The house.

In our new house, the 'parlor' is like this. Flamboyant details. The house was built in 1889 and the time period shines through. We like some of it, but there is going to be a stopping point. One can appreciate only so many bows and froofy gas chandeliers (I never imagined I would have such problems).

Other rooms are more like this. Toned-down and pretty amazing, down to the wood floors (froofy chandelier-theme persists, however):

And then there are rooms like this:

Xavier loves these rooms because they = bricolage. (Bricolage is handyman work - the verb, bricoler, in French is so much more amusing than its English equivalents, especially when Xavier is enthusiastically employing it, while sporting the leather bricoleur belt and holding a drill).

There is a bathroom I love:

And so many other crazy details:

There is even a dumb waiter. I think we have Thomas Jefferson to thank for this contraption. With a little bricolage à la Xavier to the suspended pulley, I will be popping out of this thing for dinner parties before you know it. You will have to come, although now I've ruined the surprise.

And Chris looks great in the window seat.

There are projects enough in this house to last the rest of our lives. You start one teeny tiny thing and you discover ten other projects that need doing in that same 2-foot space.

The little garden is another matter entirely.