My Favorite House on the Tour

Well, drat!  Just when I wanted to put oodles of photos in a post so that I could write about the house I loved so on the Historic Homes Tour,  I discovered that I’m almost out of photo storage space on WordPress.  Oh well, this is a house worth blowing it on.

It was built in the late 1800′s as a narrow Victorian with a two-story front porch.  The second owner was a physician who had his office and his home there. The current owner’s family bought it just after World War II.  The additions to the house have all been built seamlessly and beautifully.

The murals in the entry hall depicted scenes of the historic town and one of the parlors held a bookcase on which miniature replicas of some of many of the buildings and homes were displayed.

The sofas and chairs throughout showed off pillows needlepointed by the homeowner.   Family photos, antiques, and heirlooms are mixed with treasures from the homeowner’s  travels around the world.

His talents as a gardener and floral designer were obvious in every room.  The lovely rear gardens were designed so that each window of the home frames a delightful view.  The laundry room was so light and cheery that I think I might even take in laundry if I lived there.    (I’d use the money to pay somebody to dust all the bric-a-brac sitting around!)

Dining room window.

Cheeriest laundry room ever!

Each window framed a lovely view.

The color scheme throughout was primarily blue and white, with pops of red everywhere, along with an occasional dash of yellow.

Keeping room table.

Stunning dining room floral arrangements.

The windows were spotless, sparkling even on the rainy day we visited.  Everything was polished, shined, dusted, vacuumed, and fluffed.  Not so much as a single wilted leaf on any of the floral displays in profusion throughout the house.

Imagination, whimsy, elegance, and comfort throughout…!

Keeping room was an add-on; shares wall with laundry room.

Keeping room ceiling.

One of four “pepper light” trees in keeping room.

Greenhouse window over sink.

Large old range in kitchen.

The staircase in the den was narrow, as was the case in the other houses we toured.  Imagine moving a highboy up those steps!

The master bedroom was off the den,  behind the staircase wall.  The curtains bore creweled flowers on the bottom.  I lost count of all the Christmas trees throughout the house.

Front porch had historic register designation and wooden flag.

Historic Home Christmas Tour

Last week I went on a Christmas tour of homes in one of the old towns nearby.  The plan was that, since most of the houses were in the Historic District, we would walk from house to house.

Lo and behold, the drought we’ve been in since September ended as we were leaving the first house, catching everyone without an umbrella and the weather forecaster with egg on his face.

The homeowners were most gracious, allowing us to leave on our shoes and to take photos.  Most of the houses were built in the late 1800′s or early 1900′s and are on the Historic Register.  They have been lovingly restored and were lovely places to visit, but I don’t think I’d like to dust there.

This homeowner was a quilter.  This bedroom was quite Christmasy with the matching red velvet draperies.   I wonder if it’s still Christmasy in the spring, or if she changes it with the seasons.  It was just off the living room.

Since I have fabric stacked in plastic bins on a shelf in the garage, THIS impressed me more than the quilt.  Someone this organized probably has a husband who can sit down without being on the alert for stray pins or knitting needle.   Dearly Beloved has explained such dangers in excruciating detail.

Remember chenille?

Shelves around the ceiling were a feature in several homes, perhaps to compensate for the lack of closets and storage spaces.

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All the homes had bathtubs, of course, in rooms that may have formerly been bedrooms.

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Beadboard was common, sometimes partially stripped, as in these photos.

Fireplaces in almost every room meant mantels to be decorated…

Enough with the Christmas decor, in the next post I’ll show some of the pretty and the pretty odd.  I’ll get busy right away.

Village Flower Festival

Any time my British friend mentions the Flower Festival her village holds annually in late summer, I beg for photos.  The floral entries were set up in the village’s historic church.

Church of England.

This one is clever, I think.

Help me figure out the theme here:  mice, cat, teapot, packages…?  I know it’s there, but I’m clueless.  Anyone…?

I love the “cream” pouring out onto the berries here.

This floral entry is called “Cream Tea.”  It looks luscious!   Good thing the festival included a bake sale.

Clever placement.  Take a closer look at the admonition on the window.

Dog Days At The Beach

When we go down to the beach-house-not-on-the-beach in June,  it should be interesting, even if it isn’t exactly relaxing.

