After years of fits and starts I have found a wonderful new house which meets all my requirements. For many a year I searched for a house that was large and roomy, with beautiful details and many fireplaces, plenty of bedrooms, and that was basically left unremuddled (a term I love from The Old House Journal). A house in a state of desabille, in short, a house that needs a rescue.The kitchen is everything I dreamed of : a mishmash of the past with remnants of the original kitchen, the butler’s pantry, subway tiles and a white hex tile floors living companiably with cabinets from an indetirminent age, possibly circa Mrs. Cleever.Happily, none of this is worth saving and I feel no compunction about tearing into it with a chain saw and ripping out its gurs. Two sun porches, one huge one with the most glorious exposure (Southwest), and a small one off the dining room (Southeast exposure).The latter is begging to be a breakfast room. The kitchen is asking me to break the wall down that separates them and join them together as God intended.
And there’s so much more. I can’t stop thinking about it. If you’re that kind of person (and you know who you are), a house can be a fury of obsession. Or obsessions. The wonderful Tabula Rasa that invites you in and you listen, and ponder, and seek, and meditate, all until you make your move and seize the day: choose a paint color, consider a lamp, whatever to do with the floors. eAnd it’s not quite a Tabula Rasa because there is already ones furniture, and books and all those things…
This is the beginning.
This is where I start the path to transforming what my spouse and I call The Sleeping Beauty.
,
Sleeping Beauty, shrouded in cobwebs, slumbers on