I have a dream...

My parents have had a few homes built over the years (around four that I can remember) and would often buy catalogs filled with house plans from many different styles: victorian, florida-spanish style, one-story rambler, craftsman, etc. For as long as I can remember, I would grab one of these catalogs and lie on my stomach and imagine myself walking through the houses, locating great little corners to read books,deciding whether a bathroom was too small to be shared between two bedrooms, and imagining if a back porch was large enough to enjoy in the middle of summer. I love houses. I love the way they make a family complete, they give a sense of safety, peace, and serenity as well as ownership.

Now that we are selling our house I have been thinking about my dream of one day taking a sad dilapadated house and restoring it to something beautiful, charming and warm again. I want to take something that is full of history and make it into something that everyone can enjoy and I would love to take that house, preferably Victorian, and run a bed and breakfast in it. I would love to share it with others and show the pride I have in accomplishing something that was hard, time consuming and inevitiably worth it just to take one house off of my "Oh it would look so beautiful fixed-up" list that I have in my head.

Since we have done so much in the 98-year-old house that we have been living in here in Cincinnati for the past five years, I thought I had had my fill of fixing up a house, but now I know that was only a small taste of what I have been dreaming of.

We have done so much, or atleast I have with the help of a lovely, if not sometimes cranky and unproductive husband. I've not only painted EVERY room in my home (sometimes twice) but I have also installed tile in the kitchen with my mom's help on the floors, countertops and backsplash, (THANKS MOM!!!!) put crown molding up in the living room and dining room, put chair rail in the dining room, painted the floors upstairs, retiled and regrouted the bathroom tile, painted my front door "Posh Red" and a million other little projects that have taken me to Lowe's sometimes three and four times in a day.

My dream is still there in the back of my head and I know there is that pretty victorian house out there just like this one that is waiting for me to show it some TLC. Now the only thing left to do is find it and convince Michael that it is worth the time and money.