So I've finally attained my life's goal: a great big turnip in the country. If by "great big turnip in the country" you mean "yuppie house in the burbs."

Originally, being the cultured metropolitanites we are, we limited our property hunt to condos in the city. But we expanded our search to more far-flung areas after three or four conversations like the following:

real estate agent: It has marble countertops, 32-inch maple cabinets, and a roofdeck.

us: Does it have room for 12,000 books?

real estate agent: uh...

us: NEXT!

So now we have not only a library in which to store the books, but a lush backyard complete with hammock in which to enjoy the books.

Before we found our current house, we had a chance to poke around many other people's properties, and I have to say I am appalled at the state of other people's home decorating taste. I realize people tend to clean up their homes before showing them, but it just got more and more depressing to walk through the umpteenth bookless and spartanly furnished save for one vase with some sort of varnished twig sticking out of it condo. Either these people had no personality/possessions whatsoever, or they had crammed their entire life Fibber McGee-style in some closet not included on the agent's tour.

1. 70s porn house: It seriously looked like it had hosted many a weekend orgy, right down to its rock-studded fireplace, deep-pile carpet, cheap wood paneling, and hot tub room (conveniently located right off of the kitchen).

2. run for your life house: The front door didn't close, let alone lock, and there was a rather large crack running down the living room wall. In the kitchen, the bottom half of the dishwasher had rusted away, and what was left of the top half listed to one side like a drunken sailor. Ironically enough, this house contained more books than all the other places we saw combined, even if these books were just a collection of Reader's Digest Condensed Classics.

3. salute to patriotism house: 90% of the house was decorated in (sometimes contrasting) shades of red, white, and blue. The front foyer and hall were painted a particularly harsh metallic teal, while the living room was decorated with a lovely motif of humongous sponge-painted diamonds of the same teal hue. The front den had been rag painted with darker blue stripes over a lighter blue background. The contents of the den included a prominently displayed red, white, and blue candle, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, a framed sheet of money, a shelf of U.S.A. beanie babies, and two carefully framed and museum-quality lighted Thomas Kincaide paintings of patriotic monuments.

Dear reader, we chose to purchase house number 3. It has good bones and there was nothing wrong with it that a few coats of paint couldn't cure. In the end, we painted every room except the half bath, an undertaking which took about a month of planning and then a week of solid painting until 3 o'clock in the morning effort. Things are looking much better now.

Not that I don't love my country, but these people had basically turned America-worshipping into their own private religion. When we first moved in, I couldn't reach into the nether parts of a cabinet without pulling out some red/white/blue object of kitsch (my favorite: patriotic wax santa). We seem to have exorcised the last of these bibelots, however, and converted the house into our own shrine to faux painting effects. From colorwashing to antiqued leather to suede paints to Venetian plaster, we tried them all. The numbness in my wrist has just about subsided, and it was seriously worth all the work, even the five hours I spent making tiny Xes all over the walls of the bedroom with a suede paint-laden 2-inch brush.