Jinkies!  We’ve just rented a Scooby Doo house!  It’s big, beautiful, and spooky looking on the outside.  It’s charmingly ivy-strewn.  (Is there a synonym for “strewn” that also implies overgrown?)  The floorboards are definitely creaky. The staircase is winding and fits just inside an exterior wall that looks like a castle turret from the outside.   The overall effect:  it looks and sounds like a little red stone castle.

Maybe this sounds awkward and gaudy, but it’s not–just a cool, old house.  It was built around 1900, and it’s a timeless beauty.  (The bathrooms, on the other hand, are most definitely dated.)

The kitchen is the size of a postage stamp (a large postage stamp, thank you), but Dorie Greenspan (she of the Bon Appetit and cookbook fame) also works in a tiny kitchen, so let’s call this chic.  Cozy and European?   Petite and inspired?  Okay, just petite.  But the dining room, my friends,  is spacious and gracious.

It’s hard to give you the full effect without a photo.  I wanted to post a photo, but my kids have reminded me that we we have a rule:  don’t go online and tell people where you live.  There will be hell to pay if I break a rule that my kids have very responsibly upheld.  So no photos for now.   But mark your calendars:  Halloween party at my house this year!  We provide the Scooby snacks.