When we walked through this house after it came onto the market, we fell in love with it. We could tell almost immediately that this was a house owned by two gay men who tried to “straighten it up” for prospective owners.  The purple tellitubbi on the fridge, the gay pride flags, the Human Rights Campaign stickers on the window, and the man on man erotic art hanging on the wall gave it away pretty quickly.  What we were ill-prepared for was what has affectionately become known as “the rec room”.

The bedroom at the top of the stairs was painted a blood red and had black carpet.  Pride flags hung over the windows in lieu of curtains.  And these enormous macrame plant holder hung from the ceiling. In them were the smallest plants ever.  Clearly they had just been purchased.

They hung from these:

Five I-bolts.  That seemed a bit odd to us.  Or at least Garbanzo and I.  Our Realtor’s reaction was “oh, the Plant room! I can totally see why they use this room for their plants – the light is great!”

Garbanzo and I snickered because we were pretty sure a different kind of “planting” was happening in this room.  How we were sure we were correct?

The cleats in the corners pretty much gave it away.  As did the sound proofing they did for when the door was closed. 

Because this was going to be Garbanzo’s comic book room, he opted to leave them in place. The ceiling is plaster – the holes left behind would have been a bitch to patch.  And, how can you tell this story without visuals.

We are currently having a debate as to whether to remove them now that the room is our oldest daughter’s room.  They are still there for now.  But, Garbanzo may change his mind – especially after she declared how much she loved carrying vibrating things.  Not to imply vibrators will result in a love for bondage – but in Garbanzo’s mind, logic is irrelevant.  Anything sex-related plus his daughter is bad.