Won't get fooled again ...

Walk this way ...

Old houses often come with architectural anomalies. In our case, it’s access to the upper floor. An extension built in 1844 removed the original stairs in the living room, replacing them with a curved staircase in, of all places, the dining room. An odd design choice, but perhaps the only way to create stairs between the two bedrooms rather than in the middle of one of them. The stairs begin with a sharp left turn and end with a hard right or left into a narrow hallway. The angles are abrupt and unforgiving.

We are no strangers to tight stairwells. When we moved into our previous home in Philadelphia, we brought with us garden furniture intended for the roof deck. Towards the end of a long day unloading the van, the movers alerted us to a small problem: one piece of garden furniture was too large to maneuver around the corners leading upstairs. But like Baldrick, they had a cunning plan. While we discreetly looked the other way, they used ropes and their own considerable muscle power to hoist the piece up the side of the house to the roof, earning our never-ending respect and a larger tip.

And yet, at first glance we failed to see the limitations of the Willow Greens Farm staircase. That is, until the local Mattress Megastore showed up. It turns out a box spring is not very flexible. My rising panic was assuaged by an offer to exchange for split box springs, which turned out to be a perfectly satisfactory solution. Bullet dodged.

A perfect fit for one of the upstairs bedrooms — aesthetically, anyway.

The bedrooms now being sparsely furnished with very basic beds, we set about looking for furniture. There’s nothing Chris loves more than an auction, and he’s had good luck finding interesting pieces for various rooms in the house. A lovely American Colonial style dresser came up for bids, we double-checked the posted measurements, and all looked well. But alas, the legs added the tiniest bit of width, and no amount of twisting and turning could maneuver the dresser around that first curve. We didn’t exactly need another dresser in our (ground floor) master bedroom, but there it shall reside forevermore.

As the saying goes, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We resolved not to get ourselves into this situation again, and every subsequent purchase has been preceded by agonizing rounds of measuring, checking, double-checking, creating mockups, and so on. We shared an enthusiastic high-five during our bathroom remodel, when the tub was brought effortlessly up the stairs.

It’s always something …

Then came a rug for one of the bedrooms. We were confident the rolled-up rug would fit in the staircase and be pliable enough to maneuver around the corners. But we hadn’t bargained on the 15-foot long thick cardboard core in the center. The only way forward was to unroll the rug, remove the core, and roll it back up again. Since we didn’t happen to have an appropriately-sized empty room close at hand (i.e.; on the ground floor), we had to do the unroll-and-roll-up process a few inches at a time.

To be fair, most of the time we have no problem carrying things upstairs. And what we’ve learned from these experiences has helped us make smarter design decisions and product selections. But don’t be surprised if we share more stories like these at a later date. 😃

N.B. Today marks this newsletter’s one-year anniversary. We started it primarily as a diary for ourselves; the engagement from all of you has been a real bonus. It has kept us moving forward and helped rekindle our love of gardening. Thank you for joining us on this journey!