Our New Old House

We were delighted that our good friends Gianfranco and Colleen could come all the way to Des Moines from Chicago to help us work on our house! The pictures tell the whole story:

Caution: Men at work!

Brandon went medieval on the kitchen cabinet…

While Gianfranco pulled staples out of the ceiling. “One… two… three…”

“Oy, Mah-gerie, these staples! They’re killing my back already!”

“No I will NOT put this lampshade on my head even though it looks like a sombrero! It’s dripping pig fat for crying out loud!”

What IS that stuff anyway?

Contrary to popular belief, Colleen does not whistle while she works.

We had a great time and the work certainly did go a lot faster having eight hands pitching in.

From the fun and frivolity of shower curtains and wallpaper sheep I must change the topic to long lost built-in cabinets that have disappeared.

Excuse me while I vent for a moment: MY HOUSE USED TO HAVE BUILT-IN CABINETS AND A BUFFET AND WHY DID SOMEBODY TEAR THEM OUT? WHY? WHY?!!!

My grandmother spent all last week scraping wallpaper in the living room and dining room and she uncovered evidence of what I long suspected must have been there: a built-in buffet in the dining room and a wooden frame on the doorway between the living room and dining room. Here are the pictures of what she uncovered:

Now I’m going to ask you to use your imagination for a moment. Imagine that this picture doesn’t have all my random stuff cluttering up. Imagine that the woodwork is a beautiful rich dark walnut or cherry. And now imagine that there’s a lovely gorgeous buffet graciously spread out below the window, with a wall sconce on either side of the window, and leaded glass on the front doors! Can you see it? I can, and it breaks my heart.

Did it bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat? It did mine. *sniff* Somebody hold me.

Now on to the tragedy that was once a warm, natural transition between rooms and is now just… a hole. Look closely at the edges of the wall separating the living room from the dining room and you’ll see the faint outline of what used to be woodwork, ripped savagely apart for the sake of… well I don’t know what.

What the heck is wrong with people? I mean seriously. Why take down perfectly good woodwork? What’s the point? I have resorted to inventing a crazy story to make myself give these people the benefit of the doubt, telling myself that based on the layers of wallpaper and when they date from that the built in buffet had been gone a very long time; perhaps someone sold them to feed their family during the Depression. I don’t know. When I can figure out who the people were who owned the house before Mrs. Riley, I may find more answers. But for now, I’m stuck staring at the walls that bear the ghosts of cabinets past.

Less drama in my next post, I promise!