31 Days of Spook – Sheraton Read House Hotel

Happy hauntings my sweet friends.  Today I have a story for you that was sent to me by Lexi’s mom, Amy.  Amy told me to look into a haunted place in Chattanooga, Tennessee called the Sheraton Read House Hotel.  This sounded just like the place I needed for my 31 Days of Spook so I started my research.  I was *not* disappointed at all my friends.  So if you need to, grab someones hand, paw or hoof and get ready for a bumpy ride.

The Sheraton Read House Hotel is located at 827 Broad Street, Chattanooga, Tennessee.  The most haunted room in the hotel is room 311.  Room 311 is rumored to be haunted.  You see back in the day there was a lady named Annalisa Netherly who lived at the hotel with her husband.  One day, her husband came to the hotel and let’s just say caught Annalisa Netherly in a compromising position with another man.  Well, the husband lost his mind – was it momentarily or was it already lost – and killed Annalisa.

Now if you talk to some of the workers of the Sheraton Read House Hotel that have been there for years and know about the history, they will tell you that room 311 isn’t really the room that this death took place.  They remodeled the hotel and sealed off the room the murder actually took place.  They then moved the room number down one door.  Now the murder room is still there and you can see the barred window but yet the room remains empty… or is it.

And also a side note that I found out during my research.  When Al Capone was awaiting trial, he stayed in the murder room.  Can you imagine that?  And let us not forget of the story of a soldier ghosts that walks around the 4th floor of the hotel.

And if that murder room and soldier ghost isn’t intriguing enough, there are also secret corridors throughout the hotel.  Some that even the longest employees haven’t even found yet.

So my friends, are you ready for a field trip to spend the night next door to the murder room?

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AND A SIDE NOTE:  This is a personal story that happened to Lexi’s mom, Amy.  Shivers to mergatroid!

Long before Lexi was born, this actually happened. At that time, I lived in a house just north of Cleveland, Tennessee. I had three pictures hanging adjacent to each other on two walls. For a while, when I would get up in the morning, I was sure they had been rearranged. (They were very similar.) So one night when no one else was home and no one else was going to be home before morning, just before retiring for the night, I said out loud, “If you can hear me, I want this picture (pointing) over here and this one over there.” The next morning they had been rearranged, and instead of hanging on the walls, they were propped on the floor in the order I had specified. The spirit wanted to be sure I noticed.

 

Dear Bacon

Dear Bacon – I can explain.  Really I can.  You see, I was really helping my mom out. She kept talking about how much she hated the wallpaper in the hallway.  I just thought I would help her out with it.  You understand, right?  Signed Busted

Dear Busted – I understand completely my friend.  You see, my mom was like that last year about the linoleum in the kitchen.  She talked about how much she hated it – just as imagine your mom did about the wallpaper.  One day, I used my powerful snout and helped pull up a HUGE piece in the middle of the kitchen floor when daddy wasn’t looking.  Like your mom, mine was not too happy with me in the beginning.  But in the end when she had the floor re-done professionally she told me I did a great job in pushing her to get it done.  Give your mom some time.  Surely she will see the bigger picture later and thank you.

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Dear Bacon – Have you ever been so tired that you just sleep where you are?  Like in this picture, it just *hit* me out of the blue and I couldn’t move another paw.  I was just tired out.  Signed Balancing Act

Dear Balancing Act – You do have some unique powers there my friend.  I could *never* balance my little piggy body like that and sleep without fear of falling.  Although, I have been known to just tumble over in pure exhaustion… usually after chasing the purr things here at the Hotel Thompson.  Snorts.

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Dear Bacon – My humans are crazy.  You don’t believe me?  Look at this outfit.  Have you ever seen something so outrageously stupid?  I’m so embarrassed.  A onesie maybe – but this covering my head/ears… help.  Signed Help Me

Dear Help Me – I get it.  I really do.  One or the other – not both in the same outfit.  But you know in a way, you kind of remind me of a giraffe.  Not that I’m hating on you.  I think it’s kind of adorable.  Maybe safe the outfit for Halloween – it’s not too far away.  Yes I think that is it.  Use that outfit to your advantage for Halloween.  Stay cool my friend and have fun.

.

