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Halloween and a Room with a View Halloween was great fun at our spooky old home. As 250 to 300 kids roamed the sidewalks, many crossing the street to get away from our house, we seem to naturally fall into the creepy haunted house category.

We stood quietly behind the closed door with a small Jack-O-Lantern in hand, who's face moved around behind the glass panel, beckoning the small, mid, and older children to dare to come up to the door. Phillip stood waiting behind it in Grim Reaper robes to greet them. Many decided not to approach... once a rumored haunted house, always a rumored haunted house. On occasion the front door was wide open and at the approach of would be trick or treaters, the door would suddenly slam shut... that one was good! I commented on how much I love the sound of children screaming in fright, only to be overheard by a couple passing by in front of the house, they found it quite ammusing and chuckled their way down the street. So welcome to the holiday season of 2009, we will do our best this year with our limited time and resources, but promise that the holiday season of 2010 will be our foray into big holiday celebrations. The neighborhood is fairly safe this year, however, next year you won't know what hit you! The weekend, aside from Halloween, was spent hard at work on 227 North Street. Phillip spent Saturday, with plans in hand, laying out the new bathrooms, closets, and laundry room on the second floor. I, unfortunately, decided to do some digging in the front yard around the front door area.  I broke down the temporary ramp, and dug away at the mounds of dirt on either side of the entrance to our home. I guess I forgot how much work digging is, and boy was I sore Sunday morning, or perhaps I am just getting too old for this kind of work. Sunday we started building walls for the afore mentioned new rooms, and a discovery was made that makes you really hate the term "historic". The third floor bathroom has a dormer window being added to it so that it will not be cave like. The city is allowing the dormer windows because they are not visible from the street as they face west toward our next door neighbors home. But if you happen to look directly east there is an amazing view of Fitch Mountain. All we would need to do is build the dormers on the other side of the house, facing Fitch Street, to open up the view of the Mountain. But no! Dormer windows were not common on a home of our style in the 1870's, and as such the beautiful view will be walled up and covered over. As they say, buck up and get over it... count yourself lucky if you do not have to deal with term "historic".

Posted by Mark at 12:07 PM