A Fresh Start: a house log
We are spending today packing things up, and although we thought it would feel monotonous and tiring, it is oddly exciting.
Even the act of wrapping a bunch of cups in newspaper feels like “IT IS HAAAAAAPPENING! We are truly DOING IT!”
Can you believe Clara looked like this last time we moved?
Three birthdays (and a significant amount of hair) later, my baby’s gone. Sniffle. But there is a fairly cool kid (complete with an arm tat) in her place, so it is a fair trade.
Life will change with this big move, and our journal and our process for the new house might feel distinct to you because we are approaching it, well, differently. More than any other house that we have lived in, our new place feels like it could become a long-term home for us and we want to make sure that the decisions we are making, the projects we are doing, and the materials we are choosing will fit the vision of a place where we could live for decades and raise a family.
That means we may take more time to mull over design decisions, research options, weigh distinct approaches, and save up for materials and projects. So the pace at which this home transforms may be slower than the pace that you are used to from us (it’ll most likely resemble the pace of our first house as opposed to our second one). But we hope that it’ll add up to a home that we enjoy like crazy full of plenty of thoughtful upgrades and exciting projects over time. Some weeks we might be humming right along (like our mad dash to paint the blue trim and install the hardwoods) and other weeks we might not make much progress at all because we are stuck or delayed or saving up… but hey, that is real life.
We’d also enjoy to tackle more projects for the people we enjoy, like this bathroom reno that we did for John’s grandma last fall. Beyond how excellent it feels to do something sweet like that for someone else, we have learned that those “off-campus” projects stretch us in new ways. After all, it was getting out of our house to do that makeover that later inspired our own bathroom paint color.
So it should end up being a pleasant smorgasbord of home, family, and random stuff – which has consistently been our go-to mix.
Some of you might like this new-ish approach more, others might like it less, and some folks likely will not even notice a difference, but this little refresh makes us giddy in the nerdiest of ways. It feels simply like it did when we began this back in 2007… the air is so thick with possibility that it is fogging up our safety goggles.
So thank you thank you thank you for stopping in to see what is going on in our house/life/brain. There is so much lively stuff ahead, and we enjoy you folks so much it is borderline uncool. And you can bet your sweet buns that I am teaching Clara the words (well, the clean ones). Turns out this kid is a LARGE fan of jumping around…
See you folks on the flip side when we are all moved in!*
*And by the flip side, I mean Monday. And by moved in, I mean our house will look like a pillow and ceramic animal bomb went off.
