A Facelift for the Web Site

Seems like things always take a bit longer than you expect...

OK, maybe they take a lot longer than you expect. But, then, it just makes it nicer when it is completed!!

We've been working on a facelift for the website for quite a few weeks now - we keep getting interrupted by the things called "life".

We were able to put the live site out in production today, and (fingers and toes crossed) everything seems to be working nicely.

There are no really dramatic changes, but our objective was to have a cleaner look, with improvements to the navigation, and larger pictures. We think we've managed to accomplish that. We also tried something new - the photos of the rooms on the room pages are in the header, so if you look (for example) at Room Four, its pictures rotate at the top of the page.

One other thing was the few people who sometimes were confused by the combined photos at the top of the page (the house with a lighthouse, the house with a park view, etc.) and thought they could look out the front door and see a lighthouse. We fixed that.

We've already noticed that the spacing is a bit different on some of the new pages, so we'll be cleaning up things like that over the next several days.

We hope you like the changes. Feel free to drop us a note, or post a comment with any suggestions.

Thirty Shopping Days 'til ...

For most Americans the thirty days (or thereabouts) between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day are the days we are subjected to constant advertising for holiday gifts and the countdown of the number of shopping days until Christmas.

As an aside - for those too young to recall - we used to count shopping days instead of simply the number of days remaining because most stores were not open 7 days a week. Hence the number of shopping days was less than the number of days by an amount equal to the number of Sundays in that time frame.

Since those familiar with Freeport already know what a shopping Mecca it is, it will come as no surprise that there is a lot going on in town during those 30 days!

Shop, Dine & Stay
Throughout most of that time (Now through December 19, 2009) Brewster House Bed & Breakfast is offering its Shop, Dine & Stay package, with two nights double-occupancy in a queen room, an L.L. Bean gift card, a gift certificate at Azure Cafe, for only $499 (taxes included), and the ability to add a third night for only $100.

Moonlight Madness
In addition, Freeport's Moonlight Madness event begins in the wee hours of Friday morning, November 27, with many stores open, special events, sales, etc. This is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, and only Freeport can do it all up with L.L. Bean's stores, and other shops and restaurants.

Sparkle
A week later is Sparkle weekend in Freeport. An entire weekend of holiday fun for the whole family! The weekend begins with a parade of lights down beautiful Main St., decorated to look like a scene from a Christmas card. The celebration will include a tuba concert, jingle bell run, craft fair, hot cocoa stops, talking Christmas tree, Wally the Green Monster, and of course… SANTA!!!

Northern Lights Celebration
From November 20 through New Years Eve is L.L. Bean's Northern Lights Celebration. It begins with the lighting of the giant Christmas tree, and includes book signings, demonstrations, ice carving and special events, leading up to a huge New Years celebration for the entire family.

Shopping, Shopping, Shopping
Freeport's over 170 shops and restaurants will be open with values galore, throughout the holiday time, and with the new stores in Freeport Village Station adding to the mix, there is truly something for everyone on your Christmas shopping list.

Of course, if you're not busy shopping for holiday gifts, and can wait... there are the after-Christmas sales. Like most places there are sales in Freeport after Christmas. However, after New Years there are even more, and then in late January and February, still more!! But that's a closely guarded secret, so we better not say too much about that!

Carpet and Other Projects

Carpet!

As promised, the carpeting of the third floor and back stairs is complete! Of course, since we changed the color of the carpet from blue to tan, it will also mean re-painting the stairwells and hallways, which are now gray, but will soon be a pale yellow/gold.

As you can see from the first photo of the rear stairs, the blue was very pronounced, and it was time to replace the carpet. The second photo shows the back stairs with the new carpet, while the third photo shows the new carpet at the third floor landing.

Of course, the need to re-paint the halls and stairs raises the question of what else will be done this winter. To tell the truth, we have quite a long list. In fact, the list is long enough that we fear we may not be able to complete it all, so any parts that don't get done this year may have to wait for next year.

Fireplaces!

