We lost round one in trying to get the Sam Rue House registered under the National Register of Historic Places. But I swear I will persevere. The very “busy” people at the N.J. Preservation Office have not even returned multiple phone calls I’ve made. I am in the process of getting some facts together. I have called the coordinator of the Upper Freehold Scenic Byways Project, Dr. Meirs, who gave me some other local historians to contact regarding my house.  The letter of rejection stated I was not able to show a "significant" occupant of my house used the said house in a "productive" manner. Well, I will change all that. We need to visit George Rue and talk to David Church, who is a direct descendant of General James Cox.

Until that time, many things are happening here. Today the smell of wood fire is outside, we have fired up the wood stove for the first time of the season.

We have been hard at work on our den renovation project. I picked a Martha Stewart Color, “Drabwire” for the walls, reminiscent of her outside color for Turkey Hill.  It took two full days of very intense painting to get the clapboards all done, as they soaked up the paint.  I still have to fill and paint some of the many nail holes that we now see in the boards.

Ed decided we needed more than plain molding (this den project came with nothing finished!!) So we did a fancy multi-faceted crown molding treatment on the back wall. I have also did some molding treatments on the back door, and painted the plain ugly luan a dramatic dark green called “bark”.

We have a friend of my brother’s coming over soon to assess our windows, we do have the Navisink Country Club windows in our carriage house and hope to use them on the side.

Perfect fall day today, crisp, cool, the gardens are winding down to accept their fate and settle in for the long winter slumber. Ed wants to go apple picking!

The molding for the door, painted and ready to go on...

And some of the molding done as well as the door. I promise to get better pictures later!

Here is some of the clapboard painted. What do you think?

The sign says it all...locally, in  Imlaystown....