George Washington slept here.

Well, no he didn't.

But you could! The guest room is open for business.

(Before photo here)

Nothin on the walls quiet yet, due to the fact that the walls are solid brick and hanging photos requires more than a girly hammer and dinky picture holders. The quilts, are therefore draped on the IKEA. (Because all Victorian houses need some IKEA)

No HBO or indoor pool. But we do have lovely old-timey air conditioning:

The attention-hungry cat is an optional amenity.

Paint and the veggie dog

Sugar enjoys garden veggies so much, I am not sure why this should be a surprise to us. We've watched her pull radishes out of the ground and eat peas off the plants, so we probably shouldn't have left 5 squash within doggie reach when we left for work this morning. We now have 1 whole squash and two halves.

In other news, the guest room is becoming yellow! Only two coats of primer and two coats of yellow to cover the hideous pink. It's not quite done yet, but here are the before (if the color hasn't been burned on to your brain) and intermediate photos.




You can see the final color of the room on Sugar's tail. She is helpful like that.


It's the yellow. The red came from our picnic table (with chess board).


Or Adirondack chair.

Why?? Just....why???

It all started with the removal of this nail:


All night, this nail was staring at me -- my poor, lovely old mantle, whimpering at me like Aesop's lion with a thorn in his paw. So, in my first act of this-is-my-home-now-bitches heroics, I plucked out the nail...leaving, of course, a neat little hole in my 151 year-old wood.

I then noticed the 27 other nail holes pockmarking the face of my mantle.

Why?? Why, why why???

Why - when there are billions of non-invasive stocking holders out there looking for a home - would you do this? Did you feel a little pang of guilt as you swung the hammer? How many people were in the room, consenting to this ghastly wood-disrespecting event?

Is it awful to hope Santa filled those Christmas stockings with nothing but photos of dead bunnies?

This one simple question led to so many more (and this is when the reality of signing and initialing all those papers at closing starts to sink in). Why would you paint my guest room bright pink and install Cookie Monster Blue carpet?


Why is there more paint on my window panes than on the wood?


Why is my bathroom (10 foot walls and ceiling) encrusted with this wall paper?


Just....why?