What the Victorians Did for Us

I have a new favorite show (along with Ugly Betty and The Office): What the Victorians Did for Us. It's a British show that airs on History International, and it's a cheeky (literally ... on the most recent episode, the host Adam Hart-Davis ended the show naked, enjoying a bicycle-powered shower) look at the Victorian innovations that made life the way it is today.

Technology is moving so fast today that we - or I anyway - often think of this time as the most innovative, the most quickly changing. It's easy to consider our ancestors primitive and wonder how they survived in a world with no Internet.

But What the Victorians Did for Us points out just how many of the technologies we take for granted - the indoor bathroom, aspirin, ice cream, and the sewer system - originated with the Victorians. Sure, we come out with a new version of the iPod or Motorola Razr every five minutes, but we're not so superior. We still don't know how to cure the common cold, let alone cancer or Alzheimer's or Lou Gehrig's disease. We still fight wars that go nowhere, and we still burn fossil fuels to travel.

I wonder ... in 100 years, what will the TV shows say about us? Will TV even still exist? Will someone have finally invented that teleporter? And for all the new technology, will the world be any kinder? Will humans be any better?

Confessions of Harriet the Spy

Mindy over at Fixer Upper tagged me to tell you "5 Things You Probably Don't Know About Me." In real life, I'm terrible at keeping secrets, even about myself, but that's not entirely true when it comes to the blog. There are parts of myself I hold back even from you, dear bloggy readers. Since I'm writing instead of talking, I can exercise a little more control over myself.

For one, many of my real-life friends and neighbors know about this blog, so writing about them is a delicate proposition. I can't go criticizing their choices or complaining about them, and even writing about them in a nice way is tricky. Some people probably don't want their exploits described for the rest of the town and the Internet to read.

Then there's the family. There are maybe five people in our combined, extended families who know how to use the Internet. But Darwin's sister and brother-in-law recently got a computer and were asking about my e-mail address just this weekend. Eeek. Since my bloggy beginnings, I've feared this day and purposely kept my family-related posts mild-mannered. The last thing I need is a Harriet the Spy moment.

But it's not just the hovering threat of our Baptist families that keeps talk of boozing, carousing, swearing, sex, religion, and politics to a minimum. It's wimpy of me, but I prefer to remain non-controversial. Other than an occasional rant about litter or pets, I keep my opinions to myself. Maybe this comes from living in Alabama, where my opinions often differ dramatically from the majority. Or maybe it's because some things are too important to me to open them up to attack.

I've kept other secrets for the same reason. But now it's time to reveal my deep, dark inner self … or at least part of it. This was supposed to be lighthearted, but dark and twisty can be fun, too … why else would I love Six Feet Under?

So here goes. Deep breath. Leap!

1. I am infertile. Whew, that’s a bang of a way to start, huh? I mentioned it vaguely once long ago, and during a darker time, I briefly kept a separate blog on the subject. But I found that reading and writing about infertility all the time was dragging me down. I cried a lot, and Darwin and I fought daily about our options. We've been married 4 and a half years and not-not-trying for 3 years of that time with no luck whatsoever. We knew we'd have trouble, so we started early. He's been tested, and yeah, it's me. I briefly and half-heartedly tried some fertility meds, but we haven’t given it a real go yet.

2. I wrote a crappy novel in the summer of 2005. It’s hard to admit that something I worked on vigorously for months turned out to be absolutely horrible, but facts are facts. How crappy is it? In 9th grade, my best friend and I wrote a story about us going on a cruise with our (imaginary) boyfriends; it consisted mostly of us changing into cute outfits and then scampering off to make out with said boyfriends. And yet I think that story might have been better than my novel.

Not much of it is even salvageable, but at least I got it out of my system (they say you always have to write one crap novel first). At least writing the crappy novel got my mind off wallowing in infertility-induced self-pity, and I haven't gone back. Now I have book ideas new and old spinning around in my head, but I can’t get them to sit still. And I’m a procrastinator, but we’re going to pretend that has nothing to do with it.

