Well, sort of.....
I didn't make it to any brokers' opens this week, why I honestly can't remember. Oh yes! I went to Moravia to meet a young woman interested in buying a home, but she was unable to meet me. It was a lovely drive, however - much recommended if you don't go that way a lot.
Last week I went to Saratoga to visit my good friend, Eva. I've known her since our boys went to school at the Waldorf school, Spring Hill. I was the administrator, and Eva and her husband were strong supporters. They had chosen to live in Saratoga because of the presence of a Waldorf school. Eva was originally from Germany and met her husband in Mexico.
Her house is the subject though.....it's a small ranch, and when they bought it in 1988 it consisted of two bedrooms, a living room and a galley kitchen plus a full bath, of course. The sunporch overlooking the Vermont mountains was there, too, I believe.
Since then they've taken the two car garage and turned it into a bright family room plus a full bath with a sauna. It's a step down from the kitchen, and heated by a wood stove. We used to joke that we couldn't visit anyone but each other in the winter because our stoves made our homes so warm, we froze elsewhere.
They've also added an above ground pool that sits on a hillside looking out at those mountains. A "summer chalet," actually a shed that Eva dressed up and now can't imagine putting a lawn mower into, is also on the grounds. And in the front is her perennial garden, a marvel filled with waterfalls and stone pathways set off by a brick wall.
But the house itself had undergone a transformation in recent months. I had seen the bathroom she and a friend created - as French as any that Mirbeau has. Stone and more stone. The living room already boasted red leather couches by the fireplace. But after her annual trip to Mexico this year she painted.
The screened in porch is that turquoise color found only - I swear! - in Mexico. The livingroom is now drenched in metallic paints that somehow work to create an incredible effect. Her friend Kathy, before she left for the West coast, painted her son Alexander's room with butterflies and dragonflies for Eva. Last year she did the small hallway in an indescribable green for her birthday.
The total feeling is of walking into another country. I've given Eva over the years several dancing ladies as seen in Imagine in our village. I love them - their colors and their delicacy, their uniqueness. They dance over the dining room table in Eva's little home and seem completely at peace at last. They've found their soulmate.
