Now that she’s level, the schoolhouse is ready to be gutted from the inside out. Best we can figure, the last time the walls were updated were the 1950s, when electricity was first installed.

Get your gamble on at the Bangor Hollywood Casino, then nurse your losses with plenty of great food.

Like stepping into a cloudbank at the end of the world…

A lovely, quiet walking and birding spot, rain or shine, in Holden, Maine.

Cherryfield, Maine is a dot on the Downeast map notable for being the wild blueberry capital of the world.

Old things made new again in different ways.

We saw more puffins, razorbills, terns, and laughing gulls than we could count, and several rare grey seals, too. The lighthouse is beautiful; truly, a “little island out to sea.”

Calling all amateur and professional Downeast Maine mycologists! These little buggers have been variously spotted around the property, and we don’t know what they are.

We are both proud and humbled to own thirteen unspoiled acres of green Maine woods. Aside from the old schoolhouse at the front of the property, the rest of this patch-‘o-trees is wild and dense, just the way we like it.

Three minutes up the road from the Lincoln School Writers’ Retreat is an open, sunny cemetery housing the remains of some of Mariaville’s oldest families.

Everything you could need and some things you didn’t know you needed. Here are five must-do activities on your next visit.

Finally, some sun in the middle of the rainiest summer ever! We celebrated with a two-night stay in Freeport, Maine that included lots of sightseeing along the way.

Built in the 1970s, the hatchery is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and plays to this day an important role in boosting and maintaining Atlantic salmon populations around the region.

Forty-five minutes northwest of the Lincoln School lies Orono, Maine, a college town of 11,000 and the home of the University of Maine flagship campus. We took the scenic route to Orono. Here’s how.

A ninety-minute drive east of Mariaville lies the U.S.-Canadian border. There, the town of Calais, Maine (pronounced callus; population ~3,000) is kept alive by regular border-crossing traffic and the occasional holiday-maker.

Just know that when it comes to renovating in real life, your schedule is not your own (unless you’re doing it all yourself), the process costs top dollar, and there’s no Joanna Gaines or Jenn of No-Demo Reno to take the hard work of decision-making, and the harder work of Plan-B-making, out of your tired, callused, bleeding hands.