The Valentines

XII

Theo stared around in awe. If she thought the new mansion was impressive before they moved in, she didn't know what she thought of it now.

With limited knowledge of the mansion itself, Theo had assumed it only had five bedrooms along with the other rooms you would find in a house, living room, kitchen, bathroom. She knew the master bedroom was the size of a small house itself, and her room rivalled the apartment she used to live in.

Considering the sizes of the rooms, Theo had honestly thought that the mansion only contained the five bedrooms she had seen with Esmé when viewing the mansion the first and second time.

How wrong she was.

The first night in the mansion, they didn't have any of their furniture in place yet, and Esmé wanted to buy new bed bases for everyone, so they were waiting on those. Boxes filled most of the rooms from floor to ceiling, but they hadn't had a chance to unpack.

William had wanted to move in as quickly as possible, to get Esmé out of the old house, so they hadn't had time to set the house up properly before moving in.

As of the moment, they were all sleeping in what was going to be Theo's room, on the super king mattress which was currently on the floor.

That was when Theo found out how much of the mansion she hadn't seen.

There were three rooms that the couple had delegated to being offices, one for Esmé, one for William and one for Theo. They were... somewhere in the mansion, Theo wasn't entirely sure where.

Alongside that was the three main bedrooms, then the two guest bedrooms which Esmé was currently debating on keeping as guest bedrooms. The mansion came with a guest house somewhere on the vast property, which Esmé was thinking about putting guests in when they came to stay, reserving the bedrooms of the house for the people who lived in it only.

Esmé was adamant that Ada had a playroom, a space that she could destroy daily and it is okay because it was her play space.

There was the gym, which was apparently three times the size of their old gym. Theo had never seen the old one, she just knew it had been In the basement, but this one had two floors and was somewhere on the ground floor, on the west side of the house.

The kitchen was being redone, as was most of the decor. Esmé hated the gaudy gold design in the house currently, commenting on how tacky it looked.

Theo and William both agreed. Whoever had lived there before had been fond of flaunting their wealth with dirty gold trimming around most of the rooms, as well as red-stained wood. The walls were a light coffee colour which made it look old and decrepit.

None of it matched the aesthetic that the Valentine's were going for with this house.

Where the old house was full of rich dark colours, warm tones and dark oak panelling, this home was full of windows and let in an obscene amount of natural light. The couple wanted to work off that, going for a more minimalistic approach that didn't take away from the beauty of the mansion. They had planned out mostly white marble surfaces, with bright accent colours for the rooms.

Theo was excited to see what the kitchen would look like when it was done, and she knew Esmé was looking forward to cooking in a space that didn't feel like it was going to explode.

As for the grand double staircase that welcomed guests, the entire thing was being redecorated, the redwood and gold trim being torn out. All Theo knew was that it was being replaced with lighter colours, but she wasn't sure what.

They weren't completely sure yet what colours they were going to go for. The plan was to settle in and make that decision once they had a feel for the mansion.