Catch up!

I'm so far behind on this blog and we've made so much progress!!  Fortunately, we've taken lots of pictures.  Of course, still so much to do, but given that we've only been able to work about a week a month, we've done pretty well.

Best of all, the exterior painting is done!

From across Elm St.

Front porch

Painted detail

East porch

East side

West side

We LOVE the way it's turned out.  It just needs some new landscaping to soften the impact from the street a bit, but we think it's just beautiful.  I am happy to give Billy Hernon of Williams Decorating a big shout out - what a magnificent job he and his team did.

Introduction

I'm the Buckeye - Ohio-raised girl heading back home after living virtually all her adult life in California with stints in Paris, Atlanta, and other odd corners of the world.  Dominique is the Frog - born and bred in Paris, France, now a dual French-American citizen.

We've just bought an 1880, 3-story brick house in Oberlin, Ohio, home of Oberlin College, about 30 miles northwest of Cleveland.  It's a real beauty, and we want to turn it into a bed & breakfast one day.  In the meantime, it needs a lot of work.

This blog, then, is the story of our attempt to restore this Victorian lady to her former glory.  Happily, much work was done before we arrived, and the woodwork, the fireplaces, the hardware are just glorious.  But there's a fair amount of water damage to the floors, it badly needs paint, and it has a fascinating but challenging 50's-era kitchen that's going to take some thought.  Among other things.