• We have the house there on the market.  There have been a trickle of lookers.
• We will have Granddog Ivy and Miss Piggy with us for six weeks.  Three of the grandsons and their parents will be staying at the beach, but they will be in and out.  JOY!  And mayhem.
• I’m not known for my tidiness.
• Oh yes… Beryl is coming this week, bringing wind and rain.  Yard cleanup.

One of our neighbors there says that traffic is already heavy. Everyone who isn’t on the beach is in cars, clogging the roads.

Everyone.   She sent a photo she took at a traffic light to prove her point.

Cool Dude!

Dearly Beloved and I have decided that whenever the house is being shown, we’ll take the dogs for a drive, since they aren’t allowed on the beach this time of year.  That’s good–for the dogs’ sake. The last time I looked on the internet, there were 938,000 sites for doggy beachwear.  Grrrrrrr!!!

Still, a sunhat for Ivy might be in order.

Don’t Come A Knockin’ Until He’s Out There Rockin’

Remember this house?  The one that was sitting on packing crates on a lot about five miles from the ocean.  The lot is at the intersection of two very busy roads, one of which is the beginning of I-40.  That one continues across the country to Barstow, California.  We have a friend here who rode his secondhand bike that entire distance.  Twice.

I drove past again last week.

The “house raising” was done because the city considered the site a flood zone.  A snaky zone, too, I fear, unless the air pollution from all the cars and trucks whizzing past deters them.

The owner is definitely making progress, although I’d bet that he doesn’t get many callers ringing his doorbell.  No Girl Scout cookies, no Watchtower, no politicians.  That probably means no pizza delivery either.   Now I’m curious to get back and see whether there is even a driveway so that he can receive mail.

Stay tuned.  Next time there may be a rocker on the porch.

Come Again?!?!

Vanity Plates–those personalized license tags– intrigue me.  Whenever I travel, I often keep my camera on the car seat so that I can photograph any interesting ones.   Otherwise, my memory being what it is, I forget before I have a chance to tell Dearly Beloved about them.

Since the sun was shining through my windshield when I took this photo, I must apologize for the poor quality, but you can see why it caught my eye.

Huh?

MARY???

The minivan turned into a strip shopping mall containing a supermarket and a YMCA.

I didn’t hang around to see which one, but I’m going with YMCA.

Never Iron a 4-Leaf Clover*

My friends Beanie and Hoot toured Ireland via back roads and lanes in September.  They planned their own itinerary, rented a car, stayed in small inns or B&B’s, ate at small local restaurants, and visited the neighborhood pubs for the delightful music of local musicians who gather for impromptu sessions.

Beanie’s  photos make me want to go there.  You come, too.

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May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.
~Irish Blessing

*You don’t want to press your luck.  - Daryl Stout

Beverly at How Sweet the Sound has plenty of Irish links  on her Pink Saturday post.  

Dolly Parton Wouldn’t Sing About These

Last week we took granddog Ivy back to Georgia to be with her family after our dog-sitting stint.  Since she was Dearly Beloved’s walking partner on his long daily jaunts,  it is an understatement to say that he misses her.  The lonely Maytag repairman is a party animal by comparison.

My grandsons fancy me a “sew-er” and line up any mending when they know I’m coming.  This time, a large stuffed animal, its leg dangling, needed surgery.  Its owner, Little Elmo, was delighted at the outcome.   Being a hero to a five-year-old is a wonderful, smoochy delight.

My sewing skills are pretty much confined to mending because of lack of talent.  It’s the buttonholes that foil me.  When I used to make dresses for myself, I’d sew in snaps and put buttons over them so that I wouldn’t have to deal with buttonholes.  I don’t trust that method any more.  Either snaps aren’t what they used to be or more of me is expandable.  One good sneeze out in public could get me arrested.

Dearly Beloved has a pair of jeans he finds especially comfortable and he has put my mending skills to the test.  One knee split long ago and I mended it.  Sometime later, he asked me to do it again.  This time, he asked would I use a patch.

The jeans belong in the garbage.  In the past, with his other “favorite jeans,” I’ve sewn patches inside the knee and then stitched the outside together so that it wouldn’t show.  Not this time.

Wiser these days, I have come to realize that what constitutes a “favorite pair” is any that  Mr. Non-shopper does not have to go out and buy for himself.  The ones he has are some the kids have given him over the years.  The current favs have strings hanging from the bottom and threadbare sections in potentially embarrassing spots, though I doubt he’d be arrested.

