Gingerbread DIY in Delhi

Another day, another breathless New York Times article about someone's dream cabin in the Catskills. Yesterday, it was Delhi's turn to be feted with a 16-photo slideshow (check out the Delhi sweatshirt in slide 13) about Sandra Foster's hunting-cabin-turned-Victorian-vision-in-white: 

Ms. Foster has her own shabby-chic retreat. It may not have a bathroom or a kitchen, but it is a dream of Victoriana: stacks of Limoges china with tiny rosebud patterns; chandeliers dripping crystal; billows of tissue-paper garlands. This is all the more impressive because she renovated the 9-by-14-foot cottage, an old hunting cabin, herself. The cost of renovating and furnishing it: $3,000.

As often happens in these NYT home-and-garden features, the Fosters' idiosyncrasies are under as much scrutiny as their decor. In this case, the reporter dwells on Ms. Foster's traumatic journey from homelessness to Victoriana:

The stress became so intense that Ms. Foster had what she called a nervous breakdown: falling on the floor, screaming, crying ... In 2007, they found this wooded property, with the trailer and cabin, for $46,000. Ms. Foster, seeing the hunting cabin on the hill, knew it could be her dream house. “It was like coming home,” she said, after Mr. Foster had gone to do chores and the conversation had moved up the hill to her cottage. “I get tears in my eyes thinking about it. It was everything I had dreamed of, in every novel I had read, every song I had heard.”

Hey, who doesn't feel that way about their weekend house? 

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