We hope to install gas (propane) fireplaces in a few of the rooms. We will be meeting with a fireplace company to see what they recommend, but we would love to have some nice fireplaces in at least some rooms. If we can find good prices, and if the installation is feasible, we hope to have some in before Spring.

Paint and Lights!

Most of our guests know that we have painted a couple of rooms each winter. We do hope to paint at least one, and possibly more rooms this year. We also plan to paint some bathrooms and install new light fixtures in those baths that don't yet have the new fixtures.

More!

We have a longer list than this, but now we're venturing into the area of things we may not have time to do this winter. If we do manage to get them done, we'll be sure to post pictures and let you know.

By the way, one thought we have is of putting televisions in some rooms. In our informal conversations with guests, about two-thirds would prefer not to have TV's in the guest rooms, and 1/3 would like to have them.

Do you have a preference? Please either send us your opinion or post a comment to let us know!

A Window for Carpet?

As some will recall, last Spring we carpeted the four queen rooms on the second floor of Brewster House (Rooms 2 through 5), and installed maple flooring in the hallway. In addition to nicer, newer carpet in those rooms, it also provided a uniform look to the carpeting and a nice look to the hallway, as well.

Now that the leaves have settled (and been removed!) in the yard, we have several projects planned, first of which was to carpet the two 2-bedroom suites on the third floor (Rooms 6 & 7), as well as the hallway and back stairs.

Due to a window in their schedule, the installers arrived yesterday and have been merrily removing carpet and installing new, and are about 50% complete at this writing. They expect to be finished by tomorrow evening, so we'll be posting some before and after photos on Thursday's entry.

Snow! And the leaves have only just fallen!

We knew it was coming early this year. At least we suspected it. There were even some flurries that didn't stick a few weeks ago.

Last night the weatherguessers said there was a chance of flurries during the night, but the weather has been so erratic, that they haven't been right 24 hours in advance often enough to give that much credibility. But upon waking up this morning and glancing out the window, there it was.

Of course, this being Maine after all, early snows are not unheard of. Before moving here we were visiting in late October one year and there was a large snow - several feet, in fact. But that was in the mountains, not near the coast. So this is a bit different, for us, anyway.

Here it is all the same. The photo shows our back yard, looking down from the second floor of the house, about 7:00 a.m. today. The snow is continuing to fall, making the prediction of "possible accumulations of up to an inch" look quite likely.

This is predicted (!) to stop this morning, with possibly a bit more this afternoon, but the high temperatures are in the mid-40's, so it isn't likely to stick around long. And the snow removal here is unbelievably quick and thorough, so we normally have no trouble with snow on the roads.

Still, all this early winter weather makes it likely that the snowshoeing and cross-country skiing (all within only a few minutes drive of Brewster House) will be excellent this year! Are you planning to visit?

Looking for Antiques in the Freeport Area

Aside from the beautiful coastline, lighthouses, and other Maine attractions, not to mention Freeport's wonderful shopping, we are often asked about local antique dealers. While there are very few right in Freeport, there are a lot of antiques available along the Maine coast, as well as inland, within only a short drive of Brewster House.

We were talking about this with someone recently, and thought it would be nice to have a map of some of the areas where you can find antiques without driving for hours, and especially if you just want to explore, rather than attend an auction.

There are several areas where antiques are particularly plentiful. There are several along US-1 in the Bucksport-Searsport area on the way to Bar Harbor. However, we decided to focus on the areas within about an hour to an hour and a half drive from Freeport. That still is a big group, from Kittery to the Camden area, and inland to near Sebago Lake. We also included a number around the Augusta/Holowell/Gardiner areas.

There are many more than we have listed on the map below, as a quick internet search will reveal, but we have selected the ones we think people will find interesting, and tried to minimize the dealers who don't have a shop or showroom, or who exhibit only in another location. We have not had time to visit more than a small percentage of these shops, so we hope you'll find them worthwhile, but can't vouch for all of them personally.

If you have comments on any of the dealers, or would like us to add another dealer to the map, please let us know in the comments!

Happy antiquing!


View Freeport, Maine Area Antiques in a larger map