Living In the House

View of Kitchen and Dining From Living Room

View of the Living Room from the Dining Room

Living Room

I have been waiting to photograph the house until the sun was fully shining. Today is January 2, and the last day we saw real sun was December 22. On that day, we hadn't moved in yet!

We moved our temporary kitchen into the house on December 23, the day Drew's mom came to stay for Christmas. It was a little herky jerky and disorganized, but we did it, thanks to the help of our friends, especially Ali, Everett, Aaron, and Chris and Jody, who showed up at the furniture moving moment. We couldn't have done it without all of the Christmas angels.

Though we have been puttering and slowly organizing things and figuring out new systems and patterns of movement in space, we've mostly been relaxing into our new space, and enjoying it. It has been largely rainy and gray since we moved in, and we celebrated Christmas comfortably even though it rained 4 inches outside. We had 4 guests for dinner, and we could still talk, and we enjoyed the fire and food and drink. We had many guests for New Year's Eve, and there was plenty of space for many more. I am looking forward to many more gatherings, opening up this space for unexpected community needs.

My favorite part of living in the house right now is that I don't need to go outside if I don't WANT to. Living in the yurt, there were so many needs to go outdoors, each one requiring shoes, a coat, and moving things around, and often Ella wanted to come, which required SHE get suited up too. Now I can do the laundry without putting on my shoes, nor balancing up and down steps and ramps while holding a full laundry basket. And I can even do it if it's raining outdoors. Wow. Life under one roof. It IS all it's cracked up to be!

The Master Throne

And did I mention the flushing toilets? Now that is something. For the last eight years, I have lived with several outhouse situations. Some of them were rather deluxe, but for the last 4 and 1/2 years, I have been doing my business into a pickle barrel with a seat. With no roof. When the weather was nice, I didn't mind this setup one bit. But when it was pouring rain AND the middle of the night, I would curse the barrel and vow to build a roof each coming spring. Which for some reason we never did. I'm sure it goes without saying, but I am deeply enjoying using the indoor plumbing, especially with all this cold and rainy weather. Especially in the middle of the night. It is true luxury. I had forgotten how nice.