The Lady of the House

~>>The above artwork is the creation of etsy artist gypsyandtwink<<~


Yellow Housey. She's a beautiful old gal built in 1921, two-story, with a carpenter-gothic style roof and the home I'd love to live in for all of my days. She seems to have that effect on people. Margaret was the lady of the house before me. She lived in this house with her family for 62 years and even though she has recently passed on to be with her dearie Walter, her flowers still bloom in succession in the backyard like fireworks and her love of all decorative things scalloped will live on in this house for as long as I am here. Scalloped range hood, scallops on the front porch roof, the back porch panelling, the screen door and scallops on the edges of the little red end-table that I collected from the estate sale before I even knew this would ever be my house. Enough scallops to write a whole bluegrass song about. A girl can't ask for much more.

I think we have a love of all things fancy in common. I only knew Margaret a little bit from my walks through the neighborhood, just some faint memories of her in fancy little hats and gloves saying hello from the porch. She actually had an entire room for her hat and glove collection. She lent an uptown feeling to the place that can still be felt. I try to keep that in mind when making stylistic decisions around here. Kind of an interdimensional collaborative decorating and gardening effort. I managed to find the exact pistachio-sagey green that she had on the kitchen trim and painted pretty much the entire kitchen over in it, but I do have to admit I've made a total wreck of her entire life's history of wallpaper tastes. All 5 layers are scraped down to the bare plaster, with some bits left for romantic effect. The pink, orange and lime floral paper in the upstairs bathroom will be staying though, just like the singularly cheerful color of yellow on the exterior of the house that was hand-painted by Walter when he was in his 80's. It's the prettiest most delicate shade of egg salad ever. Good juju.

The neighbors on the block revered this lovely couple like grandparents and friends and they are very much missed. Lucky for me the neighbors are exceptionally nice people who didn't give me evil eyes for coming in and making it my own. This summer two of my neighbor ladies, Anne and Kiki, told me that they thought Margaret would approve of my rampant sun and moonflower garden on the driveway and that they thought I was the right person to have moved into her house. I hope she'd feel the same way because I certainly agree.