3. I watch DeGrassi: The Next Generation. I even Tivo it. Some might wonder how that fits into the “deep, dark secret” theme here, but just consider this: DeGrassi is a teenage melodrama a la Fifteen and a Very Special Episode of Saved by the Bell, and I am a 25-year-old woman. This season alone, DeGrassi has had two boys arrested for drag racing, a teen mother try to start a daycare at school, someone get addicted to cocaine, a teen try to get breast implants, a girl become bulimic, a pair get robbed while trying to start a T-shirt business, a paraplegic teen (who was shot in a school shooting) have trouble having sex with his girlfriend, a teen get upset over giving her baby up for adoption, and a girl get caught posting sexy shots of herself on MySpace.

It’s basically a soap opera, and I hate soaps. So why do I like DeGrassi? It’s a mystery too deep to fathom.

4. Sometimes I wonder if a person crazy enough to watch DeGrassi should have children. Maybe I only want a child for stupid reasons, like getting to choose a name and buy stuff from Pottery Barn Kids. Sometimes I don't know if I even want a child. Sometimes I think we'll be good parents. Other times I tell myself, "You can barely parent a dog!" Or I find myself yelling at Darwin or swearing like a sailor or acting exactly like my father, and I think, "What if a child was here watching me?" And if I can’t get myself to work on time, how will I ever get a child to school or dance practice or soccer?

Maybe I am too irritable or impatient or even too fat to be a mother. Maybe my genes suck and I should just stop the madness here. Or maybe they are good, and I am good. It's so hard to know without taking the leap, and once you've leapt there's no turning back.

5. It's not time yet. My mother is already hoarding baby stuff she finds on sale (most recently Christmas outfits for $1.59 at Target), and Darwin's brothers and sisters are all allegedly finished having kids, so now everyone is looking at us and saying, "It's your turn!"

Part of me eagerly joins in the daydreaming. Sometimes when I look at a picture of Darwin, I ache to see a child with his face. Other times I think about adopting a child of another race and wonder about the our families’ reactions.

But another part of me is very selfish. In the immortal words of Cartman, "Whatever, I do what I want!" I want to travel, watch Medium and Six Feet Under and yes, DeGrassi, read Lucky: The Magazine About Shopping, work on the house, and do naughty things whenever and in whatever room I please. I want to visit with the nieces and nephews and friends' kids and then go home to our nice, quiet house. (Which is gone now, anyway, replaced by a house full of Millie barking and Alistair hissing and Henry barreling down the hall and leaping up onto the piano.)

I'm 25 years old, and Darwin is 30. There is no rush. It's my mantra now. There is no rush, there is no rush, there is no rush. We can finish the bathroom and the kitchen countertops. We can rip out the falling-apart vinyl in the kitchen and hall. We and the cats can adjust to Millie. We can go to Venice, to London, to Prague.

Those hand-me-down baby clothes and high chairs can wait.


So those are my five secrets. I don’t feel as exposed as I expected. Maybe because I still have so many secrets left. I’ll save them for another time.

And now I'm supposed to tag 5 more people. How about my favorite ninja, Maryam in Morocco, 1901 House, Greg at Petch House, and John at The Devil Queen.

I didn't check extensively to see if you'd been tagged yet. No pressure.

Once, Twice, 10 Times a Lady

If other people are going to mention their Top 10ness, then by golly so am I! Hurray, we're in the Top 10 Houseblogs at Top 10 Sources (along with 9 other blogs o' awesomeness). Hee heee heeeeeee, I'm giddy with the joy of it all!

Now that I'm in the Top 10 of something, I guess that means I need to step up my game. Can't have people wandering over here and thinking, "Can you really call this a houseblog when they never work on their house?"

(Bathroom, I hope you're listening. Your days of unfinishedness are numbered!)

I'd never heard of this Top 10 Sources place, but I like it. When you're first starting to read blogs on a subject, it's tough to know where to begin. I've recently been trying to build a collection of daily fashion blog reads, but each one has a blogroll a mile long. Where to start?