I rifled through my scraps and came up with a riotous fabric from some project, as well as some dark denim patches that had a ten-cent price tag on them and are surely older than me.  With these props, I “fixed” the jeans, believing that my efforts would speed along the decent burial they deserve.  

The rear has more of the denim patches dotting the seat.

Side note:  Whenever he used to receive an oddball article of clothing as a gift (usually from his mother who couldn’t keep her sons’ sizes or preferences straight) he would tell the children that “this will be something good to wear by the fire.”  

I thought that at best, these would be relegated to fireside status.

Last weekend when we were getting ready to go to Georgia, he put on the jeans, but I thought it was while he was packing the car and that he planned to change for the drive.

Oh, no.  He wanted to “show these babies off to the boys” when he met them at the bus stop that afternoon.  That meant he also wore them inside when we stopped for lunch someplace in South Carolina.

Yesterday he had his car inspected.  I didn’t see him when he left, but he returned– wearing them.

He wears them on walks,  admitting that he does get some odd looks and funny smiles.  He says they’re thinking, “Now there’s a guy who’s comfortable in his own skin.”  

I doubt that.

He completes his look with a Rastafarian belt which doesn’t match the patches, but does go well with the Bob Marley music on his iPod.  Mainly, it holds up his pants since his waist has shrunk from all that walking.

He has the jeans on again today.  This time he has matched the patch by wearing a red, white, and blue plaid shirt.

To mix my metaphors, I have decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, fight fire with fire.  I have just the equipment. . . my red sweatpants, which he detests.  I found them at the back of a closet shelf.  I’m not sure how long I’ll have to wear them before he retires those ratty-looking jeans.

I’ve heard so much bull on the televised campaign trail that I do have a lingering concern about these red sweatpants.

Just to be on the safe side, I won’t go near any cow pastures.

Abridgement

While we were in West Virginia for our By-gosh-we-actually-pulled-this-off Thanksgiving weekend, the whole family visited the New River Gorge Bridge Visitors’ Center, run by the National Park Service.  We had driven across the bridge to get to our destination, but to really appreciate the marvel of engineering, the bridge has to be seen from below.  For instance, here is the view when we were crossing the bridge.  It didn’t feel or sound like a bridge, so as long as I kept my eyes shut or straight ahead (after making sure Dearly Beloved had both hands on the steering wheel) I didn’t get bridge-o-phobia.  

The strip of road visible in the photo below is actually part of the bridge.  The steps are a pathway to an observation deck…

…where I took this picture. To clarify, cars ride atop the bridge.  That ^^^^ section just underneath it is open for walking (it’s even handicapped accessible) should strolling on an two-ft. wide, 876-ft. high catwalk for 1/4 mile strike your fancy.  My fancy remained unstruck.  It’s the fifth highest vehicular bridge in the world.  The Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial could be stacked atop each other and pass underneath with enough clearance to spare for you to hop aboard.

The gorge was so deep that this is as close as I got to the river:

The hardier members of our group took a second hike, this one on Kaymoor Miners Trail. which took them down to the New River and the ghost town of Kaymoor, one of about 60 towns built along the New River after the (1873) completion of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad opened the area to coal mining.  Everything in the towns was owned by the coal companies– schools, churches, saloons, pool halls, stores, scrip*, theaters, houses, as well as the coke ovens, tipples, and other structures used in mining.  In reality, there were four Kaymoors- two in the gorge, one on the rim of the canyon, and one where the south pier of the arch bridge is located.

The coal camp towns were so remote that when coal became scarce in a vein, that town was simply abandoned.  The ruins of the ghost town my family visited are now owned by the National Park Service and were reached by a strenuous trail which ended in  a 821- stairstep descent.  (And what goes down, DEFINITELY wants to get back up!)

In 1978, the National Park Service took over about 53 miles along the river to protect and maintain the area.  The cleanup and management efforts have made it a popular site for whitewater rafting.  The ruins of the towns are barely visible now, having been reclaimed by the forests.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the supermarket cashier who overheard my conversation about our pending trip to “Nowhere, West Virginia” and how she told me that she was from that area.  A few days ago, I was in her checkout line again. She remembered me and asked how our weekend had gone.  She particularly wanted to know if we’d seen the New River Gorge Bridge. I said that we had and were very impressed with it.

