The Prairie Cemetary (But First, A Quick Stop At Home)

Ah, but who am I to talk? When it comes to beauty we can live with, I am the prince of procrastination.

Our house is nearly 200 years old. When we first moved in, my wife took down the wallpaper, only to discover that, in the bathroom at least, there was no wall behind the paper. On the upside, this has kept the bathroom well-ventilated.

On the downside, it's the ugliest room in the building, and we use it every day. I could give you a sheet of reasons why I don't get to this project. Some of them are pretty solid, too — even experienced renovators are loath to touch bathrooms. But every morning this one ugly room confronts and sneers at my failure of nerve.

And every morning I shrug it off and face some other pressing task. It is, after all, a bathroom — the one room in the house where the contemplation of the beautiful has a piquant irony of its own.