I don't like to save a blog to my favorites and then after a few days discover it wasn't quite what I wanted. Then I can't remember which ones I like and which ones I don't. I have too many favorites. Too too many favorites. So if I forget to read your blog for a little while, that's why. I'll find you again one day, I promise!

Hope He Doesn't Notice the Subscription to Swank

Last week, I finally bought a new welcome mat for the front door. Until now, we never remembered to dispose of the green fake-grass mat the POs left. Every time I went outside to get the mail, I'd see it and think, "Ugh" ... and also wonder about what the postman and UPS person must think of us.

If you think about it, your postman/woman must know a lot about you. Imagine each piece of mail as a clue. The catalogs, the magazines, the forms requesting donations for the local fireman's association. Your postman knows if you are a member of The National Arbor Day Foundation, if you receive a lot of Christmas cards, if you like to shop at Granny Panties R Us.

Because of my eBay habit and general love of online shopping, we receive a lot of packages. Some teeny tiny, some enormous, some light, some heavy (the ones containing the world's heaviest tp holder, for example).

We get the same catalogs as all our local old-house fiends friends - Rejuvenation, Van Dykes, Renovation Supply. Plus Anthropologie (and its universe), Hobby Builders Supply (dollhouse stuff) and Pottery Barn.

The postman must know that we have gas heat and satellite TV. If he wanted, he could even know the exact amount of our water bill each month and mentally label us frequent or infrequent bathers.

Also, several times a week, he finds the little red flag up on our mailbox and a Priority Mail envelope inside, addressed to someone living in someplace exotic like Delaware or Texas. He must know I sell on eBay. Then I wonder if postal workers love eBayers or hate them.

Maybe postal workers have no opinion about eBayers or water bills or green welcome mats. Maybe the post office is required to hire only non-nosy humans, in which case I'd better steer clear.

But I still want to make a good impression on the postman. I hope he sees this pretty new welcome mat while he's struggling to heft a gigantic package up onto the porch and thinks, "Hey, these *&@$ lazy @$$holes finally did something right."

How to Triumph Over the Gas Company

After the painful blow of the tax bill, I needed some good financial news. Yesterday the gas bill came. I tore into the envelope with the kind of excitement usually reserved for birthday cards potentially containing cash. The bill could have been more bad news - that in spite of all our shivering under piles of blankets and layers of clothing, we still had to pay some crazy-high number.

But hurray! The bill was only $118! That's a savings of $230 over this month last year. It's proof that our frigid living is paying off!

In honor of our success, I'll share my favorite tips for staying warm in a cold, old house and I hope you'll share yours, too.

Wear warm, fuzzy slippers at ALL times ... with socks if you can stand it.

Buy electric space heaters with thermostats (though we haven't found timers necessary). Our cheapie heaters work better than the expensive one!

Leave the oven door open after you turn it off and stand in front of it, toasting yourself in the leftover heat.

Get some cats, preferably one for each human. Encourage the cats to nap on your lap while you watch TV.

Get a space heater for the bathroom and turn it on a few minutes before your shower. Shut the doors, and the room (and those wretched cold tiles) will heat up in no time.

Invest in good flannel sheets. They're not as cold as regular sheets when you first get in the bed, and they warm up faster.

And my favorite:

Work vigorously on the house, so you're too busy (and sweaty and dirty) to get cold!

365 Days Later

On September 30, 2004, we raced from law office to law office, accepting a check for the sale of our 1960s ranch-style and immediately handing it over for the 1902 Victorian. I was nervous.

Owning an old house had been my dream for as long as I could remember, and it was coming true. Yet every time I sign a contract obligating me to years of payments, I feel a little woozy.

On top of that, we were moving to a new town. Giving up my 8-minute and Darwin's 20-minute commute for 40 minutes each. Giving up proximity to our relatives for a more arm's-length distance.

Most people thought we were crazy. Most people still do. Why would anyone choose to commute farther? There are good houses in Tuscaloosa - why couldn't we just buy one of them? Why Eutaw? It's so tiny. It doesn't have a movie theater! The schools - ugh! And why would we want an old house? Didn't we know that it would always need work?

