A Bedspread Tour

A kind of rainbow

I was standing on the balcony in Les Saintes Suite.  When I turned around, it occurred to me that it's true: every room really is a different color.  

There are no hallways in La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.  Though it doesn't look like it from the street, the rooms are laid out like two double shotgun shacks, one stacked on top of the other.  Every room has at least two doors.  The stairwells are in the middle of the building.

Everyone comments on the paint job at our inn, both the outside and the inside.  When guests get the tour during check-in, they usually say something along the lines of, "It must have been fun picking all these colors."  Yes, but it didn't end with the walls and the ceilings.  The angels, as usual, are in the details.

Tammie, the housekeeper, follows me around.  The other day, she asked me, "Who taught you how to make a bed?"  As a former U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, I informed her that I had been to school for it, twice.  I learned how to make a bed for when I was at sea, and I learned how to make a bed for a hospital patient.  I demonstrated on the corner of the bed in La Pelican Suite, making the bed one way, then another.

The bed in La Pelican Suite

"So that's why you never make the bed the same way twice," Tammie said.  "That's why I've been following you around.  That, and I want to make sure I know where your glasses are when you ask if I've seen them."

Absentminded and easily distracted, I do tend to leave my glasses lying around because I don't use them to see up close.  I take them off when I'm helping Tammie with the housekeeping because I don't need to wear them for her to pick up what I miss.  

Tammie is a very good housekeeper, but she's wrong about why I never make the bed the same way twice.  I am absentminded and easily distracted.  I get to looking around and admiring the room I'm in, and then I forget how I tucked the last corner, so I make it up as I go along.  I've been to school for this, after all.  Twice.  It will work out fine, I'm sure, just like our color choices.

After Tammie was done remaking the bed behind me, I mentioned that Frau Schmitt, who is usually right about these things, picked all the bedspreads to match the walls and the theme of each suite.  I wasn't involved, but it must have been fun to choose all the bedspreads.  It was fun for me to choose the things I was in charge of.

"Just look at this one," I said.

A rococo landscape

I smoothed out the wrinkles on the bed in La Pelican Suite.  "Look at this reverie of sub-tropical climates and ancient places," I said. "It's like a view of Acadia.  There's a view like this on the corner or Elysian Fields Avenue and North Bunnyfriend Street that looks just like that, across from the playground."

A real New Orleans street name

Tammie, impatient as usual, asked me, "You do know that I have work to do?"  

I thought we should take a tour of the bedspreads, instead, so we went across the stairwell to Les Saintes Suite.

Meditation in Creole paisley

Les Saintes is my favorite suite, though Frau Schmitt likes to say that La France Suite is my favorite.  She is usually right about these things.  

"Really look at this bedspread," I suggested to Tammie.  "If there is anything true about living here, it's that the city is full of motion like a drop of the Mississippi under a microscope.  There are saints in New Orleans and then there are the Saints."  We looked at the bedspread for a few moments in awkward silence until I added, "Jack Kerouac liked paisley."

"I don't know who Jack Kerouac is, but I'm pretty sure you're no Jack Kerouac," Tammie said.

I followed her downstairs to Les Fleur Suite.

A springtime medley

"This is our most romantic suite," I remarked to Tammie while she made the bed, "Minutes in New Orleans are like petals tossed in the breeze.  You don't know what wild flowers you'll find growing along the sidewalk, you don't know what you'll find around the next corner, you never know..."

"Do you mind if we go upstairs?" Tammie interrupted as she placed a praline between the bed pillows.  I didn't, so we walked up the stairs to the Clio Suite.

Tchoupitoulas mandala

Being an innkeeper, every day is the same and different.  A house is a collection of everything that has ever happened in it.  A historic New Orleans bed and breakfast is a comfortably eccentric home away from home.  La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast is a work in progress.  All the decor has been chosen with care.  There is a story behind everything.  Just ask.

Tammie doesn't seem to mind when I help with the housekeeping.  It may take her longer, but happiness makes good company.  "You're not going to spout off flights of fancy about this bedspread are you?" Tammie asked me as she set to work on Clio's bed.  

We still had La France Suite to tidy up, but I realized I had left my glasses somewhere.  "They're on the front porch," Tammie told me.  Taking her hint, I sat on the front stoop and mugged for the camera, out of mischief, waiting for our next guests to arrive.

Your humble narrator

It was 76 degrees on March 21.  I was wearing a tee shirt.  Frau Schmitt took my picture while I was waiting for our guests from San Antonio to arrive.  They are lovely young ladies who are staying in La France Suite tonight.  They were a pleasure to meet, and a pleasure to know, just like the couple from St. Louis who are staying in La Pelican Suite, and the the young lady from Ireland who is cheerfully gracious, and the chef from Pisa and his lovely bride who have been touring America for two weeks, and the medical students from Saudi Arabia who are moving to New Orleans in June.  

It is no wonder New Orleans innkeepers have dimpled cheeks.  They meet the nicest people.  Of course, everyone in New Orleans meets the nicest people.  There is southern hospitality, and then there is New Orleans hospitality.  New Orleans has a little bit extra.  

If we don't have any availability when you plan to visit New Orleans, there are plenty of other licensed bed and breakfast inns in New Orleans to choose from.  We hope we have room at our inn when you choose to stay in our fair city.

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.