Welcome to Briar and Bramble! This is meant to be a journal, or diary, of my and my husband’s life in an 1823 farmhouse cottage on the coast of Maine. Although we had both lived in Maine for over a decade, in the summer of 2019 we purchased our first property of our own, and have slowly begun to transform a house and land into a beloved home. Won’t you pull a chair beside the wood stove, wrap your hands around a warm cup of tea, and join us?

Let me introduce our little family and this place we call home. This is the story of my husband, our little dog, and myself. My husband and I have arrived in this place at this point of middle age somewhat “late” and rather bewildered. My husband, and I, two working professionals, had spent our younger years lost in books and wandering the same historic sites and trails…just never at quite the same time. So while our friends had all established careers, found partners, purchased homes, and learned to repair toilets and spackle walls- we were still eating dinners in front of the TVs of our rentals, wondering whether third wheels are truly only appreciated on tricycles! Finally, in 2015, we stumbled into each other. We married in 2018, and began searching for a home in spring of 2019. My husband would have preferred to spend some time recovering from the constant whirlwind of wedding planning that I had subjected him to the year before, but I was eager to begin the ultimate project- creating a nest!

Even before Covid, winter in Maine was a long, quiet period of hibernation. Unless you ski or snowmobile…which we do not. We do something on cross country skis…Anyway, winter becomes spring in name only, with mud being the only differentiating characteristic. There wasn’t much going on that spring…I was mostly out of commission after injuring my arm falling off a horse. So it seemed like a good time to spend weekends driving around looking at real estate. Or at least I thought so. Besides, I assured my husband, we were just looking. So we could understand the process better. When we decided to become serious about it. In the future.

A few short weeks and multiple house showings later, we found ourselves bumping along a steep, winding, rutted drive to see a listing that had caught my husband’s eye. By now, we had almost accidentally enlisted the aid of a lovely (and incredibly patient) real estate agent and had become frequent fliers on realtor.com. I’ll be honest. I needed some convincing as we approached the door that first time. The driveway was straight out of a backwoods nightmare, the front “field” was a mess of newly felled trees piled onto each other like pick-up sticks, and the house itself- perched on the hillside- was drab and almost a little creepy. There was a bit of a yard, though that was a small island with waves of poison ivy and Virginia creeper lapping along its edges. However, as we stepped onto the long porch and turned around, we both stifled gasps. For without the thicket of previously standing trees, the house could gaze out over the sea. The Bay and rolling hills were spread out before us on the long line of the horizon. Our agent, who had not seen this listing before, came up behind us, stopped, and just said “Oh. Wow…”

The surprises didn’t end there. Although the house hadn’t been lived in for almost 10 years, the current owner had been slowly renovating while still maintaining the historical details. There was a newer addition that included a Great Room with a huge stone hearth and wood stove, as well as an expansive master bedroom above. This flowed into the old farmhouse cottage with its exposed beams, original mantelpiece and wainscoting, old latches and French doors, small cubby hole closets, slightly uneven floors, and plaster walls. And yet the kitchen and bathrooms were newly renovated and sparkling. There had to be something horribly wrong with this place, we thought. Was it structurally unsound?

Beautiful old homes in Maine are notorious for frightening basements. Many potential home buyers have a story of the Dream Home they fell for, only to have their hopes dashed when they descended into the cellar to find that the foundation is a pile of crumbling stone and earth, and the house is precariously perched on a wobbly network of jacks. So it was not without trepidation that we opened the basement door. What we found, however, was a combination of modern concrete and the original, massive brick arch. This was a house that had been cared for over the years and had (thus far) withstood the test of time.

We finished the tour and got back into the car where we sat in stunned silence. Our budget was fairly modest. Never in our wildest dreams (or even my most ambitious wish list) did we think that something like this would be within our reach. Like a polished piece of sea glass, easily overlooked, but shining and beautiful when seen in the light, we had found something precious along this shore.

That was a little over a year ago. Since then, we have started to make this our home. This is where we are meant to stay. Our plans and small changes are always with an eye to the future- How will this garden grow over the next five years? Will the apple tree saplings block the view in ten years? Will those roof beams last another fifty years? We have been learning all about home care and repair (thanks in large part to my Father), and laugh that we are coming at this about twenty years later than most couples. But we couldn’t be happier.

And so, Reader, though we do everything on a budget, and do not profess in any way to be interior designers, professional landscapers, or experts in historic preservation, everything that we do on the house, we do with love- and I hope that shows. The purpose of this blog, then, is not to tell you how to decorate your own home, or grow your garden. It’s certainly not to show off our skills in home repair, crafting, cooking, or life in general. We are fumbling at best in most of these things! No, the purpose is more just to share the things that make us happy about this place that we have come to love. If you happen to see a plant that you’d like to add to your garden, or realize how easy it is to refinish a porch rocker and decide to do it yourself, or even just see a picture here that makes you smile…well, then the blog has been a success!

Finally, before I open the door and invite you in- a note on the name of the house. We had a few reasons to choose the name Briar and Bramble, but most significantly, it refers to a song from one of our favorite programs-

“Will you search through the lonely earth for me? Climb through the briar and bramble? I will be your treasure…” (lyrics by Johnny Flynn)

And so it shall…

Welcome…

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