Yesterday was an incredibly long day. Though the route instructions say 3 hours and 10 minutes, it took us far longer to reach our destination. The usual things: having to stop to use the bathroom (especially after morning coffee,) traffic tie ups, construction, etc. We left at about 9:20 and got to the seller’s house at around 1:30 – 1:45. Don drove the whole way – there and back – and we were completely wiped out when we got back home around 6:30. Driving from NY to Pennsylvania involves driving on the NY Thruway, the Garden State Parkway, I-95, I-76 and several other heavily trafficked roads. Even with me pointing out when we were about to exit, enter, and merge, Don still had to navigate and maneuver the urban traffic of NY, NJ, and PA. And we drove home during rush hour.

I have thanked Don many times for going with me, for even considering going with me. But there’s no way we could have done without the Honda Pilot. This house is huge. I don’t deserve him. I will say this: there was a time where I would have driven this without blinking an eye and maybe I would have been a bit tired, but nowadays? It takes us a whole day to recover.

The owner was nice; their home, with a Hummer and a Mercedes parked outside the 4 car garages, was beautiful. She had everything ready and waiting, even moving the house from the porch to the garage because it started to rain. She gave me a box of dollhouse furniture (most of it is made for kids, so I won’t be using it) and some other tools she used – again, can’t use. But it was very thoughtful of her to include everything and I appreciated that.

And we passed QVC headquarters, which is not far from her house!

Okay. Here it is. Get ready for a way too bright yellow with green trim, all of which will be going away. I took a picture of it in the back of the car in the sun (not included here, it’s on IG) and the yellow looked like a neon yellow on steroids.

It was surprisingly light to carry, but when you see the size, you’ll see that we had to be very careful.

When working at my desk, I am now surrounded by a wall of houses.

The front and side of the house. As with Hummingbird Cottage, there is something that went wrong in the construction. You can’t really tell from here, but the porch is slanted. It’s crooked. And, it should extend to the side of the house. I stood there last night, looking at it over and over, trying to figure out what went wrong. Is the section of the house on the right too big? Is the porch inserted too far to the left? I can’t figure it out, but it will drive me nuts if I don’t fix it, so that will be a priority. Painting the whole thing with white primer will also be a priority – inside and out.

Excess curlicues which are not in proportion to the house will be ruthlessly removed.

But the other details on this house design are what sold me on it, You’ll see more over the next several days.

The bay windows, the inset curved windows, the panes of glass (acrylic, but who cares?) The stairway, the window on the second floor landing, the fireplaces. An entrance hall! A stairway the has its own space and isn’t in the living room! If you take a gander at the room on the right on the top floor, you’ll see the worst paint job I’ve ever seen. Included in the box of supplies was a packet of markers, labeled “For dollhouse.” I actually think this was ‘painted’ with markers! Thank God they only messed up two of the nine spaces.

I love a bay window.

And this kitchen window.

And this gorgeous window on the second floor.

You can see some electrical tapewire on the ceiling here and in other parts of the house. So the owners made an attempt to electrify the house. I’m going to see if it works and perhaps add tapewire in the other rooms. I’ve never done this in any of my houses, and am not sure how to do it, but this seems like a little signal that this house needs to be electrified. If you’ve ever done it, any tips would be welcome.

For Vicki who asked about it and anyone else who missed it: I decided to buy a finished version of this house instead of building it for two reasons. First, look at it. It’s a monster to build and it takes some enthusiasts a couple of years to complete. It would take me at least a year. Second, I’m not that crazy about the building process. My thing is taking something and rehabbing it, renovating it, whatever word you want to use. I did that with my first house, and one of the vintage houses (though just a bit) and certainly with Dove Cottage, which was a mess. I LOVE doing that kind of thing. The only house I’ve ever built from scratch was Don’s mini studio and that was basically one big room. The amount of space I would need to sand and build and store components is just not available in this room which I share with my husband. I have a corner of the room. Don has a corner of the room. There is no available space for building this thing without kicking Don and his guitars out.

So I figured I’d sell the kit – though I have some doubts about that right now. Hopefully, I will be able to fix the porch without using any parts from the kit. If that’s the case, then I can sell it. If it isn’t…oh boy. This house will have cost me twice as much as it was worth.

I have to finish some elements of Dove Cottage, including some furnishings and the porch. I’ll probably start priming the new house next week after I finish some ‘what I do for a living’ related tasks this week.

Okay, my friends. There you go!

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.