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Dear Bacon – OMD!  Every time I get in the car with my human dad, this is the look I get on my face.  You gotta help me pig.  My dad thinks he is the all time best driver in the world and wants to drive Nascar.  I’m telling you, you are safer in the streets than on the sidewalks with him coming down the road.  Help me!  Signed Frozen in Shock

Dear Frozen in Shock – Dude, your dad has got to be a really bad driver with that look of fear on your face.  Are you sure he wasn’t like doing a movie or something.  Priceless my friend – just priceless.  Maybe you should hide his keys next time.  Maybe you should beg your mother to drive instead.  Maybe you should say you didn’t feel up to a drive and stay home.  I know I would if my mom drove like your dad – snorts with piggy laughter.  But if you must go, buckle up and close your eyes tight.  Stay safe!

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Dear Bacon –  Shaking doggy head.  I didn’t think I would end up like this but I have.  I needed to make some extra money to keep me in treats.  So, I did what every respectful dog would do. – I started a babysitting job.  I have sunk so low.  Five purr things a day – five days a week.  They are wearing me out!  They think I’m their own personal jungle gym.  Any suggestions?  Signed Sit for You

Dear Sit for You – How about a game of hide and go seek… of course inside so the little tykes can’t get into much trouble.  That way, they are off of you and hiding – hopefully for hours – snorts with piggy laughter.  Have fun my friend!

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REMEMBER FRIENDS – Dear Bacon can’t happen without YOU.  Please continue to send your letters and pictures to me at my email. 🙂

 

 

31 Days of Spook – Help Me

Today I present to you a scenario.  What if you bought a house and moved hoping to start fresh.  You pull up the carpets to put down hard wood floor and you find what is in this picture below.  What do you do?  Thoughts?  It could happen… you never know.  And I’m not saying that mom/dad did this to their flooring when they remodeled this year… nope not saying that at all.

 

Renovation – Phase IV

Welcome back my friends to Phase IV – furniture delivery.  Now, today I can’t show you any pictures of the house at this point.  I know that stinks but I can talk to you about the furniture 🙂

The furniture crew called me and advised they would be out at the house between 2:30-5:30PM.  This was fine with me because I had things to get completed before they came out.

Big Daddy

My kitchen had been gutted – bye bye kitchen table.  We really didn’t need one.  The one we had was huge and seemed to be a ‘catch all’ for everything and anything that came through the room.  We decided to do without a table.  It’s just the two of us anyway and we normally camp out in front of the television in the living room talking and watching the news in the evening.  So, my dream kitchen needed one thing that I had ordered off line.  The down side was that one thing had to be put together.  I’m not good a jigsaw puzzles.  If the box had 50 pieces in it, there would probably be 40 pieces leftover if I put it together on my own.  So, I bartered with my neighbor, Big Daddy, next door.  I would give him two items of furniture that his wife wanted if he helped me put together my item I ordered.  His wife volunteered him so quickly it wasn’t even funny – LOL.  And I have to admit that after two hours, we had done it together!  It looked beautiful and better yet it fit so perfectly in the kitchen – like it was made there.  You will have to come back tomorrow to find out what it was 🙂 winks

  Also, my mom had been keeping two book shelves for me at her house that she had said she would give to me over the years.  Me and Jim went and got them… of course in the rain.  This weather was killing us!  They fortunately fit in the back of our SUV when the door was kept open.  We were able to get them into the living room and put them where they needed to go before the furniture arrived.

Also in the meantime of waiting for the furniture, we cleaned.  Isn’t that how it is?  You clean before to de-clutter.  You clean during due to dust.  Then you have to clean after.  By this time I’ll be honest with you, I was.so.over.cleaning!

Then the furniture arrived.  Three guys brought the pieces inside of the Hotel Thompson.  One of the guys let it be known that *I* had expensive taste.  That’s ALL my husband had to hear – HA!   Once everything was in place, me and the hub stood back and looked at everything.  It was in that moment we both let out a breath of air and knew we had made the right decision in doing this remodel.

That’s also when I nudged him and told him we weren’t finished.  We then had to decorate.  Rolls eyes – one of my least favorite things trust me.  Tomorrow, come back for the Renovation Reveal Party where you will see everything in its glorious.  I hope you have enjoyed our trip into letting go and beginning a new life.

