Nicole Curtis announced the open house for the Grand Boulevard house this weekend on Facebook and I immediately called Mom to tell her I’d pick her up Sunday morning. Last fall we went on the pre-reno tour and I’ve been carefully watching to see when the final reveal would be. Mom was on study lockdown, but an ever dependable blog buddy she gave herself a couple hours out the house for the trip.
Since Nicole remembered my tweet last time, I decided to tweet again. Another lesson learned from last time was that our family friends live in the neighborhood. Last time, we stopped over to say hi after the tour but this time we dropped by first. Thankfully, Ursula didn’t mind me parking in her driveway and was okay with my tornado contingency plan to hide in her basement – safety first.
I was feeling good about our preparation and plan. We got in line a little early last time but it moved fairly quickly so I decided to be calm and not rush. Admittedly, I also thought the rainy weather with predictions of storms would deter at least a hundred people or so. Nope. There were hundreds and hundreds of people. The line wrapped down a lengthy block, around to passed the back of the house on the other side. Even with the crummy weather, I think there were more people than last time. Nicole herself walked the line to tell folks she was happy to see them but that it was going to be a wait. It didn’t occur to me that a pre-reno tour would go faster simply because there is less to look at. It seems obvious now that a massive decorated house takes time to look through. We waited but the lack of movement and my promise to have mom home by forced us to bow out.
I considered leaving my blog card at the sign-in table or even with Nicole Curtis herself since she was posing for pictures; however, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. She gets so many requests and demands on her time, I didn’t want to add to the choir. That said, I’m not giving up. Luckily for Detroit, it seems like Nicole will be sticking around town and I’m sure there will be other opportunities to talk to her. In the meantime you can check out HGTV for details on the house (I wouldn’t have been able to take pictures of the inside anyway).
CarrieDaway 