Daytripping to Smithfield

Today was cold...freezing...but sunny! Just the day to slip in a trip to Smithfield before the warm weather arrives this week end. (I hope it comes as promised!)

I can't resist looking for my next project and the Internet Real Estate sections certainly feed that habit! Last Friday, on my way from here to there, I decided to swing through Smithfield and check out whether I really liked the house I had made an offer on a bit ago. The couple who own it had verbally countered, but I don't know...and driving by I felt I had made the right decision to forget about it. As I was driving off I noticed that an Antique shop I frequent on Main Street had a For Sale sign out front! It turned out I was the first to spy it! The owner, a retired Marine showed me around. He and his wife have owned it 12 years and it is named after his wife and their small (old) black lab.

The house is a turn of the century frame Victorian Duplex and chock a block full of you name it! I took a picture or two but I have to learn how to use this new camera so I can post pictures....Drat!!! While I was there I bought an Imari plate, a Chandelier, a pillow, some treen...all for resale. The price is reasonable, the house is 3000 sq. ft. If it weren't a shop, though, it would be a dump...I don't know why I wanted to go in it again, but I wanted Fax to see it. The weather is supposed to turn nice this weekend for awhile and I knew I would want to concentrate on working on the house here. So off we went! With the 2 dogs...Kujo, a Pomeranian (9) and Bonzai, a Bark-a-minute-Papillon, (10). Plus Fax's cat: Pungo,1...in his crate. Pungo is a very good Crate Cat!

The drive to Smithfield is along the Colonial Parkway...always a beautiful 45 mph highway...unless a hurricane has just passed through! Then you hook up with the ferry to Surry County at Jamestown. We hit the ferry departure just right...I told Fax he was lucky because I would have ranted (and blamed him!) for 20 minutes if we hadn't! The downside of the ferry is that the car engine has to be turned off and it can get right cold on a day like today! At least we got the sunny side of the ferry this time!!! I had my hat and gloves on though!

There are many birds to see while riding the ferry... seagulls, of course, but also hundreds of cormorants and quite a few brown pelicans, which weren't local at all 25 years ago! Soon there will be Osprey arriving to build nests on the pilings. We dozed in the sunshine, but I woke up just in time to see a bald eagle sitting right at eye level on a guide buoy or piling! I see bald eagles all of the time these days (even had a twitterpated couple checking out my pine trees for a nesting site last week,) but it is the first time I have seen one sitting...not doing anything...just sitting there~looking around~with the ferry going by.

In Smithfield I gave Fax a little tour of the houses for sale and their prices..(his second visit and now he can tell I go for the lower end of the spectrum)... and then we stopped by the shop. I like it, but I don't think it will work out. I am too much of a perfectionist to put up with the sloping floors and the spaces feel tight. Many little rooms all filled to the brim with things for sale and NOT for sale...old lamp shades everywhere, empty boxes...there are shelves built over the tubs and toilets and sinks and some of the rooms are not used at all. It has potential...but maybe for someone else to realize! I tell Fax that I still prefer Warrenton, NC. Since that town is 150 miles away he is quick to point some of Smithfield's charms...waterfront and a mere 32 miles with a 20 minute ferry ride in the middle! (Just enough time to pluck my eyebrows!) I'm not sure I want to have a shop again at this time in my life: I like restoring houses. I figure I can be a captive audience again someday when I am in my eighties. That way I'll never be lonely, but for now....hmmm...well! We'll see!

There is a nice footnote: Smithfield pretty much restored its Main Street area about 10 years ago. It was fun driving down the street at dusk and seeing the shop keepers closing up for the night. I pulled up in front of a beautiful shop and pointed out a display piece that I had sold from my booth in the antique mall. All of the houses seemed to sparkle and spring to life and we could even see in the windows! Now that is something you don't get every day in Suburbia!