There once was a lovely little Victorian wood frame playhouse on the side of the road.... I wanted it so bad I could taste it.......I was just a little girl and to me it looked just like a miniature version of the old houses around where I grew up. It had a shingle roof with a little dormer, a front porch and a wood burning fireplace with a brick chimney on the side. It was even wired for electricity!
I grew up in the mid 1950s (so now you know how OLD I am, LOL!) Well, anyway, I wanted that little playhouse sitting on the side of the road in a neighboring town here in Georgia for as long as I can remember. I wanted it so bad I begged for one like it every time we went by until finally my dear daddy bought me a little metal playhouse with window flower boxes that I loved.
When I was 12, we moved to the town where the play house was and I always kept my eye on it. Over the years I watched as the land sold on that now busy highway and the little play house disappeared with a business going up in its place. I just assumed the little house was torn down to make way for the business and thought at the time what a shame that was....
Many years later, after I was grown and married with a little girl of my own, the little house would come back into my life. I was doing some decorating for a professional hockey player who was traded from the Chicago Blackhawk's to Atlanta and had moved to Rutledge to get away from the big city. He fell in love with Rutledge, began shopping with us in the old barn that housed our furniture and crafts business and became our family friend.
When he first saw our house he asked would I help him decorate his cabin in a similar manner and I said sure. He had my husband build lots of furniture and cabinets for him and I went out and about to antique shows and the like to shop for country items to fill his cabin.
Several years later, he married and he and his new wife wanted something more than this rustic cabin so they moved to the town where my parents still live. This was the same town where I had once longed for that little playhouse.
To make a long story short he called one day and said I know you'll like to move things (we had at the time he met us and over the next few years moved our house and barn along with a little outbuilding we were using as a guest house). He said I've got something for you'll if you want to come and take a look and see if it is worth moving. He said I'm not going to tell you what it is until you get here but I think your daughter might like it.
As we turned into his drive, curved around the beautiful lake out front and pulled up to his gorgeous new home, there in the woods behind his house and in very sad shape, sat the little Victorian playhouse of my dreams!
Imagine that, the former owner is the one who had bought the land in town and put his business there where the little playhouse was. He had moved the playhouse when he built his home and put it behind his house for his children or grandchildren to enjoy.
Now, after all these years, our Canadian friend moves there, discovers the same little playhouse and thought of us, wanting to give it to us to move again for my daughter!
He thought it an eyesore behind his home but did see the potential it had for my husband and me to move after having seen our relocated home and outbuildings. He had no idea until I told him this story with tears streaming down my face how much I had always wanted and loved that little Victorian playhouse.
My husband moved it on a flatbed trailer to our back yard with the help of a friend. My daughter and the two children my husband and I were soon to have (a girl and a boy) all grew up playing in and loving that little playhouse. It was a favorite spot over the years for them and their little playmates.
This little playhouse or one just like it must have been mine in another lifetime, its pull on me was that strong. That pull and/or fate somehow brought us together with the help of our Canadian friend, many years after I first saw the little playhouse sitting on the side of the road......
A little girls dream come true!
No comments:
Post a Comment