We answered their questions - and still do - with a smile and a positive spin. The raw truth is this: the commute isn't ideal (especially with the gas prices now), and I do wish Eutaw had a movie theater and a couple more restaurants.

But? Owning and living in an old house is as wonderful as I dreamed. And Eutaw offers even more than I originally expected. Like community. The place is chock full of awesome people who care about each other and the town. It's the kind of small town I always daydreamed about, the kind that in some ways seems stuck in a time warp and in others is incredibly modern.

Like with our marriage, it's hard to believe so much time has passed, and at the same time, it feels as if we've been here forever. We belong together, and we belong in Eutaw, in our house. It's home.

Destruction, Gas Shortages

The Sun Herald, the newspaper for Biloxi and Gulfport, has a town-by-town listing of the damage in Southern Mississippi. The historic Jefferson Davis home, Beauvoir, has been destroyed.

The listing for Biloxi:

Water lines ruptured; municipal water may be on soon, but is probably contaminated. . . Pass Road open . . . Legacy Towers condos survive. . . Ryans, Red Lobster, Olive Garden washed away along U.S. 90. . . Lighthouse still standing. Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge gone. Bottom floor of the library and the home of Jefferson Davis home, Beauvoir destroyed. . . . Sharkshead Souvenir City gone. . . Edgewater Village strip shopping center gutted . . . Also gone: the steeple of historic Hansboro Presbyterian Church; Waters Edge II apartments; Diamondhead Yacht Club, the old neon McDonald's sign on Pass Road . . . Massive damage in east end of city. . . almost total devastation primarily south of the railroad tracks near Lee Street, Point Cadet and Casino Row. . . Beau Rivage still stands. . . Hard Rock Casino, scheduled to open in early September, suffered 50 percent damages. The signature guitar, said to be the world's largest, still stands. . . At least five casinos out of commission. . . St. Thomas the Apostlic Catholic Church, which sits on U.S. 90, is gone.

I've been reading the D'Iberville message board at the Sun Herald to try to find some information about the area where my parents house is located. It doesn't sound good. I've heard reports of houses 1 mile NE and 1 mile NW of their house being flooded and destroyed.

Their house is located just across the bay from where Katrina destroyed the Hwy. 90 bridge to Ocean Springs.



My parents were debating whether to go down this weekend to check on Dad's timber in Mobile and their house. They were afraid they'd get down there and then not be able to find gas to get back.

Then just a while ago, my dad heard about a man who shot a gas station owner in Huntsville (two hours north of us) and others who hijacked a Hunt Oil truck. Now they feel it's too dangerous to travel south.

Where I live, we have been restricted to buying 10 gallons of gas at a time because people panicked and starting filling up trailer-loads of gas cans. When I filled up Tuesday night, the guy at the next pump filled up two giant blue barrels - $255 worth.

You'd think watching the footage of the devastation, the lives lost, the atrocities, the crimes and shootings in New Orleans, would make people stop being so damn greedy and selfish.

But instead even safe people up here are turning into animals.

Curtains Transformed

Why is it that the perfect kitchen is so important? Even to people like me who couldn't cook to save themselves from getting thrown into a tank full of sharks with lasers on their heads?

For us, convenience was the main reason the kitchen was the first major project we tackled. We had to have a microwave and a dishwasher. HAD TO.

And the kitchen is now in its 10th month of renovation. I'm even to the point of re-doing things we already finished. Like the curtains. Months ago, we put up perfectly reasonable curtains, and I was glad to check that item off the list.

Then the green and white curtains from Anthropologie arrived. I bought them for the bathroom, I swear. But somehow they made their way into the kitchen.

The curtains started out as 96-inch-long drapes with green grosgrain ribbon ties at the top and a ruffle at the bottom. But the ruffle - the cutest part - was hidden behind the table, so I decided to cut it off of each curtain and turn it into a valance for the top of the window. Then I'd convert the top half - with the ribbon ties - into cafe curtains.