“I was in high school in 1977 when they opened that bridge,” she said, smiling broadly.  “I marched across it on opening day, twirling my baton.”  

I know nothing about this woman’s life other than what is etched on her face.  I hope that one day she will tell her grandchildren of that day.  She can show them the West Virginia quarter, which has a rendering of that bridge.   The next time my own grandchildren visit, I want to take them to the supermarket and introduce them to the lady who marched across the bridge on the very first day it opened.   Her story and her smile deserve an encore.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.
Isaac Newton

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More about coal mining along the New River Gorge:

Photo website showing some of the towns and buildings.

Kaymoor site with photos of ruins.

*Scrip was the term for the “truck system” whereby non-transferable vouchers were used to pay the workers.  The vouchers could be used only at the company-owned stores.  It was this system which inspired the song, Sixteen Tons, believed to have been written by former coal miner and folk singer George S. Davis.

You load sixteen tons what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.

Roughing It

Every year when we begin receiving Christmas cards with group photos of my friends with their families, I wonder, “How do they do it?”

No one contracted strep, had a work emergency, lost their dog,  broke a tooth, wrecked the car, developed a rash or industrial-sized zit?    Who is that extra person looking through the camera lens to make sure that no one blinks or scratches?  For that matter, who remembered the camera?

We’re the family that forgets toothbrushes, underwear, socks, chargers, directions, and prescriptions, not to mention cameras.  Nevertheless, when Dearly Beloved and I headed to West Virginia with a turkey, three desserts, the fixin’s for Thanksgiving dinner, and my new Point & Shoot camera, I had a secret goal: to get a family photo.

We had the shortest drive, so naturally we arrived last.  Our kids and grandkids were already unpacked and settled into the log cabin for our “roughing it” holiday in the wilds of West Virginia.

Rough it, we did, except for the fully equipped kitchen that any restaurant would envy and a second partial kitchen thrown in for good measure.  Oh, and there were the silky linens on the king-sized beds in such an abundance of bedrooms that we didn’t even use all of them.   And I confess that there was a game room with pool table, a Wii, puzzles, games, and a couple of HD TV’s.  Okay, and the large living room with plenty of seating and wonderful pond view, not to mention the  hot tub, a jacuzzi, and a dining table large enough to seat all of us.

The view at sunrise:

It was just as beautiful and mysterious on a cloudy day.

We DID have to start our own bonfire in the outdoor fire pit with wet wood.

The sales guy at the camera shop had told me that the DVD that came with the camera would explain all.  Hah!  Instead of answering questions, it kept asking them.

In desperation, I called a photographer who gives group lessons to sign up.

“Um… these are classes for people with SLR cameras to help them know which lens to use, etc.  I’m afraid it won’t help you with your camera.”

He agreed to come and give me a private lesson.  Dearly Beloved may never recover from my requiring an hour-long private lesson for a point and shoot camera.  Truth is, I could use a few more hours.

Ironically, the guy’s first tip was, “Don’t even mess with the DVD that came with the camera.”  

I snapped pictures by the dozen, but that group photo was more elusive than I thought.  It wasn’t until the last hour of our togetherness that I managed it.

The house had an interesting checkout system.  We had to be out by 11 AM, at which point the burglar alarm automatically reset and summoned the police if anyone tried to go in or out.  We packed the cars by 10 AM and everyone assembled outside for the photo shoot with still time for one last trip to the bathroom before leaving.

I didn’t have a tripod, so that part was definitely roughing it.   Son-in-law Dude took a photo of my work in progress,  in case I decide to patent it.

The chair came from the back porch, but the stool had to be back inside the house before 11.  The scarf was to keep my camera from sliding on the highly varnished stool and the cellphone was to hold it all in place.  Rocks in the chair leveled the stool.

Everyone assembled on the steps.  It didn’t exactly go like clockwork; I kept accidentally hitting the movie setting instead.  When I found the correct setting, the 12-second delay gave me time to look through the mesh of the chair, click the button, and hobble through the pea gravel to a seat on the steps.  It did not allow enough time to hide at least part of my ample thighs behind a couple of grandsons as I had hoped.

Still, the rest of the family achieved their final goal, too. . . that of going to the bathroom and getting that stool back in the house without being arrested.

Mission accomplished.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going.