COTTAGE TOUR! Moving to the Remote Rural Countryside

Welcome to the Rookery. We are excited to show you around. In today's video we give you an inside tour of the Rookery, our 1882 cottage located in Maine in a remote rural location surrounded by thousands of acres of a wildlife sanctuary. Matthew and I run a sanctuary too for horses and other farm animals. I wanted to thank all of our amazing subscribers and everyone who comments and likes our videos. We are just so grateful to you and if you like our content we'd love it if you'd please subscribe. We only just moved here but thought you'd enjoy seeing the start of our Let us know what you think. When you first come into the Rookery there are two doors and a place to hang your coats. This door leads into the long L that leads to the barn. The other door is a servant staircase. It is incredibly steep and a very plain set of stairs which is historically accurate. I'm glad no one ever thought to change this. Then you have the door that leads into the kitchen. So I thought in doing this video and the narration here it would just be kind of a raw voiceover. It's easier for me to explain as we go along and none of this is scripted. So hopefully what I'm saying makes sense to you. But it's a lovely kitchen. I think it has an old feel and great big windows that have retained their historical charm with the cross style. It's a wonderful place to cook for sure and of course the mudroom is great. The view is tremendous. I can look out the window as I'm doing dishes and keep an eye on the animals. So I am in no way an interior designer but I am a lifelong collector of antique pieces. Pieces that maybe are quirky, unusual, historical. Pieces that really call to me if that makes any sense. I absolutely love antique artwork. Oil paintings, the old Ormolu picture frames and I do a fair share of mud larking if you just saw the bottles on the windowsill. Meaning digging in old bottle dumps and this is a foraging bag that my husband bought me for Christmas and I do some artwork. You'll see quite a bit of my own work throughout the house. So this goes into the sunroom. I guess that's what we're calling it but it's a wonderful room. Wonderful little yodel stove here and I can have my plants, my geraniums. I plan to have way more especially if you've been watching my videos you know that I love hyacinths. Especially in February when you're really craving some color and scent. But it's a really lovely family room. A lovely entertaining room. This is one of my paintings. Um another one of my paintings. This old sleigh bench is wonderful and this oh it's a wonderful. I found this at an antique shop. Um yes I like bird cages too. That's at a Hendrix. I'm going to take you through into the dining room. Look at this room. It's fantastic. Oh and Miss Minnie. This is Miss Manouse actually but we call her Miss Minnie. She's kind of leaving the tour. You'll see a lot of her along the way. I did manage to get some of my homemade curtains up and lots of antique pieces in here. Like I said that I've collected throughout many many years. This hutch is incredible. It still retains its original wavy glass and I guess Walter's joining us. It's a great room. Um these are little rooms so it was a bit of a trick trying to fit all my pieces in. But I like little winding rooms. I kind of like feeling like I'm in a squirrel's nest. No problem there. My daughter is an amazing artist actually. So you'll see quite a few of her paintings. Um that this is Matthew's broom. You'll have to watch some other videos of ours to know that story. And yeah I really enjoy the color scheme in this in all the rooms are pretty much the same. It's a like a a Swiss coffee trim and then um just a white plain white wall and it goes really well. I likely will change that in time. I have some really creative ideas and as I said if you've watched our other videos we get pretty creative with paint. This is an old school master's which is phenomenal. This painting is one I collected. It's it's on done on rice paper and these beautiful vibrant pottery bowls and Matthew's wizard pipe. Yeah. This little Parisian stand is incredible. It has the original French bowl with it and Matt got me this for Christmas. This wonderful hooked rug that has a leaping rabbit over. I like to think of as the rookery and in here you can see a lot more of my collectibles. Um yeah I love Beatrix Potter. These are the Baswick figurines. Um yeah beautiful. And in this room is becoming my office and it's a great space for me to make my YouTube videos. We run a non-profit so I do a lot of grant writing and things like that for the animals. It's also a really good place to put pictures and as you can tell they're just sort of I don't have any kind of a scheme. I just put them up but I think it looks really cute actually. And I have become increasingly passionate about jute rugs. Let me know in the comments if you agree. They're really hard to clean if you spill on them so I they're not recommended. I would not recommend them with little children but they are fantastic. And I made these curtains. I had them at the other farmhouse that we moved from and I'm so happy they fit these windows. And there I am actually and Matthew and I. And these old cocks they make wonderful trash cans. All right Minnie where are you taking us next? Okay I guess we're going through here into the bathroom. The downstairs bathroom and it's a really really nice bathroom. It's so handy to have it connected to my office and you'll see through the door what the other room is. But yes I have a couple old fair pictures posters. They look really cute in here I think. Thank you Minnie for pointing that out. She is a really good tour guide. And then through this room of course again is the office and our corgis are being quite lazy. We go back through into the bathroom and then when we open this door it's a wonderful little closet. Well a big closet. It's so handy. And then through this other door is the adjoining en suite guest bedroom and this is where actually Matthew and I have been sleeping until just recently. But I'm hoping my parents will come and stay and my kids. And of course this vanity came from the old farmhouse. It's a 1920s vanity with a matching wardrobe which you'll see in just a minute. And here's the matching wardrobe. It's a great piece. We're back into the dining room and this door leads to my favorite room. The snug or the sitting room or a room of one's own. Virginia Wolfe was right. Everyone does need one and I have claimed this room as my own. A great place to do my artwork, my sewing, my reading and just relax. And I have some of my very favorite antique pieces in here which you will soon see. And all my books. Yes I am a big collector of books both new and old. And this wonderful table to do art on. My daughter and I love to do crafts. So I was thinking we really should consider having a question and answer. So if you want to leave some questions in the comments I will start compiling a list and then Matthew and I can sit down and and hopefully answer some of them. This is a great chair. Beautiful