I stopped daydreaming about this project and finally did it today while Darwin was gone for a few hours. I took the sheers that were in the kitchen before and moved them to the half bathroom (it's much brighter and less '70s in there now) and to the window in the entry hall that looks out onto the front porch. The 30-year-old sheer curtain that was there before had dry-rotted at the top and was hanging on by a thread. Not a good look.

Then I did some nipping and tucking on the green curtains. I haven't hemmed the cafe curtains yet because I don't have proper rods/rod for them yet, and I want to make sure I get the length right.



Though I liked the curtains we had before, I adore these new ones. They make the kitchen really pop, and they still let in plenty of light. I even have extra fabric if I want to make chair cushions or something.

Maybe I can't cook, but at least now I can look at pretty curtains while I make a tuna sandwich.

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Last night we watched Stir of Echoes on DVD. A scary movie, right? But at the parts where I was supposed to be sitting in tense anticipation, I was saying, "Look at that awesome bathtub!"

It was a good movie in its own right, but old house lovers should watch it just for the beautiful house and its fixtures. Of course, the house suffers some damage in the course of the movie, but at least the fascinating sinks and the bathtub remain intact.

And let's talk about the ghost for a minute. Before we moved into our old house, I actually feared that we would unwittingly move into a haunted house, and I would never get a good's night sleep again for lying flat on my back peering into the darkness. Yes, I've watched too many scary movies.

In the old days, I would've turned on every light in the house after a ghost story like Stir of Echoes. But - even if there really are such things in the world - our house feels empty and safe. Maybe it's because so few people have lived here - we are only the third family in its 103-year history - or maybe, like The Sixth Sense and the medium on A Haunting in Georgia suggest, it's because ghosts (or spirits or whatever you want to call them) are attracted to people who can sense them.

If ghosts do exist, and if that theory is true, then I am offended. What do the ghosts have against me? I want to see one! I'd like to have just one ghostly experience of my own, so I could decide what I believe.

I believe there are too many strange instances in the world to discount them all as hoaxes or overactive imaginations, but I don't know whether it's more related to a person's mind or if it's really some type of spirit. A paranormal psychologist-in-training led a ghost tour on our honeymoon in Charleston, and she said something interesting - it's a fact that energy cannot be destroyed but only changed, so where does the energy go when someone dies?

I definitely believe there is much more to the human mind than we realize. I believe in psychic connections, etc., though of course there are plenty of frauds in the world, too. My only vaguely psychic experiences have been of the usual variety: I pick up the phone to call my sister, and she's already on the line because she just called me and I picked up before the first ring. But is that just a coincidence?

Also, I have deja vu quite a bit, and I also usually remember my dreams. Each time I experience deja vu, it's not as "I've been here before." I can distinctly remember dreaming it. I've researched deja vu a little, and one theory is that it happens when some elements of this moment are so similar to a past moment that the two get mixed up in your mind, making you think you've been here before. I believe you dreamed it; most people only vaguely remember their dreams or don't remember them at all, so it would be common for people not to know where this memory came from.

So what do you believe? Ghosts, deja vu, psychics, telekinesis - are they real or a bunch of hooey?

Six-legged Murderess

One of my major issues with outdoor work is bugs. If there's a mosquito within 10 miles, it will HUNT ME DOWN. I got my first mosquito bite of the season the other day after spending a mere 15 minutes out in the dusk. I've ordered every different bug repellant Avon sells, even little bug repellant wipes you can carry in your purse. I hope they get here soon.

When I got home last night, I discovered that a colony of the dreaded fire ant has set up shop under the carport right beside where I park my car. Of all the places they could pick to build their dream home, they chose the spot directly next to my driver's side door, so that I have to step over it to get in and out of my car.

Fire ants love me as well. I am the queen of the insects, their much-desired Venus. Maybe that is why I can't even escape them when I'm indoors.

At our first house (not-so-affectionately known as "the shack"), we had a serious ant infestation. Not fire ants this time, but the harmless little black ones I once admired. Awww, look at the charming little creatures busy about their work.

