The House on Tradd Street by WHITE KAREN

Author:WHITE, KAREN [WHITE, KAREN]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440602436
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2009-11-16T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The weeks passed quickly, the days filled with sawdust, the smell of fresh plaster and the tread of feet. I was on a first-name basis with an electrician, a plumber, a roofer, an arborist (on account of the oak tree outside developing a fungus my father couldn’t identify), a feng shui decorator (Chad’s recommendation), an exterminator (thanks to the colonies of termites calling the foundation their home), and a massage therapist (to deal with the various muscle pains and frequent headaches these relationships caused). My manicurist and hairstylist had begun calling and leaving worried messages, assuming I had been in a horrible accident or had died since in the past these two scenarios would have been the only excuses I’d allow for me to miss an appointment.

We had managed to roll up the Aubusson rug in the drawing room—and found nothing of interest underneath in the floorboard, despite a thorough examination—and sent it away for repairs. We found a temporary home for most of the furniture in the room (except for the grandfather clock) at a newly restored home in the Ansonborough district that was being opened as a house museum. Sophie brought in a colleague and expert in the grad department of historical restoration at the University of Pennsylvania to come look at the ceiling from where the chandelier had taken its suicidal leap. This was the same guy who had been behind the restoration of the grand hall ceiling at Drayton Hall and had won some award for an article he’d written about it.

Even I was impressed as I watched him and one of Sophie’s grad students take plaster casts of the existing medallion to be used in replacing those pieces that had been destroyed utilizing the same techniques and materials that had been used to make the original. I watched as they drilled a series of small holes along existing cracks, into which they injected some sort of epoxy filler with huge syringes to prevent further damage and prohibit chunks of ceiling plaster from falling on unsuspecting room occupants.

Leaning more toward conservation than preservation, Sophie had wanted to leave the ceiling as it was after the repair work was done—without hiding the cracks or painting over the repair job. But since I was a Realtor, my goal was to sell the house for as much money as I possibly could. And most people didn’t want to see cracks in their ceilings, no matter how authentic it looked.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t allow compromises, though, as long as they made sense. I’d allowed Sophie to consult with experts and use real plaster instead of Sheetrock in most of the restoration. But I also stood firm when it came to gutting the kitchen and bathrooms, and adding a bathroom to the existing master suite. She’d looked at me as if I were a Hun destroying a village of widows and orphans—or, as she put it, not respecting the original builder’s vision of the house. I shouldered her

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