Thursday, July 7, 2011

HOUSE LUST/LOVE


 I come across this wonderful article in the Sunday NY Times complete with a slideshow.
Another old house "nut" that was able to buy her dream home on Nantucket and furnish it on a shoestring.
My particular strain of house lust started when I was about 6 or 7
and we visited my Nana’s homestead in Raymond N.H.
 The wonky, uneven floorboards said….this house has a story and I wanted to know what it was.
First grade sealed my old house addiction.
 My best friend lived in an old Victorian with a barn and a second back staircase that went down into the kitchen and a huge empty room upstairs that you could ride a tricycle in.
Next was a visit to Olde Sturbridge Village in fifth grade… old house nirvana…I wanted the house that had,again, the back staircase that went down into the kitchen.
 Our first home as marrieds was quirky and tiny
  Built in the 1800′s and moved long ago from another location
 we uncovered whole log beams in the kitchen and cellar,
 soaked in an old clawfoot bath tub under a slanted roof
  and threw pennys down our old covered well.
Do you love to look through house windows at night
 and wish you could take a tour ?
Do you know that "old house" smell....old wood polished
 with beeswax, attic beams that
 hold tight to the treasures stored beneath.
 Old house love is not an infatuation but one that stays with you forever.

1 comment:

  1. I, too, share a love for old houses with uneven floorboards and back staircases. Some people would wrinkle their noses at the smells....it just reminds me of home! Old books, furniture polish, rugs and yes, probably mouse skeletons in the ceiling all contribute to that wonderful aroma!! Have you seen the old house we've purchased in NH? Check out my facebook page...the photos are on there!!

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