious, difficulty to document variety. Much of Ron's time has been spent scraping away old paint slopped onto woodwork by previous residents, and drywall mud slopped as a result of our renovation. Al Theilen and J.R. painted our dining room and parlor ceilings, moving the room painting sequence along. Since then, we've installed our dining room ceiling fan and started to paint the walls, only to find that the paint, which looked like it had been mixed to the correct formula when we were at the store, in fact is an odd shade of purple. As I write this blog post, Ron is at the hardware store (hopefully) getting the right smidge of the right color added to the two cans of paint we bought. It is good to be married to an artist. Here are several photos of progress that I haven't posted yet. The guest bathroom, hallway art, a dining room window with curtain

Thanks for the coverage!

The Setzepfandt House was featured in this week's Bellevue Herald-Leader Home Improvement section. We were so proud to show BH-L editor Sara Millhouse around the place, and talk about how far the house has come. Setzepfandt Nation (our name for the dozens of local folks who've worked on the house with us) has really come through. We still have a long way to go, of course. Today Ron is replacing some wood from around a door frame that appears to have been kicked in once, many years ago. I'm happy to have finally found, in one of the garages, the box that contains my cookbooks. Now I can make my mother's biscotti recipe and my sister's enchilada casserole (using Ron's antelope meat from the hunt last fall.) In my last post I mentioned that the downstairs bathroom is functional, and promised pictures. Another big development is that the upstairs carpeting is all in. We can start moving Ron's office furniture in, but we need help. Anybody up for an hour of furniture hoisting? There will be biscotti....

Two bathrooms, no waiting

Eureka! We finally have the second bathroom functional. The upstairs bath was one of the first rooms ready to go in June, even before we arrived (thank you, Setzepfandt nation). A blessing and curse, I suppose, because then the "emergency" factor disappeared and people around town who didn't have little things like running water or air conditioning got ahead of us on the list. But over the last few days, a bathroom emerged from the pile of fixture boxes that had sat in our dining room so long I began hanging my sweater from them. Pictures to come, but suffice it to say it is beautiful and very welcome. So there's no door. There's no door on the upstairs bath either - the need to pee in private is fading...

Only non-Hawkeyes flag in town.

Got this baby up on the porch when the American flag we had hanging there got a little raggedy. Go Pokes!

Cooking with gas, finally and literally

After two and a half months of moving into the Setzepfandt House and Construction Zone, we have a kitchen. We've spent weeks and weeks concocting dismal meals of easily choppable or cleanable foods prepared in a tiny microwave. Even nuke-able mac & cheese doesn't cook well blah blah blah enough! We're finally shopping, storing food in a human-sized fridge, preparing said food in an oven or range top or large microwave, and washing dishes in a large sink or - gasp - dishwasher. I realize I sound like the most avaricious consumer-head in the world, but after all this time it feels great to return to a standard of living that doesn't require so much focus on hunter-gathering on the campground sort of scale. It is still a work in progress, but with no further ado, here are some photos.

Am I retired?

Here is a picture of my office space. I'm not working at the desk because I'm behind the camera!
I don't think a day goes by that I don't make a new acquaintance in town who asks me if I am retired. My first thought is, "Do I look old enough to be retired? I'm only 52." Then I think, "Do I look that at loose ends that surely I most not have anything meaningful going on in my life?" A combination of defensiveness, denial and self-awareness compete in my inner brain when this is going on. Maybe it started because I didn't want to "retire" from UW. I just wanted to pick my job up and do it from Iowa. So it rankles a bit when people there mention my retirement. That wasn't my plan, that isn't my sense of myself. I have another 15 years at least of "work" ahead of me. It just has taken a quirky turn, pretty much in keeping with how the rest of my life has gone. Anyway, back to meeting new folks. No, I'm not retired. I work part time. I freelance. I work for an employer 900 miles away. I'm writing a book. I'm taking a personal sabbatical. It all sounds thin and un-considered. Especially with so many people in the country unemployed but not by choice. What am I doing walking away from a perfectly good job if it wasn't part of my plan to retire? I better come up with something tangible to show as proof of my viability, and soon. Or else just say yes, I'm retired, please have no expectations of me because I have none of myself. I only look 52. Really, I'm 70 and deserve a break.

Tornadoes and kitchen cabinets

Both arrived yesterday. It must have been 95 degrees with 98 percent humidity yesterday afternoon, with 0 mph winds, when the two fellows arrived from Spahn & Rose lumber in Dubuque. All I could think when they unloaded box after box of huge, heavy kitchen cabinets was, "What were we thinking." You'd think I'd be more excited by their arrival since I've been looking forward to this day for month. But now I know it'll be at least another week before we can even get them out of their huge boxes and start the installing. Then several weeks after that before we get countertops and applicances.
I just can't imagine how all this stuff is going to fit into the kitchen. Sure, right now lots of it is cardboard now. But 96 inches to the top of the cabinets? Ridiculous.
Anyway, there we are. Hopefully this is just a case of buyer's remorse.
So after the lumber store fellows left, it got hotter and wetter and stiller. We walked out the back door about 50 feet to sit on the bench overlooking the river. The water, the sky, and the hills were all the same blue-black color. Lightning went from a few spikey slashes across the river to a steady wall-cloud strobe. When we started noticing cloud rotation kicking in we headed back to the upper porch and watched the sky start to turn green-black, that tornadic color I remember so well from days gone by. A few seconds later, sure enough, the tornado siren blew. We came inside and headed to the basement until the siren stopped. Then we watched the TV report of a tornado warning in our area, really between Bellevue and LaMott. It rained all night and some again this morning. Some flooding around the area but no one hurt, that I've learned of. Boy, I'm glad those cabinets arrived today!