Happy New Year! May 2009 bring us all a new year that is a healthy one, happy, and just enough stress to make life interesting.
Part of the reason that I have been MIA is because three days ago, I (and my husband and son who still lives with us) moved from our home of nearly 20 years to a town just 2 towns away, and just yesterday, we closed on this home (we moved in 2 days prior to closing.) We closed on the house we had owned the day before that. I had not said a word on the blog due to mild superstious reasons! I didn't want to jinx anything. I hear of so many real estate deals not going through, and up until the day of closing, really, anything could have happened. During this time, we had multiple building permit issues, things we had done over the course of 20 years, and that took a LOT of time to sort through, get inspected, etc. etc.
Moving is absolutely brutal, unforgiving, physically strenuous and overall stinks. I'm referring to the act of moving. When you move from a home with 20 years of accumulation, it just never ends! And when you move from a large home with all that stuff AND move into a home of close to half the size, you just hope there will be paths around the boxes. Every room was FILLED with boxes, it was pretty scary.
In short, we have too much stuff. Anyone want some stuff??
When you factor in a person who's run a business in the home for all that time, with tons of samples and tons of files, who has mild packrat tendancies and who LOVES to collect art and artifacts, it's mind boggling!
But, that said, this was a move to downsize to a smaller home. I had been inspired, in recent years, by my family in Denmark, most of whom live in small spaces, so, with kids mostly gone, this was a good time to shed the burden of the "big house" and make a change.
I'm 2 days into this house and we are SO happy! The kitchen is efficient (more on that soon). We don't have to walk endlessly within the house to get something, find someone, etc. You don't have to shout across long distances. This house happens to have fantastic light to the point where I don't think we'll have to put on lights until dark. That's a good thing too.
Moving is stressful, bigtime. It WAS brutal. But, I know we made the right choice to move toward a simpler lifestyle.
I have wall cabinets in my kitchen. I know now that I hate them! I didn't have wall cabinets in my old kitchen. More on that soon. I also didn't have a true "great room" kitchen like the ones I've been designing for years. I'll give you my impressions on that too.
In the meantime, another Happy New Year!