During the renovation of his and Jenn's master bathroom, he tore out a wall that had a strange little cabinet between the studs and an even stranger door made from a piece of rustic wood with a twisted vine for a handle.
When we arrived at their house one day, he told us to open the trunk of our car, so he could give us something -- it turned out to be the little door, which he obviously viewed as total trash.
When we got home that night, we were going to toss it into the pile of firewood for our outdoor fire pit, but I realized that the best revenge against an Englishman and his trash was to turn that trash into a treasure. (Unfortunately, I didn't bother to take a picture at the trash stage....)
I had seen signs in beach towns like Nantucket, Mass. and Duck, N.C. with the names of other beach towns and the distances to them. This one in Nantucket is pretty intricate and fancy:
I liked this idea, so I asked Doug to make me something like it for our Kitts Hummock cottage, and once again, my personal Santa got to work in his shop. On Christmas morning, I unwrapped this very personalized gift from my dear husband:
Doug chose mostly other towns in Delaware, including Newark, where we live, but he also included Duck, since that's one of our favorite places to visit.
He painted the sign itself with our ever-present Sherwin Williams sea salt but left the vine in its natural state. He also added a compass rose and painted a crow at the bottom to signify that the distances were "as the crow flies."
I can't wait to hang it on our beach cottage porch -- once that project is done this spring. In the meantime, Doug and I will have to beware of what mad Englishmen put in our trunk when we're not looking.
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