..love is..

:: handmade valentines

:: reading books with my favorite 5 year old

:: warmth on a cold night

:: child-made artwork

:: building a home and family with my best friend

:: impromptu skateboarding practice

:: winter sunshine

:: finishing chores without being asked

:: barn concerts (more on this later)

So much love around me these days.
 I hope you take a moment to breathe in all the love around you, too.
Happy Valentine's Day!

..unfinished-part one..

As I mentioned before, there are plenty of spaces in this home that remain unfinished. Building a home has been a huge undertaking, and we wanted to leave a part of it unfinished so that we could have time to figure out how to best put the space to use.

I have been very happy with our decision to have an unfinished basement, since it has been used more often than either of the previous basement spaces we have owned. Part of the reason for this, is that we opted to have in-floor heating.

When we were looking at potential existing homes, we toured a home that had, as my kids fondly referred to it, hot floors. As we went through the home, Isaac very inappropriately started rolling around on one such hot floor, as it was the neatest thing he had ever felt. We had never really considered having in-floor heating until that point, and when it came time to make decisions about our home building, it was at the top of our list.

It gets cold in Wisconsin. And this winter has been particularly brutal. But with these warmed floors, the basement temperature is similar to that of the rest of the house, and you don't have to wear 5 pairs of wool socks to insulate your feet from cold concrete. We have the added benefit of rising warm air, which, in turn, heats the house instead of, or in conjunction with, the furnace.

Now I cannot share with you the mechanisms, gauges, and who-dee-whats that make this system work. Trust me, Rich has given me numerous tutorials on how this works, but each time I feel like Charlie Brown listening to any adult in a Peanuts flick. After that admission, I see another in-floor heating tutorial in my near future....

There are definitive spaces in this unfinished basement of ours, at least a few.

There is my craft room. I love that there are three windows in this space, and that the light just floods in on sunny days because it is situated in the southeast corner of the house. Sunshine is very important to me. It is a nice, enclosed space, that contains all the lovely crafty things I have accumulated over the years. And just like the pantry, having everything in one space helps me to take stock of all that I have, so it is not forgotten.

I have also created a kid's crafting area, because my girls love to be in the room with me whenever I'm working in there.

There is our play area, that is tucked back in the northwest corner of the basement. Right now, these  boxes of toys, some unpacked, some half-unpacked, and some still packed, litter the entire area and then some. Certainly these toys get taken out of this space...I find play food and dishes all over this house. But for the most part, we try to keep the toys in this area. There are a few specific toys that we have in bedrooms, but, by and large, this is where most can be found.

There is our sports area, adjacent to the toy area. In this space, serious basketball games of horse are played. Rich works with the kids on tennis, as well. More recently, an interest in skateboarding has developed. It's a nice, wide open space that accommodates lots of movement. With the aforementioned brutal wintry conditions, this space has seen a ton of activity. I am forever grateful for that.

There is also an exercise/guest room. It houses some exercise equipment and a futon, just in case an extra bed is needed in a pinch.

Behind the exercise space are two more "rooms." One will most likely be a bathroom and the other a room-that-cannot-be-considered-a-bedroom-but-could-look-an-awful-lot-like-one. Rich also is piecing together an area for a small workshop outside these spaces.  Right now, they are filled with bikes, extra building supplies, empty boxes, and unpacked boxes.

All in all, our basement holds promise. We have time to play with the space, in the space, to see what works for us. A theatre? A bar area? A canning kitchen? Another dining space? We'll see what the future holds. For right now, we'll continue to enjoy the space just as it sits.

..nooks and crannies..

I think my favorite spaces in our new home are the smallest ones. The places where we attempted to capitalize on the space we had, so as not to waste a bit of it.

My first love in this house is the bookcases. It was really an afterthought as we started considering the interior finishes. Why not have a wall of bookshelves? In our previous home, we had bookshelves scattered all around the house in various rooms. I was constantly shuttling books from point A to point B, in hopes that I could remember where to find a book, or spark interest in one of my youngest readers. To have all of our books in one place seemed like a dream.

And I promise you, it has been a dream. My children are constantly finding new books in the bookcases. They enjoy organizing the books according to size, subject, readability...you name it. There are parts of the bookcase dedicated to crayons and colorbooks, puzzle books, and games. It's a nice change from the haphazard way things were organized before.

There are some empty spaces, and that is a good thing. I would rather these bookcases evolve, grow, and change with our family.

My second love in this house is my pantry. Or, as Isaac would spell it, my pan-tree, get it? I have never had a walk-in pantry before, and now I doubt I could ever be without one. Not only can I store numerous appliances, but also all of our dry and canned goods. Standing amongst these shelves there is both comfort and longing. Comfort in knowing everything is in one place -- that I don't need to look in hidden corners to find all that I need. Longing -- the wanting to fill these shelves with things made and preserved by my own hands, from my own garden. Someday.