After living in the shack for a while, I began to hate the little buggers with a fiery passion. There was actually a group of them living in our wall. At any given moment, there was a two-lane highway of ants streaming to and from somewhere in my house. They got into the sugar canister and the box of strawberry Pop Tarts. There were always several crumpled black ant bodies littering the countertop, particularly behind the sink. Outside, they traveled in long lines all the way around the house.

One day I came home after a hard day and saw them writhing blackly all over the place. I became filled with righteous indignation. I had asked Darwin to take care of them a dozen times, and yet he never did! They were unstoppable!

I stormed inside the house and fetched the bug spray we (make that I) used monthly to beat back the roaches and spiders and ants. I became a crazed maniac, spraying at the lines of ants scurrying along the porch steps, around the foundation, up the side of the house, along the eaves. Everywhere, EVERYWHERE!

I felt like Rambo. Take that, ants! Rat-a-tat-tat with my machine gun ... um, spray gun. Right and furious and a little teary with it. This is my house! DIE, ANTS!

Finally, I collapsed, spent and bleary-eyed from the mist of poison falling back down on me when I tried to spray the eaves. The fire drained out of me, and then I felt guilty, sitting in my house surrounded by little ant corpses.

Now that I'm thinking back on it, The Massacre at Hwy. 69 North, I realize that marked the end of my guilt-free bug-killing days. I never enjoyed crunching roaches or spiders with my shoe, but now I refuse to do it. Once recently I demanded that Darwin kill a red wasp that was sitting in the grass by our house. "It'll just get into the house," I said, because we do have a problem with wasps on our windows.

But as soon as he squished the thing, grinding it into the ground with his shoe, I felt sick. Guilty. Here I am a month later still agonizing about it. What is wrong with me?

I hate them and yet ... maybe I don't. If they aren't bothering me - if they are just buzzing around in the outdoors minding their own business - who am I to end their lives?

If a mosquito lands on me to bite, I don't hesitate to smack his little ass into oblivion. And those fire ants outside my car door have GOT to go.

But I'm finding peace with the insect world. A couple of weeks ago, Darwin and I spread out a picnic blanket in the grass of the backyard to read magazines in the sun. Honeybees buzzed all around us in the clover, and yet I wasn't afraid. I watched them, enjoying this up-close look, sans screaming and batting around my head frantically with my arms.

Then we saw a show on TV about killer bees and how they will be here soon, infiltrating our hives of peaceful little honeybees. I hope the show was sensationalizing it. If not, maybe then my make-love-not-war days will end.

A Kitchen for Today

If I had done a little more research before I flung myself headfirst into the bottomless well of kitchen renovation, I might've noticed that my attempts at old-looking aimed short of the mark. Now whenever I see photos of and info on properly authentic old house kitchens, I feel a wave of guilt - or maybe it is more like regret.

I didn't know about wall-mounted faucets, nickel fixtures, flush-mounted cabinet doors, no toe kick, cabinet latches, or ball-tip mortise hinges.

OK, but if I did know about them, what could I have done, short of rip out our cabinets and start over from scratch? That's right, nothin'. Maybe one day we will be able to afford a custom kitchen, but maybe we won't.

The winter/spring issue of Style 1900 magazine contains an excerpt from Jane Powell's book, Bungalow Kitchens.

The much-beloved Ms. Powell says that updating your kitchen to keep up with current trends is foolish because trends come and go; an old-house kitchen will always feel classic and right in your house. I agree with that.

But she also provides a list of options she says you must choose from to make an appropriate old-house kitchen. For microwaves, the only option she found worthy is putting it away in a cabinet. For refrigerators, the only approved possibilities are buying a vintage fridge or hiding it with cabinetry panels. For dishwashers, cabinetry panels and dish drawers are acceptable.

I disagree with that. It's true that microwaves, refrigerators, and dishwashers are not the most beautiful items on the planet. But I don't consider them "trendy." They are necessary appliances in my kitchen, and I don't think there's a thing wrong with having them right out in the open.