little swallow pillow my sister got me for Christmas. And this is my most recent find which I'm so in love with. It's an oil painting of these two dinghies and this beautiful Omolu frame. I was so excited when I found this. I found this at this tiny little thrift store. And some more of my collectibles. I love collecting nests and some of these. These two have been made with horse hair which I thought was really intricate and a really neat thing. So yeah you can see it is just a wonderful room. We have I have a long line of artists in my family that was by my great great uncle. And more art supplies. This is a beautiful watercolor by a famous artist and I'm not gonna say who but yeah I found this at an antique shop and I was really really excited by that. So this is my dollhouse and I discovered this beautiful little curiosity cabinet at an antique shop and I thought this would make the most amazing dollhouse from my collection of antique dollhouse furniture and German china head dolls that date back to the 1800s. And yes they are celebrating Christmas. They are still celebrating Christmas with their borrowers. Christmas tree made out of a spool of thread. Pretty creative. And it's adorable. I made the helmet and the curtains. And that's this is actually supposed to be Beth who's sick in bed because this is Little Women sort of a take off on it. That is Marmee and more of the curtains I made. And this her dress is so amazing. Those are all hand-sewn beads which I think is so incredible. If you're interested too we could do a slower tour sometime of all the different antique pieces I have which might be kind of fun. Maybe room by room because this is a really quick one. Then we go through this door. There are a lot of doors in here. Like I haven't even counted how many. And this takes you back into the guest bedroom. How convenient is that? And that's a lovely painting as well. Okay so we're gonna go upstairs now. Thank you Jenny. That's me for leading the tour as well. So you're upstairs in this little landing. And how this little landing is so adorable. And yes the original staircase is gone. They replaced it and that's fine. But it's a great landing. And this is my grandmother clock which does work. And I'll have to play that for you sometime. And these wonderful traveling trunks. They make great places to store things. This is an old grain bin that I used to store my towels and sheets. And this is Figaro. He is not used to being a house cat. He finds this all very strange. So Jenny is taking us into the little room. I don't know. I've just been calling this a little room because it's really just another guest bedroom. But it's so cute. It's turned out so cute. And I was able to put this bedroom furniture in which is French. And it's amazing. Look at this. It reminded me when I saw this of Jane Austen. Something out of well it should be in her house really. We still need to get a platform. Matt will build that. And the mattress. A mattress. And then it's so cramped in there. I didn't have room for a nightstand so I just put up this tiny little shelf which I think is pretty cute. And of course the gold filigree on that is amazing. The stenciling. Oh my goodness. I fell so in love with this. The curtains are ones I made back at the other farmhouse which we are getting ready to list. The blue castle if you follow our videos. But I made these and I was really thrilled once again that they fit these windows. And this is the view. Isn't that great? Wouldn't you love to stay in this little room? Yeah these turned out really cute. And more books. And this great rag rug. And the Martha Washington stand. And this old vintage curtain worked great as to cover the closet. Closet opening. And I'm able to put many of my daughter's vintage dresses in there and I'm so glad. So I do have another little dollhouse that Matthew and I made from this antique prune box we found. And we spent many happy evenings wallpapering, making the furniture, distressing the furniture. And these little cards. They're posters. Actually are antique. They came from cigarettes. They're little. I'm not sure what. I'm not sure what they would have been. But I think from the 1920s they're these little poster. They're little eyes I guess. Anyhow it's a really cute. Another cute little dollhouse. I do like small things. And this is a doll I had growing up. And I found this gorgeous antique velvet jacket for her. And this antique doll bed with matching antique little pillows. Oh my goodness. Okay so we're back on the stair landing. And yes whoa a washer and dryer. It's amazing. Now we go into our bedroom. It's a master bedroom. And we haven't quite moved into this space. We need to put in a bed. And I have more furniture coming. But you can see it's a really nice nice room. This is a linen bed skirt and a matching linen bedspread that I just found. And I'm in love with. This is an old chair that actually has a weight limit on it. And this beautiful another beautiful antique painting with another armadillo frame. I love them. I actually found this on the Facebook marketplace. It was such a find. Some great views. Nice big windows. And this is a well my bureau. This is my grandmother's bureau actually. And yes lovely lovely plates. And a mirror. And this is a French daybed. And yes it needs to be reupholstered. But oh my goodness the woodwork in this is incredible. It's very comfy too. This goes into a walk-in closet. Such luxury I never had because at the old house we didn't even have closets. It's a mess right now. I told Matthew this is going to be his job because he's a very good organizer. Okay so back on the stair landing we're going to go in through this door. And this leads into a really nice bathroom. A nice big bathroom. It's kind of a mess right now because we're sharing the house with the cats. Normally the cats live in the barn come in the house. They love to go outside. But it's very cold so we're keeping them in right now. But it's a really good bathroom. And has this huge tub. I've not I've never even used it. Although we've just kind of moved in. I do have to make a point. This goes into what would have been I think the Garrett or the servants rooms. Because this is where the staircase I showed you earlier comes up through. And my daughter Hadley has claimed this. You can see the staircase earlier I showed you. The very steep stairs. She has claimed this as her own and I can't blame her. It is a great space. And luckily we were able to put the old rope bed in here. And some of her lovely she loves cats. She loves cats so much. And so she's not upset about the cats being in here. And of course there's so much more to share. But that is everything. Minus the cellar. Which maybe someday we will share with a nice cellar. I hope you have enjoyed watching this video. And like I said we'd love it so much if you'd please subscribe. And let us know in the comments what you think. And we will be seeing you really soon. I have some great ideas for videos. Some exciting things coming up. So yes we will see you really soon. And we hope you take care. And goodbye for now.