Saturday, May 12, 2007
The House Tour
This May 12th was the second house tour by the town historical society. I was in charge of the advertising. And was quite proud of the fact that many of the tickets were purchased by people outside of the hamlet. It means I was doing my job right... getting the event on two cable stations, four newspapers, and more.
The houses all had their unique personalities. That's what's great about living in a town that grew up around a train station... no "house farms."
One house had a pool in the backyard that was created from an iron tank (The original owner was the president of an oil tank company). It curved rather steeply and was quite deep. The pool even had windows in the deep end. Apparently there had been an underground room for the filtration system and the windows perhaps added light (or the owner was a pervert). The new owners have painted over the windows and are gradually adding tile to the pool so that they don't have to empty the pool every year to scrape off the rust.
Another house had a coi pond in the backyard and trees which not only flowered on the top but also on the trunk (see photo). Apparently, this particular tree is known for that. As with all the houses on the tour, the kitchen had been redone. I have yet to see a house that is over 50 years old that has not had major renovations on the kitchen... I guess when you had "help" you didn't care if there was enough lighting or a place to sit... or for the "icebox."
The last house was lots of fun... because she's one of my frequent customers! Other customers who were on the tour joined me in the hunt for purchases... In addition to my decoartive accents, the house was also filled with lots of old furniture. She had inherited lots of nicely carved wooden pieces... a 9 foot bookcase that someone created in exchange for piano lessons by her great-uncle, her aunt's vanity table. It made me a little sad that I don't have anything from most of my relatives. Even if I did... they wouldn't have been of any quality. Just cheap, mass-produced things that were crap 50 years ago.
That made me realize that Lucky and I will need to purchase good-quality things... Just in case, our future generations want something of ours. We'll just have to make our own history.Labels: every day in may, nj
