Hatton House Diaries

Oh…that Victoria Barnes. Have you seen her blog about restoring a 1890 house? It’s everything my blog would be, if I had time, drive, a staff….maybe one day. She probably had no idea the trouble she gets me into, posting her projects, getting me to think about the thousand things I could add to my thousand line to-do list, but now, she’s really done it.

Last week, she post her blog link up party, and I’ve spent ever since then trying to pick my favorite find to participate. Oh sure…why not ask who my favorite child is, while you’re at it? At first I thought, oh easy….my favorite find is this house. I looked for YEARS to find the perfect home. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a 4 bedroom, huge kitchen, not too done, but liveable historic home in Des Moines, Iowa, where they destroyed many primo properties when the built highway 235? It’s damn near impossible. But I found it. I remember standing on the front lawn, Friday December 3rd, 2010, using my Droid as a flashlight to shine through the dark at the quarter turned tower, stalking the interior wood work, practically jumping up and down that I’d finally found my house. Little did I know it wouldn’t actually be mine for another 53 weeks, thanks largely to Wells Fargo’s fiasco of a short sale department, but it’s mine now, and that’s what counts.

But then I thought that was boring, that I should tell a story about one of the super cool things I’ve found for the house….the chandelier for the dining room, the new fireplace mantle, the new kitchen chandelier…I’ve had so many great finds lately that I haven’t had time to write about yet. Only trouble is, none of them are really done. I haven’t finished the medallion for the dining room, the mantle needs to be refinished, and I spent a fair amount of time since her little announcement racing around trying to finish cleaning and rewiring the new chandelier for the kitchen.

I got more done this weekend, thinking about this post. We got two lights hung that were things I had left over from my store, Simply for Giggles, that I determined were never really meant to be sold, they were meant for me. I got brave and totally disassembled a chandelier (and yes, I was thinking of the chandelier using the Short Circuit voice screaming “No disassemble!” the whole time).

Remains to be seen if the chandelier comes back to life. And as to what will make the final cut for my best find ever….you’ll have to tune in tomorrow!