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Thanks J&J, I've ordered Dish Satellite to be installed Tuesday (our first full day in the house), didn't want to chance being without.

We are now in Dunn, NC (motel), working our way up to Maine.
Watching the temperatures drop as we continue our trip from Florida to Parsonsfield :-)

Great wishes with your move Frank!! Your house looks great!! It seems like the perfect house for hosting piano parties.

We are in New Haven, CT now. Getting close!

Ran into some snow showers in Virginia, I think it was the first time Kirby (the dog) has seen any snow. He kept staring out the car window at it.

Looks like it will be a bit cooler in our new place than it was in Florida. When we left Florida it was near 80, overnight in Parsonsfield tonight is supposed to be -1.

Last time I looked, the U-Haul trailer was still behind us, so at least we will have an airbed to sleep on tonight.
The house in Maine is empty, doesn't even have a refrigerator (although that may not be a problem considering how cold it is). Stoves are propane, but there isn't any propane yet either.

We feel a little like the pioneers. If we survive the winter, we should be fine :-)

"...We plan to use the wood stove in the living room very sparingly..."

Well, as the temperature drops en route, we can reminisce in advance about the real niceness of a wood fire in February, in Maine, whose latitude is so high that it is pitch dark by 4:00 in the afternoon from Thanksgiving on. And yes, past chilly; way past. Nothing warms you up like that wood stove, whose walls glow with that orangey-red which is toastiness itself once they've been fired up for awhile.

As I remember, the trick is to have a stove that is as close to airtight as possible, and in the middle of the house... though in Maine, I remember seeing a lot of steel drums that were re-purposed as wood stoves in log cabins. My Maine buddies, most of them, lived in cabins (though very nice ones; Herman's was two-stories and had a piano, and moose came right up to the porch), log cabins way in the backcountry. It made me appreciate living in a place where water that doesn't make you sick comes right into the house in a pipe--- hot, even--- and in which there is electricity. For, many of them lived by Coleman pump-up light six months out of the year, and spent their precious battery voltage listening to their lifeline to the outer world, NPR radio.

I suppose, if your living is a website, you will have electricity; therefore you can have a ceiling fan, which, moving slowly, seriously helps even out the room temperature from top to bottom, and side to side... for with stove heat, there are two sides: roasting hot, and freezing cold, depending on which side of you is facing the stove.

They have line-items in their budgets which many of us have never contemplated, like, visits from a bulldozer to keep their road in business, or scrubbing their stovepipes with chicken-wire Brillo pads so the tar doesn't catch fire inside them, and then there goes the house.

Anyway, the air-tightness. That means you can damp the fire way down, so it evens out the raving combustion that will make you break out in a sweat, then suddenly be gone, which makes you break out in salty icicles. You can even keep it going overnight, and fire up the morning coffee with some fresh wood over yesterday's coals. Herman could even, believe it or not, make excellent quiche on his wood kitchen stove (I understand it is not that hard).

If you can manage to have something like a Franklin stove with glass doors and iron shutters, it is both very fancy and very controllable. We blame Benjamin Franklin for the curse of so-called Daylight Savings Time (saving candles was his excuse), but he was a genius and he knew a thing or two about wood stoves.

Most Maine folks keep a pot of water going on their wood stoves, to help the indoor humidity... though I'm sure they won't have as close an eye on it as you will.

>> the trick is to have a stove that is as close to airtight as possible <<

Not so much anymore. Modern woodstoves, built to maximize heating efficiency and minimize particulate emissions, don't close down that far. We have a Vermont Castings Encore non-catalytic model, a midsize stove, and use it for most of our heat once the temperatures get low enough to allow its use. Here in southern Ohio it's enough to keep our furnace use down to half an hour or so on nights when the low reaches 5 F. The house is a little under 2000 square feet, well insulated and -- finally -- with all-new windows since last summer.

It took my wife, the carpenter in the family, a few years to get all four sides of the house done. We suffered through two winters of moderate smoking from the stove before I finally called the shop where we got it. When I told the lady there that we'd put on extra insulation and new siding, she said "unless you wrapped the house, too, that shouldn't make much difference." Of course we did wrap the house with Tyvek, and I can now testify that it really does cut down air infiltration dramatically! This winter we've been leaving a window cracked while we wait for the contractor to bore a new hole in our poured-concrete basement wall and install the fresh-air vent for the stove. (-: That's another nice thing about Vermont Castings stove (and probably others): it has a fitting for a fresh-air intake.

When the temps drop low enough, I load the stove up with locust or similar top-quality firewood before bed, and we still have significant coals left in the morning.

Andy

Kings books start out happy, but never end that way...the Bose would turn into Christine...

