Because of the wallpaper project, a top hat and walking stick that were originally displayed on a hall tree in the front entryway of the home are now sitting in a more prominent spot in the Lincoln's sitting room. The other day I had a tour group of 5th graders from inner-city St. Louis. They were mostly African American kids, and for 5th graders they were actually pretty well-behaved. Upon seeing the walking stick in the sitting room, one of the teachers asked if Lincoln had a walking problem or if the walking stick was more of an accessory. I explained that having a walking stick was stylish back then--it would have been part of Lincoln's look. A funny kid right in front of me said, "So, you mean Abraham Lincoln was pimpin'?" That made me laugh. All I could say was, "Yeah, I guess you could say that." According to the slang dictionary, "pimpin'" means "to make an accessory look good," so I guess you could say that was a legitimate question. The Lincoln Home is a strange and funny place.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Clowns and Country Music
Today was a rather bizarre day at the Lincoln Home. I have given tours to a lot of class clowns, but never to a real clown--until today. Chatterbox, an official Shriner's clown (unfortunately not in costume), came to the Lincoln Home this afternoon. When he ran up to me, got right in my face, and said, "Hey, you're pretty!" I knew it was going to be an interesting tour. It would have kind of creeped me out except for the fact that he was an older gentleman who actually turned out to be really nice. In addition to Chatterbox, today's tours of the Lincoln Home included . . . country music! Nothing says Abraham Lincoln and 1860 like country music, right? The Lincolns are getting some new wallpaper in their front stairway, so that area of the home is closed off to visitors. While the plastic barriers put up by the wallpaper workers keeps the dust and steam out of the other rooms in the house, it doesn't exactly block out the sound of their radio. Maybe if they had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir "Songs of the Civil War" CD playing it would have been all right, but the country music kind of killed the ambiance.
Because of the wallpaper project, a top hat and walking stick that were originally displayed on a hall tree in the front entryway of the home are now sitting in a more prominent spot in the Lincoln's sitting room. The other day I had a tour group of 5th graders from inner-city St. Louis. They were mostly African American kids, and for 5th graders they were actually pretty well-behaved. Upon seeing the walking stick in the sitting room, one of the teachers asked if Lincoln had a walking problem or if the walking stick was more of an accessory. I explained that having a walking stick was stylish back then--it would have been part of Lincoln's look. A funny kid right in front of me said, "So, you mean Abraham Lincoln was pimpin'?" That made me laugh. All I could say was, "Yeah, I guess you could say that." According to the slang dictionary, "pimpin'" means "to make an accessory look good," so I guess you could say that was a legitimate question. The Lincoln Home is a strange and funny place.
Because of the wallpaper project, a top hat and walking stick that were originally displayed on a hall tree in the front entryway of the home are now sitting in a more prominent spot in the Lincoln's sitting room. The other day I had a tour group of 5th graders from inner-city St. Louis. They were mostly African American kids, and for 5th graders they were actually pretty well-behaved. Upon seeing the walking stick in the sitting room, one of the teachers asked if Lincoln had a walking problem or if the walking stick was more of an accessory. I explained that having a walking stick was stylish back then--it would have been part of Lincoln's look. A funny kid right in front of me said, "So, you mean Abraham Lincoln was pimpin'?" That made me laugh. All I could say was, "Yeah, I guess you could say that." According to the slang dictionary, "pimpin'" means "to make an accessory look good," so I guess you could say that was a legitimate question. The Lincoln Home is a strange and funny place.
Monday, February 22, 2010
The Master Bath
Here are some more results of our work here at the condo. The bathroom off of the master bedroom was pretty scary when we moved in, but removing the wallpaper border, painting it a nice shade of green, getting a new shower curtain, adding a medicine cabinet, installing a new towel rack, and hanging some pictures made a world of difference!Here is the new-and-improved bathroom:
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Slowly but Surely
Fixing up a house is a lot of work! But it is very rewarding, and it's fun to see it transform into your own place. Our condo is coming along slowly but surely. We have gotten most of our stuff put away, but we're still working on a few things. When Greg has a little break from school and work we'll try to get our downstairs bathroom finished--it needs new tile, a new toilet, and a new sink, but it's really nice to have two other bathrooms to use while we're waiting to finish that one. We are also waiting for our awesome new couch to arrive sometime next week--and then I think it will really feel like home. I'll post pictures as we finish up the different rooms in the house. Then once we're all done, Greg and I will walk through with the video camera so you can get a better view of the place. It is the perfect house for us.
Here are the before and after shots of the guest bathroom:
It looks much more inviting now, right? This is our farm-themed bathroom. I absolutely love the yellow paint in there--it really brightens it up and makes it feel nice and big. At some point we will get a new toilet in there, but the one we have is good for now.
Next we have the guest room (aka the sports room):
I didn't have any good pictures of this room from before we moved in, but it was pretty scary. The wall that now has the shelves on it was covered in some crazy wallpaper. As you can see, Lily has adopted the futon as her play area. We still have a bit of cleaning up to do in the guest room, but it's coming along nicely. It's great to have room to put all of our stuff around! So, the condo is keeping us busy, but we are making a lot of progress. Soon I will have pictures of the rest of the house.
Here are the before and after shots of the guest bathroom:
It looks much more inviting now, right? This is our farm-themed bathroom. I absolutely love the yellow paint in there--it really brightens it up and makes it feel nice and big. At some point we will get a new toilet in there, but the one we have is good for now.
Next we have the guest room (aka the sports room):
I didn't have any good pictures of this room from before we moved in, but it was pretty scary. The wall that now has the shelves on it was covered in some crazy wallpaper. As you can see, Lily has adopted the futon as her play area. We still have a bit of cleaning up to do in the guest room, but it's coming along nicely. It's great to have room to put all of our stuff around! So, the condo is keeping us busy, but we are making a lot of progress. Soon I will have pictures of the rest of the house.
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