My goal has always been to have my kitchen look like it fits in my house. But that doesn't necessarily mean I have to hide away my modern ammenities and pretend they don't exist.

My house was built at the turn of the century, but it has also lived through 10 decades since then. Though I am always questing to purge the '70s out, I'll play devil's advocate for a moment and ask who made the rule that 1900 is acceptable but 1970 isn't? In 100 years, will our descendants be cursing us for ripping out peach-colored '60s tile or painting over my avacado-colored oven door?

Feel free to disagree (or *gasp* agree) with me. I'd enjoy a rousing discussion.

The issue of authenticity seems to be a major hot button with old house owners. Some treat the house as if it were built in 2005 and decorate/remodel it as they would a modern house. Some embrace a mix of old and new, concerned more with the big picture - the overall "mood" or "tone" of the house. Some are scornful of products that didn't exist when the house was built and want to do everything as accurately as possible down to the smallest material.

My problem - one that is keeping me floating in the air about some kitchen decisions (*cough cough* floor *cough cough* countertops) - is that I am stuck between the "embracing the mix" mindset and the "absolutely faithful" mindset.

Perhaps my mother did her work too well, and I can't make a single decision in life without agonizing guilt.

Ghosts, You Have Bad Taste

I feel safe saying that here in writing. Surely ghosts can't read.

Maybe it's ridiculous, but I feel a little uncomfortable insulting the '70s decor in my old house where the living-challenged previous owners might hear me. This sounds even sillier considering we've had next to no mysterious happenings in our house - other than me forgetting I took my slippers off by the closet instead of beside the bed like I usually do and thinking a ghost moved them; the cats staring into the dining room all the time, transfixed by nothing at all; and this one time outside when I thought I saw the shadow of a man standing behind me.

I've always been obsessed with not offending people. I remember an occasion in elementary school when I was making fun of some commercial on TV, and then I was suddenly gripped with the fear that someone within hearing distance of me had a relative in that commercial and would be deeply wounded by my words.

Naturally, I would continue this tiptoeing behavior into my own ugly kitchen, bathroom, etc. The previous owners - both families - took care of our house, didn't destroy its integrity in any too-awful, irreparable way. So - though our house has a decidely ghost-free feel (we must've had happy, fulfilled POs) - I don't want to offend anyone that might be lurking about. I certainly don't want to turn anyone from a docile ghost-pet into a raging poltergeist. If that's even possible.

But why am I worrying about possible? I'm clearly insane.

Compartmentalize Me

The "open plan" built into all the new McMansions has its benefits, but I'm finding more and more reasons to love our compartmentalized old house.

When Darwin wants to watch TV in the living room, and I want to listen to the radio in the dining room, we can close the pocket doors and both be happy.

We can close off the kitchen while we're painting it, so we don't have white cat footprints all over the house.

When we wanted to see our Christmas tree without our feline companions having access to it, we put it in the foyer and closed the French doors. Voila!

We can paint each room a different color. No confusion over where to divide up the living-dining-kitchen combo (a frequent issue on Trading Spaces).

There are also benefits to the one center hallway and the rooms opening into each other.

The front bedroom opens into the master bedroom, so it's the perfect spot for a nursery one day.

There are so many options for entering and exiting a room. It's nice to have such a flexible home.

Why I Love Old House People

• They don't think I'm crazy.
  
• They don't say, "Aren't you finished with your house YET?"
  
• They understand that I feel an obligation to my house to make it right again.
  
• They don't ask if we're replacing the wood siding with vinyl and then look confused when I exclaim "GOD NO!" in utter horror.
  
• They don't say (repeatedly), "You've sure got a LOT of work to do."
  
• They're willing to share advice.
  

Arguments may surface about the virtues of latex vs. oil paint, painted wood vs. stained, fitted kitchens vs. unfitted, antique lights vs. reproductions, modernization vs. preservation and so on. But it's these differences of opinion, these peppery personalities, these quirky folks of all ages that make the old house community so fun.

And for me, any conversation about old houses is a good conversation.