 

Renovation – Phase I

Hello all!  This is Bacon’s mom here.  I wanted to break down the entire renovation and share our experience of ups and downs throughout the process.  Today is Phase I which includes the start of everything.  Our house was cluttered.  Pure and simple it was.  We have been here 16 LONG years and throughout those years, we have had many surgeries, illnesses and taking care of family members that some things taken second – like the house unfortunately 😦

I was having a couple of weeks of feeling good physically. One never knows how long these days last when you have rheumatoid arthritis.  So when I told the hub unit I was ready to do it, he couldn’t believe me.  We made an appointment with the floor guy first.  We *had* to get rid of this awful carpet that had seen way better days.

The appointment was made 3/28/2015 with the flooring peeps.  They came out and we went over all of the measurements and looked at the different types of flooring that was available.  My husband gave me full reign over the remodeling so I picked a tan flooring.  We signed the paperwork and picked the date of 4/16/2015 for installation. This gave us a little under three weeks to de-clutter, purge and get the house in shape for the floor.  No small feat with what we had to work with as you can see from the pictures.

This same date, we went furniture shopping.  A joyful occasion to most… except me.  I despise shopping for anything.  The most important factor was that whatever we picked the hub had to LOVE his sofa.  I personally wanted something in the way of an oversized chair with an ottoman, etc – something that would be absolutely comfortable when I came home from work at the end of the day.  We went to a company called American Signature Furniture and picked out a sofa, an oversized chair, an ottoman and an electric fireplace mantle.  Sounds like heaven huh?  We expressed several times that the furniture had to be delivered on 4/17/2015, the day after the floor installation.

Now as you can see from these pictures of the living room, there was a LOT to clean.  I basically wanted to clear out everything and start fresh.  But in order to get to the bare basics, I had to de-clutter and separate items into (1) Keep; (2) Donate; and (3) Junk.  Just looking at the pictures you can tell that it was an overwhelming feat to start.  If anyone is in the same position as we were, two words – BABY STEPS.  I had a calendar and every night when I came home from work and on the weekends, we hit a different spot.  Slowly, things started going away.  AND, you know what we learned from all of this?  Letting go can be medicinal and therapeutic.  We made three trips alone to the Goodwill donation center down the street in the first couple of days.  I know that our garbage collection company probably thought what are they up to because we had loads of stuff we threw away.  Phase I took us the longest to get through – 9 days.

And then came the date that we asked Salvation Army to come to the house on 4/9/2015.  They actually had to make two trips because we gave it all away:  sofa, love seat, entertainment center, china cabinet, hutch, kitchen table, six chairs, rugs.

After they left, we cleaned more and started making a pile of trash.  On 4/11/2015, we had 1-800 Got Junk to come out to the house.  This junk company will come to your house and pick up your trash.  According to how much you have to fill their truck, is how much they charge you.  We had scheduled them to come out on this date between 3:30-5:30pm.  To our advantage, they were running late so (1) we got to pick up and clean more and (2) the later they were we got a discount – which is always a great thing in my book.

The company *finally* got at the Hotel Thompson around 8:30PM – which they had been calling throughout the day to keep us aware of their schedule.  I never got upset with them and it was a good thing.  Other people had in their schedule.  They came to our house and gave us a $125.00 discount for waiting.  So it cost only $100.00 for them to come in, lift and take out our final junk.  A bargain in my book because by this time we were so over lifting.

Now our neighbors had been watching all of the activity happening at our house in the pass 9 days.  Word got back to us that we were moving which we laughed off.  Nope – we were just doing some MAJOR spring cleaning.  All of this work was Phase I – come back tomorrow for Phase II my friends 🙂

 

 

 

Texts from Bacon

Oh my friends.  Sometimes it’s up to us anipals to watch out after the humans.  For the most part, they take care of us but sometimes they forget to take care of themselves.  Here at the Hotel Thompson with all of the renovation, I have to make sure I check on mom.  She has the tendency to push herself way too much and too far.  This morning, I decided to send her a text at work.  Yep, nods piggy head.  During this three week time period renovation, she is also continuing to work full time.  That’s what I’m talking about in overdoing it.  She will be only taking off a day here/there for major projects that have to be done until completion.  Hardheaded is what daddy calls her.  But anywho, I sent her this email this morning.  My comments are in blue and mom’s are in grey.  Enjoy!