Let's check in on the Charming Wreck

So, one of the major topics of this blog, as stated in our masthead, is "the ongoing trials of an old mostly-not-haunted Charming Wreck of a house."

Today I am happy to announce the completion of a project. We have a room we call The Nexus. It serves the same function as a hallway, except that The Nexus is more or less square with 7 doors, one linen cupboard and a telephone nook. The Nexus connects to every room upstairs (except the living room) and also grants access to the basement.

As you might imagine, this room gets a lot of traffic and it has a LOT of trim ... and doors ... and drawers ... and a telephone bench ... which have all now been painted white. The walls are gray (not yellow). The ceiling is blue (not old house white). The light fixture has been replaced with something that doesn't cast a yellow light. And The Nexus looks good. This project is done! Let the re-population of the linen closet commence!

Of course, "done" doesn't mean "finished." The Charming Wreck is far too old to ever be finished, and The Nexus is no exception. The new current house project is to complete a long delayed office remodel in the basement. Once that room is available, we can move the current office out of the guest bedroom. Then the guest bedroom (just off The Nexus) can be painted with blue walls, a gray ceiling and white trim (using some paint we happen to have left over). THEN we will re-enter The Nexus as both it and the Guest Bedroom get matching ceiling moldings to tie them together.

But all that is for the future. Today's secret word is DONE.

As Adam from Mythbusters would say,

"Well, there's your problem."

The Oldest House in Spokane

It's amazing how often it happens. A perfect stranger walks up to us in the grocery store, at Miller's Hardware, or in the park and says "You're those people! With that house!"

It's true. We are the people with that house. That house on the corner that you've driven by a million times, the house that you've always wondered what it's like inside, the house that looks like someone's fixing it up (very slowly).

The fun part of the conversation is what inevitably comes next, though. The "I heard..." part of the conversation. Because the Charming Wreck is so visible, stories have sprung up around it like bindweed. Total strangers have pulled into our driveway to tell us what we should know about our house. Like that it was the first house in Spokane with electricity. (It wasn't.) Or that there's a secret room in the basement. (There isn't.)

Today, though, we heard a new one. "You're the people! With that house! I heard it's the oldest house in Spokane!" Whoa. Since the Spokane House trading post was built in 1810, and the Charming Wreck was built in 1922, we really can't lay claim to that particular superlative.

This is going to be a hard rumor to quash, though. Apparently, the people who asked us heard it from their kids, who attend the elementary school across the street. I just know that there are groups of kids at recess telling the younger ones hair-raising tales of the old house ("The Oldest!") built on a Indian burial ground ("For reals!") haunted by a crazy old lady ("like, two hundred years old!") who eats kids.

Probably explains why we never get any trick-or-treaters.