We arrived in Portland, Maine on July 24, 2000.  On September 15th we bought a house in the Maine woods.  We live in Durham which is close to Freeport, the home of L. L. Bean.  It's about 20 miles north of Portland and about 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.    

Why Maine?  Click here for one good reason.

The house was built in 1982 and sits in the middle of five wooded acres.  There is a large forest behind us which will probably never be developed.  It has many miles of hiking/x-country ski trails.  The land is all wooded.  We have a two story barn with a large vehicle/boat storage area on one side and a workroom and upstairs storage area on the other.  The workroom is now Deb's garden bench and storage area.  We have two wells - a deep drilled well for inside water and a shallow dug well for outside water.  The house has a septic system, central vacuum system, and oil heat.  From top-to-bottom: It's a 2700 square foot (excluding the basement and barn) Gambrel-roofed house.  The top story has a loft which we use as an office and overlooks the living room, a bedroom, and a large bathroom with a big bathtub.  The ground floor consists of a large living room/great room with a stone fireplace, a kitchen, dining area, the master bedroom, and two bathrooms.  Also attached is a guest suite/mother-in-law unit  consisting of a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom.  All the bedrooms have walk-in closets.  A deck is attached to the main entrance.  The house has a full basement on the lower level which contains a laundry area/storage area/bicycle equipment area, walk-in wine cellar (in Maine?), an area which has been appropriated as a wood shop, and a two car garage.

Here are a few pictures:

            Click on any thumbnail to see the full-view version.

The house from the front which is really the back as you drive in.  The in-law unit/guest suite is the one-story section to the right.  The second picture is a close-up of the deck.

On the left is a picture of the barn with some of the piles of firewood.  You can see Vincent Van Go parked inside in the second picture which was taken three years ago.  The third picture is where we store the kayaks and some of our garden and patio stuff in the winter.  The last picture is Deb's plant work area.

A picture of part of the living room, the loft/office, dining area, and the upstairs bathroom with a large tub we call "the pool".  Last picture is Bob getting busted in the kitchen with the scoop in the ice cream.

Here's the back of the house and Frankfrank, our pickup truck.  For some reason you have to have a four wheel drive vehicle in Maine...  Something about the snow.  We have Frankfrank (The first Frank is silent.) a Toyota Tundra.  The picture on the right is the view out the front door.

On the left is either our Forestry Control Unit or pure terror.  On the right is Deb happily micro-managing her forest by cutting and shredding the trees and branches that she thinks Mother Nature put in the wrong spot.  

The Guest Suite: The Living Room, the kitchen over the half wall separating it from the living room, and the bedroom.  The bathroom is off the bedroom.  We like guests!

This is "Haley's Room".  It's the top floor bedroom directly above the master bedroom.   We think it's a pretty little room.  It has a daybed, nice oak table, pretty view, and a Morris chair.  You can see it in the second picture right next to the table.  We stained and installed the folding doors in front of a big walk-in closet which is also in picture #3