Welcome to Hearthstone. Thank you for joining us today, for supporting this museum, and for helping us literally keep the lights on.
My name is...
Before we get started, thanks for wearing your shoe coverings. They do a great job of protecting our floors and our gorgeous oriental carpets.
In the same vane, I'm going to ask your help in protecting the rest of our artifacts in a few other ways.
First, we want you to be comfortable so, if at any time, you'd like to sit down during the tour, please do so. We do not take offense! We want you to enjoy your time here. We just ask that you sit in one of our little bent wood chairs like the ones in the foyer. We ask you to refrain from sitting in anything with a book or a cord or another artifact, like these over 130 year old needle point pieces here. We of course would like to preserve our beautiful furniture as best we can. Thank you again for your help.
Second, if you'd like to take photographs with your phone, we encourage you to do so. But we ask that you do not use flash. The bright white light is very bleaching on anything with a pigment like oil paintings or watercolors. Thanks again.
Third, speaking of phones, please silence your cell phone. We'd like to preserve the experiential nature of the tour as much as possible.
Fourth, as we move through the museum we ask that everyone stay with the group.
Also, we ask that backpacks be left in the foyer and that anyone with a bag have it positioned in front. It is so very easy to knock something off a table or desk as we turn and that will help immensely.
And finally, we have what is called a "white glove" policy. If at any time during our tour you would like to see anything close up, please just ask. I will be delighted to put on my white gloves and show you the item. But as you can imagine, we ask that you refrain from picking anything up on our tour. Everything in the house is at least 140 years old and is priceless.
Thanks again for your help in preserving this stunning residence.