14
Ivy had just returned from the front desk after checking in a weekend guest when she saw Mitch carrying a wooden baluster up the stairs from the lower level. “Do you need help?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got this,” Mitch replied.
“Looks like Shelly found a lot of things she can use down there. Here, I can dust that off for you. Put it on the kitchen counter.”
Mitch slid the short pillar carefully onto the tile. The lathe-turned column had been one of many that might have held up a balustrade, perhaps for a staircase or a railing.
Ivy brought out a cleaning rag with a special wood-cleaning formula and smoothed it over the old piece. “This restores old wood. Look how beautiful it is now.”
After the paintings Ivy and Shelly had discovered in the lower level had been removed and they’d brough