In conjunction with the pantry, I also have a baking station. The idea behind the baking station was to have a part of the kitchen dedicated solely to my baked goods. Counter top material and height were to be "baking friendly," which meant a lower height and some sort of stone material. We were fortunate to find a remnant of soapstone to use on this little nook, and, properly seasoned, it promises to make the task of kneading that much easier, along with the reduced counter height (It has already shown promise).
 

I think, no, I know, Rich's favorite part, is that we can close the space up and tuck it all away. I can be a bit of a whirlwind in the kitchen -- especially when I am juggling bored young ones and baking. It is very easy to just shut the doors and walk away, either closing up shop for the day, or putting on hold the job of clean up for a later time. And no one but me ever knows the difference.

The last space that I have grown quite fond of is the mudroom. Initially we thought to make it a laundry/mudroom, as our old house was. I am so glad we moved the laundry to the side of the house with the kids bedrooms, and left the mudroom as simply, the mudroom.

It has a drain in the floor, which is genius for these winter days and upcoming spring days where nothing but muck is tracked in. Everyone has their own cubby with a drawer below and a cabinet above, which right now holds shoes and extra coats/snowpants. All winter gear -- hats, gloves, scarves -- are contained in the box below the cabinet. Coats, backpacks, and snowpants are hung from the hook within each space. Library books find a space on the shelf or the bench, wherever there is more room.

At first I thought it would not be enough room. Winter can be a beast with all the gear that can be involved. But it has proven to be more than enough room, and is a comfortable space to store exactly what we intended. I love that our doorways are no longer cluttered. I suppose I cannot say the same about that whiteboard chock-full of papers, eh?

It's these nooks and crannies that make this house our home. They are the bits that illustrate how our family lives, and what we value. Organization is important in a family of five. There are a lot of mouths to feed, there are a lot of papers coming home,  and there are a lot of personalities to keep entertained. The peace of mind that comes from knowing how to find what you need when you need it, is invaluable. I think that's why I'm so fond of these spaces.They aren't just an exercise in how not to waste space, they truly are my sanity savers.

..heart of the home..

Welcome to our home. I thought I would show you around a bit. Give glimpses of this space that we have worked so hard to create specifically to suit our family.

It was almost a year ago, when we purchased this land and began the arduous process of designing this home. Trying to sort our needs from our wants, and trying to keep in mind how our family will age and change.

This home is far from complete. Right now, our main living area is finished. Our bedrooms are (mostly) complete, and we have a full bathroom and a couple of half bathrooms that are more than enough for us right now.

The parts that remain unfinished, we'll slowly tackle one by one. The master bathroom, the yard, the deck, the basement.... yes, in due time, all of these parts will be worked on. Some sooner than others, but all with as much thought and care that has been given to the rest.

The heart of our home is the kitchen and family room space. Open floor plans work well for us, as we like having a common area. Everyone can be doing something different and we are all still in close proximity to each other, whether it's playing a game, reading, knitting, cooking a meal, playing music, or watching TV. This communal space is comfortable, and the views are quite peaceful.

We opted for a kitchen island that has bench seating. This eliminates the don't-lean-back-in-your-chair reminders that became so frustrating. Instead, we deal with the sit-upright-and-eat reminders, which are marginally better. That, and the crumbs that invariably fall between the cracks in the bench. (Did I mention there's storage space in those benches?)

The ongoing theme as we constructed this home was to utilize every space we could. We didn't want wide open spaces that served no purpose. Even the wide open spaces we have in the basement are filled with basketball games, skateboarding, and tennis practice. I'm certain I will regret the decision to allow this as things are slowly broken down there....

But this main living area? Yes, it is nice. It's funny to think that this home was all a twinkle in our eyes one year ago. As we stood in our wide open field talking to the excavator, I remember he lifted his measuring stick and told us where the floors would be in our home. I sat there in awe, not knowing what to think. And now here I sit (on a chair) on that floor, grateful for all that we have accomplished in a year's time. And eternally grateful for the new life we have here in this little town.

..hibernation..

I feel as though this blog has been in a deep sleep for the past few months. It makes sense, really, as there have been so many things going on in our lives since last August. I am just starting to feel a sense of rhythm that has been missing or fractured since our move to Wisconsin.

It's not a bad thing at all, I promise. Like my middle child, I do struggle with change. However, with this move, I have found that the good far outweighs the bad. As I look back on the last 5 months, there have been those moments of frustration, moments when I'm feeling so overwhelmed I'm not sure where to even begin. But more significantly, I have been allowing myself to just enjoy many of these changes. A new school. New friends. New routines. New interests. New schedules. New places.

I remember and sometimes long for, the old. But I truly am relishing the new. We are forging a new path, together as a family. It feels marvelous to have Daddy home every single night. We can attend school functions together, we can gather for dinner every evening, and there are no more tearful goodbyes on Monday mornings. Instead, they have been replaced with, "Daddy? Ok, you're going to school and we'll see you at dinnertime? You promise?" because sometimes it's hard to forget the old routines. 

So it's time to wake this space up again. Time to share some of the *new* with you.