Home for Christmas

And Happy New Year!

I hope you've had as lovely a winter holiday as I have.  We've been in the house for four weeks, and though I've been a little harried by the cardboard specter of boxes-to-be-unpacked (ALL must be unpacked! NONE may stay!), I'm a little awed at how at home we've been in our new-old house.  Because let's be real: most of this house didn't use to be here.  Even so, I'm so happy and not a little surprised to report that the whole place feels like somewhere we've lived for 10 years.  Boxes underfoot and a surfeit of furniture, for sure, but home nonetheless.

Welcome home flowers and wine from our nice contractors helped.

So, let me tell you about my favorite stuff so far, glossing over the fact that the living room is full of stuff to be atticked and the landscape is...well, it is NOT.

Our "yard."

Though I planted some flowers in a pot.  It helps me feel better.

Though the yard is still grim, the porches are highlights.  I'm still eyeing possible furniture for the back porch, but all you really need for the space to work is a fire and a place to sit, and I've got that wrangled.

A bird never hurt, either.

The kids' rooms were instantly homey, and neither one has had a problem with having his or her own room.  Can you blame them?  I think they definitely got the best deal in the house.

Even messy, as they instantly were and are, they're spacious and cozy at the same time, and SO full of sunbeams. 

The library is the only room still full of boxes, but it looks great anyway.  Books are their own decoration.

My favorite rooms are the working rooms of the house, perhaps because they don't really need much furniture.  

I've done three weeks' worth of laundry now, and having a counter to fold on as well as a pretty room to do it in is even better than I anticipated.  Our trees are full of migrating birds at this time of year (Yay! for having a garage to park in!), and I feel like I'm in a tree house with all the flitting and tweeting going on right outside the window while I'm working.  I like doing laundry, you guys.  Amazing.

The mudroom is perfect.  There are shoes and coats everywhere, but that stuff is not all over the house, and that's amazing.  I think it looks functional rather than messy, right?

I think the pantry is my personal masterpiece, though.  

I love some well-organized shelves!  These may not be that, but I love that I can give all my random stuff space to breathe so that it looks purposeful rather than as haphazard as it really is.  "Cozy chaos" is my actual decorating style so far.

Here's my little baking station at the back of the pantry.  I've made sweet rolls, and dinner rolls, noodles, cookies and cake, and it's all worked out pretty well.  I think I need a mini-fridge to keep eggs and cream handy, but I'll get more use out of this than if it were a desk.

This is my favorite part of the kitchen--the hot drinks zone.  I wanted to keep the open shelves we had in the old kitchen in this corner, and again, orderly-but-not-perfect vibe makes me happy.  I'll never be allowed to be on Houzz, though, because I failed to heed a friend's great advice about the plug strip and let them put it on the underside of the cabinets so there are visible cords all over the place.

And the banquette will be a little more bare when the Christmas decorations go, but it's been awesome.  Eighty meals so far, and I haven't broken it yet.

Picture next to the banquette--lovely housewarming gift.

So the kitchen is awesome.  I've had a lot of fun with it.  I can show it to you because it doesn't require any furniture.  I'll leave you with a montage of stuff we've cooked in it, and I'll get to work on showing you the night-before-move-in tour of the finished house, because it doesn't need furniture, either.

And a Christmas tree.