Slowly, ever so slowly this house is becoming our house. Maybe I had forgotten or maybe I never felt that ‘stranger in my own house’ way with our first house. We were so much younger and newlyweds when we bought that house. We were more used to living in funky rental situations, but we worked hard to transform that house into ours and to leave that all behind and enter a new house to start from scratch was an adjustment. The memories of the previous owners were packed up in boxes and taken away and with our memories yet to be made, we moved into a very empty house. This house always had a warm feeling to it, but with all white walls and not a picture hung on them it lacked life & personality. I promised the boys that we’d add life to their room first. While I nixed their ideas of a black and red painted room, we all agreed on a nice blue, the color of both the water and the sky, as they said. And we added red accents from a little bit of a splurge at Purlsoho. Walking into their room now makes me very happy, it gives me hope that this soon will be our house. That we’ll add the life back into this warm house.

With a big hesitant sigh, I put my very favorite, always saved at the back of the linen cabinet, tablecloth on our kitchen table as an everyday tablecloth. It was a brave move with two boys who seems to put more food on the table and floor than in their mouths, but I did it. Of course it hasn’t been without it’s consequences, it is now stained with catsup and who knows what else, but I needed to see something I loved on the table when I walked into the kitchen, to make it feel more like home.

As I’ve been busy trying to make this house a home, Scott has been incredibly busy making this house a more sound house. We aren’t schooled in construction or in any trade at all, but where we lack training, at least Scott, makes up for in gumption. In our years of homeownership we’ve gotten ourselves into a few head scratching situations, as was this one pictured. I mean, really, what do you do with this? Well, through a series of phone calls and educated guesses and executive decisions, this is now all taken care of and our house is more sound. And the deck almost all ready, we are under deadline after all, we have a boy who’s about to turn a year older and no house is a home without it’s first party.