Good luck with the move. Just moved this year myself, but the opposite way, from cold upstate NY to warmer Raleigh, NC, area. We have a Maine coon cat, too, like another poster. Wonderful pet. She likes the warm weather, but also takes showers in the sink if you let her. Rain is not a problem with this breed, either. Keep warm. Hope you can keep the wood fire from hurting the piano. That can be a problem.

Best of luck on the move Frank. It's never fun. Missed hanging out with you and Kathy at NAMM.

what a gorgeous house and property! looking at the pictures, i wanted to move in! bravo on getting a steal.

did you manage to sell your place in florida? 80F, huh? mr. pique and i could head down and watch the place for you until things warm up around here.

congratulations on your move. there's no better place than maine, unless it is montana. and you are about to have such excellent neighbors, too.

one caution,however, if the only place you have to put the estonia is against one of those walls with the baseboard heater unit, it would be best if you disconnected that particular unit. and the wood stove could be a disaster for the piano, depending on the quality of the stove and how it is used.

i normally don't like damppchasers, but in your circumstances, if you don't already have one, it looks like it would be a good idea...

Thanks everyone.

There are up sides and down sides to everything.

We arrived here last night, the temperature went down to -1 and the oil burner wasn't working correctly (turns out the boiler has a crack, and something wasn't set right).
Because we don't own it yet (we are renting until the closing), the expectation is the seller will get it fixed.

There is no refrigerator, and we haven't had a chance to shop for one yet. Cell phone reception is spotty at best (so I couldn't use the phone to order a land line).

On the up-side, the area is beautiful, the night sky was so full of stars I nearly fell over staring up at them.
The people are friendly and helpful, and the Dish Internet got set up today.

We have a lot of work to do, but we knew that coming in. It will be worth it in the end.

More soon.

-1 F and no heat? i hope you are staying in a motel!

Looks like you're about an hour west of Portland. Portland is my favorite small city (and with a Whole Foods to boot) and a place we almost moved to after I retired from government. I'm sure you and Kathy will love it up there. Your house looks big enough that you may also need a bigger piano. Good luck with everything.

Rich

Frank, the house looks wonderful. I'm not so sure about -1 with no heat, though. That doesn't sound so wonderful. I feel cold whenever it gets below 70.

Welcome to the cold weather! Believe it or not, it's been pretty mild, until now. I am about three hours away. I also have some family in Maine! Believe it or not, your house makes me want to move out of my urban area! It's been snowing here, south of you, for most of the day but there is minimal accumulation. I hear that will change come Friday! I enjoy this site immensely and should earn credits for the knowledge I have gained. To that, let me know if I can help...

Best of luck. Your new home is absolutely a dream! I am really looking forward to updates on its progress!

I am fairly sure that I have been to an address on that road.
I live in Mass, but I transport horses and get to a lot of "off the beaten track" places.

One client moving to Maine did have the driveway "rearranged" for me to get in.
Some bumps and humps needed to be taken down and a turn widened out for my near 40 ft trailer (without much ground clearance).
That was Perry ME, which is WAY UP, a couple of hours beyond Bangor.
Right on the St Croix river, they can waive to Canada.
Getting a dozer to come in is no big deal up there, easier than getting a back-hoe or bobcat to do minor work in Mass.

3 horses (1 blind) 3 goats & 8 chickens - they took the dogs and cats.

I have a friend in Portland, also a fairly regular client in Falmouth.

Frank, welcome to Maine (and our impending blizzard). I'm in Yarmouth, about half an hour north of Portland. You'll likely get more snow than I will -- your area seems to get hit hard. Maybe you're staying in NC for a few days?

Anyway, best of luck with your move and if I can help you with anything, please PM me and I'll give you phone #, address, etc.

Joining in a bit late here.... Enjoy your new home Frank, it looks like it has fantastic spaces to work with - love that primary kitchen, and you may not know it, but having a second kitchen downstairs is very Italian!

May you and Kathy have great fun getting it to be just the way you want it, and enjoy many many happy years there!

Thanks for the welcome.

It was -1 our first night, got stuck in the snow on a one lane dirt road with the U-Haul on the back (learned not to rely on GPS)on our second day. Got saved by a couple of locals. Happens they also sell wood.

Went to town today and picked up supplies, including a propane lantern.
Had wood delivered and put a couple of stacks in the downstairs near the wood stove.

Hoping we don't lose power, but if we do we'll have heat, light, food, and water. They are expecting quite the blizzard up here, but so is Boston.

Been doing a lot of running around as you might imagine.
Can't really get cell phone service up here, hoping to have a land line working tomorrow.

All in All, an interesting adventure so far.

I am wondering how much snow we will really get! I am south of Boston. I have the generator ready and hope the damage is minimal. Welcome to New England!

just saw the weather forecast for your area. yikes!! stay safe and warm, you two.