Tuesday, July 1, 2008

A "Sign" of Things To Come

The Snow Goose is located on Route 73, the main corridor to and from Lake Placid. While this location is idea for exposure, it also means that it's hard to hide certain things - like our rather unsightly sign!

Being ever the "do-it-yourselfers," we decided to repaint the sign ourselves with the help of our friends, Wes and Karen, who were visiting from Pennsylvania. I thought you might enjoy watching the transformation.


The old sign - apparently our sign was notorious for missing quite a few letters before we arrived. More than one local has told us how they affectionately referred to it as the "Now Goo LoGe." I guess that explains the two different colors of letters.








After taking the sign down, Wayne built a nifty frame on the porch to hold the sign upright while he repainted the background.







Meanwhile Karen and I sanded the old letters.














Next, Wes spray-painted the letters gold while under Karen's careful supervision - "You missed a spot!"








Karen and I painted the face of the letters hunter green. We have a great picture of it, but for some reason, it won't load properly so you'll have to use your imagination to picture us sitting on the porch in the beautiful summer breeze painting and chatting away.


Then came the tedious task of measuring each letter to make sure it was spaced just right.







Wayne had the job of carefully screwing the wooden letters back into place.











Karen and I found a computer font we liked, printed the letters "Bed & Breakfast" out and traced them. Then each one had to be hand-painted.









Ta -Da! The finished product









But the story is not over! In the almost four months that we've lived here, we've never had anyone stop except to ask directions. Not even ONE HOUR after we hung the new sign, a car pulled in and a delightful young couple asked if they could book a room for two nights! YEAH!!!

Even more fun was the fact that they were from Switzerland where he is a rock and ice climbing guide. We had a great time learning more about Switzerland (including the fact that while the Swiss mountains are higher, ours are more true wilderness) and watching them enjoy the unique beauty of the Adirondacks.


I was a bit confused when they came back from an evening drive and told me they had seen a "wash bear." I wasn't sure I wanted such a creature in the neighborhood until they described it as a little round bear with black circles around the eyes - a raccoon! They were also fascinated by the "flashing bugs" that they saw while sitting on the porch after dark.

Our guests seem excited to hear about our dreams for the Snow Goose and to see how we're renovating the house. In fact, some just want to jump in and help. I'll leave you with one more picture:



This past weekend, Wayne had help from our friend, Don Engle (in the background) and a guest, Eldon. The three of them worked for several hours hooking up lights to illuminate the sign at night.

If our first few weeks in the B&B business are a "sign" of things to come, we're going to meet a lot of wonderful people!

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