Home Tour Recap

Guys, the home tour was insane... in a good way! If you are visiting my blog because you were on the tour - WELCOME!

So about that home tour...

I have a lot of dreams, but being on a home tour was never one of them. But when a friend suggested that my house would be great fit for the Irvington Historic Home Tour, I thought, why not? I emailed the board of the Benton House to ask about the application process and before I knew it I was having a home visit that ended with a "we'd love to have you on the tour!" After that I had about four months to plan, which turned to be just that, planning only. What with my month long trip to Switzerland, my unfortunate accident, and subsequent surgery (more on that here), I was happy to just get the house cleaned (you can read about my realistic to-do list here)!

Anyway, enough with the set up. The tour itself was amazing and strange. It ran from 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm so for five hours I stood in my living room welcoming people into my house.

Me, awkwardly being photographed. No joke, my friend had to coach
me on how to smile, that is how much I dislike getting my picture taken.

While I could tell you lots of stories about all the awesome people I met, I'll keep it simple with two lists. First, the phrases I said hundreds of times, and second, the most common questions/comments I heard.

These are the phrases I said about 500 times (which is around how many people came through my house!):
"Hi, I'm Jasmin, welcome to home."
"Thanks for visiting."
"Thank you, I appreciate that."
"Have a nice afternoon."
"That's so nice of you, thank you."
"I have a blog if you want to know more about ______."

These are a few of the questions/comments that I heard A LOT:
"Are you English?" - my response was always, "No, just an anglophile."
"You sure do love to travel."
"You are an avid reader."
"Are you an artist?" - I said, "No, I'm just artist-ic."
"We are soul mates/we should be friends." - I got this comment a lot! It was my favorite comment of course :) Welcome, to all of my new friends!
"Where did you get that chandelier?" - the dining room chandelier was very popular!
"What are those little books on the wall?" - the post card wall art led to a lot of questions.
"Are the floors original?"
"Is that a photo of your grandparents' wedding?"
"Did you take those photos behind the old windows?"
"How long have you lived here?" - Since I've been here for 20 months, I had the weird decision of saying I've lived here for 20 months which makes me sounds like the mother of a toddler or saying a year and a half, I went with "A year and half." or the occasional, "Almost two years."
"How old is the house?"
"Is there a basement?"

Flowers from my Mom!

Flowers from the tour coordinator!

Disclaimer: I am a major introvert so the thought of talking with hundreds of people for five hours straight was anxiety inducing to say the least, BUT everyone was so nice and kind that my anxieties quickly vanished.  I had a really lovely time and I was happy to meet so many cool people. Special thanks to my Mom, Hayley, Kristen, and Amy for being with me for moral support :)

Last Post Before the Home Tour!

Soooo.... that time has come, the home tour is this weekend! I'm excited, nervous, and I'm already tired thinking about how long I'm going to be standing and schmoozing. But I think it will go well. If you live in the Indianapolis area you should definitely check it out! My house is one of six homes and there are also three buildings. It should be pretty cool. Tickets are available at several Irvington locations (more information here).

In other news, here is what I was able to accomplish before the tour (my original list here, my updated list here):

1) Replace/Get blinds in the living (currently only two of the four windows have blinds). 
2) Hang the TV (I already have the mount).
3) Buy new plants to replace some of mine that are looking sort of sad.
4) Clean, just like, everything.
Bonus items:
* Build sofa table to replace my 'faux' table I created (here). 
* Re-grout shower 
(posts to come about all these projects soon!)

Considering how I was gone for a month and then one-handed for the first five weeks I was home, I'm pretty proud of everything I was able to accomplish. I am excited about the home tour for a lot of reasons but mostly because having my house this clean made me jump on an opportunity I have been thinking about for a while. What is it? Well, you will just have to stay tuned to find out! 

New Art: Irvington Edition

The home tour is inching closer and in preparation for the tour I got news and a gift. The new is that, despite all the information to the contrary, my house wasn't actually built in 1925... it was built in 1922! How did I come by this info? An Irvington historian told me. Every home on the tour was researched by a historian who gathered as much information about the house as possible. All the information was interesting but the most surprising thing was that my house is three years older than I though. Crazy, huh?

I also got an awesome gift. Every year before the home tour there is a poster contest. As a one of the homeowners on the tour I got a signed copy of the winning print (done by Paula Nicewanger)!

via Facebook

Isn't it lovely? Even better, when I got home I found that the 10"x15" print fit perfectly in a frame I bought for $2 at a yard sale last summer. The frame was a dull wood color so I did a quite spray paint job to make it look a little more modern. If you are wondering how I spray painted something while wearing a cast on my dominate hand, the answer is, my cast now has spray paint on it.

I hung it in the dinning room corner that I updated a few months ago (here). I think it looks great!

Again, apologies for the blurry pictures, but dude, I'm doing the best I can with this cast. 

Home Tour To-Do List Updated

This September my house will be featured in the Irvington Home Tour which I mentioned here. I'm still really excited about it, but since getting back from my trip and my subsequent hand surgery I have lacked the energy/ability to attempt nearly all of the projects I so ambitiously assumed I would get done in time (for the full list click here, but be warned, it is a ridiculously long list). It was, in fact, 18 items long. Yeah... sometimes I really overshoot things. So my new and improved (and much more realistic) list is 4 items long.

1) Replace/Get blinds in the living (currently only two of the four windows have blinds).

2) Hang the TV (I already have the mount).

3) Buy new plants to replace some of mine that are looking sort of sad.

4) Clean, just like, everything.

Bonus items:
* Build sofa table to replace my 'faux' table I created (here).
* Re-grout shower


From the day I get my cast off till the day of the home tour I have 25 days. I'm not sure yet how quickly I'll have full use of my hand after the cast comes off, but I think that completing these four tasks (with the possibility of two extra bonus items) within 25 days is reasonable.

Wish me luck!