(Wed. Aug. 15th, 4p.m.

Sad to report the hoped-for house turned out to be a bust. Lots of ahem, ‘discrepancy’ in the description of the place. Things like that 15 x 31 foot length room being ‘oops!’ only 13 feet.

(So much for a wonderful meditation/showroom) and it went downhill fast from there.

Realtor as we all trooped down to the basement quote: “That is strange, there were lights when I was here the other day.”

Wow, that must have been a real trick, because you could see that all the light bulbs had been removed... Hum, no one has a flashlight? Ah well.

Even the lady who is searching for houses for us through use of listings and her personal knowledge of local areas seems a bit put-off. Her quote: “I’d hate to be the inspector on this place.”

As for the ghost, it is more like yelling: “Get me the heck away from these people!”

Such a tragedy, because with a LOT of work the house could be quite the showpiece, some fantastic old world character there waiting for some TLC...if the building were structurally sound, thing which even a quick visual has you seriously doubt.

Very interesting technique to brace floor of an illegally build upper apartment where the floor bounces. Just cut a small tree and use a car jack to prop it up. *Shudders*

A few “Do Not’s” I learned when trying to show off your house today:

1) If windows are broken, at least remove the chunks of glass on the interior shelf before just stapling plastic over the whole thing.

2) You have a large dog which barks continuously, make sure you have it locked up and not follow you around uncontrolled. The lady who searches for houses is terrified of dogs and the whole time she was sealed in different rooms as the rest of us herded the dog around... Tends to be distracting.

3) If you like to live ‘on the wild side’ please, for the love of god, put your collection of handcuffs away, thanks.

I believe I shall stop there, except I must say that bright red shag carpet does not go too well with plastic ‘cobble stone wall paneling’. In fact, it does not go with anything. Same goes for the, uhm, aqua? *Scratches head.*

Lady who finds us houses asked me if I wanted to take some photos of the interior?

I told her I did not want to hurt my camera and she had to grab my arm to keep from falling down laughing. Enough said, except the main kitchen was great. Real, weather-worn barn wood used for the cabinets and drawers, huge, working cast iron wood-stove and oven with brick floor. Glassed knick-knack case built into the wall made of the same.

Ah well, the search continues!

9a.m. today:

Got up early and finished the trim painting (2nd coat) in the center room. Emile to finish as I am just going out the door to work at the gallery today. Figures, the time we take off to work on the house, my boss is away on her vacation and no one else can cover. Between this and yesterday's bust trip to VT really cutting into our time/energy here.

Tomorrow will be doing what we can around house, then get ready for the two different fairs we are going to vend on Sat. and Sunday.

Guy said he was going to start working on painting outside of house this weekend...we so behind, nothing scraped and vines still all over the front. Man, this is really, really hard...

Okay, have to dash.

Cheers,

Melissa