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Life in Our New Home

January 24, 2017 by Abbigail Kriebs 14 Comments

We are finally settled into our new house!

Mostly.

The counter in our laundry room is still covered in random cleaning supplies and tools that don’t quite have a home yet, and only 2/3 of our closets have any shelves in them. There are still a few boxes still to be unpacked, but all of them are stacked in those closets that don’t quite have shelves yet. #Winning

But mostly, we’re settled. And it’s even starting to feel like home.

Life in Our New Home | Inkwells & Images

The cats have fully adjusted to being fireplace-owning cats. #Spoiled

It feels like I can be a human again. I can think about something other than timelines and packing and moving preparations. And it feels so good. Deep breaths are easier. The little, mundane tasks like packing a lunch and brushing my teeth aren’t as annoying as they were while we were in transition, constantly looking ahead to the next thing that we needed to check off our list.

Instead, now we’re slowly checking off the days on the calendar toward a baby, which is just as life-changing, but much more on autopilot in some ways.

Scott MADE the hanging beam light fixtures over our island and dining room table. As I’ve said before, I will be worthless in an apocalypse, and am glad I married well.

Since we moved in the Saturday before Christmas weekend, we chose not to drive ourselves crazy trying to rush out a buy a tree and decorate. Instead, we hung the stockings on the mantel, noticing that it is our last (and only) year with only two hanging there side by side.

Almost everything you see made out of wood (pantry doors, trim, mantle, railing, etc.) were made by our good friend Gordy at Gordon Miller Woodworks. He does a fabulous job, as you can see, and really enjoys taking unique slabs of wood and creating one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture and picture frames and things.

We’re settling into new routines, and while we’re still in the stages where we have to think about where things like extra toilet paper live now, daily life is so much easier. A real kitchen sink. A dishwasher. Our own washer and dryer. These are the things that I will not take for granted again.

Our “nursery” – which is still almost this empty. Probably should start doing something about that.

My office is pretty boring at the moment.

But it has a nice view.

It’s good to be home.

The Little Things: Bookshelves Edition

March 24, 2015 by Abbigail Kriebs 8 Comments

Sometimes, it really is the little things that make life grand.

This weekend, it was new bookshelves.

Before

Note the bucket of power tools and utter lack of discord.

During

Stacks on stacks! For the first time in years, I sorted books before shoving them on shelves. It felt So. Good. A feeling that probably only other slightly OCD book nerds would understand.

After

Lovely.

The Bookshelf Scoop

My wonderful husband Scott made these with hickory and the photos don’t do justice to the color variations in the wood. We wanted them to fit under the breakfast ledge in our apartment that we never use since we don’t own stools, and because our table sits right next to it. These shelves fill that unusable space perfectly, and add a little personality to out otherwise white walled apartment.

Scott has been learning the art of woodworking from our good friend Gordy the last couple of years. If you need some similarly awesome, custom-made shelves for your place and happen to live in or around the Madison area, check out Gordon Miller Woodworks in Brooklyn, WI. Gordy has a knack for taking unique pieces of wood and creating works of functional art.

How do you corral all your books? I need some ideas for the other 30% of the collection not pictured here… Oops.

Story in Photos: A Winter Walk

February 24, 2015 by Abbigail Kriebs Leave a Comment

It’s hard to believe that we sold our house almost nine months ago and have been living in an apartment since. We miss our little house: it was charming and old, filled with nicks that stand for the stories that only fill old homes.

In an absolute contrast, we now live in a shiny-new suburb, filled with homes that all look the same, at least on the outside. While I know that this is the dream for some people, and that we are lucky to live where we do, the neighborhood doesn’t quite fit on us: it’s a skin stretched too tight, scrubbed pink and obviously fresh out of the tub. The day we moved in, a friend remarked “This is not you guys at all.” It’s true, but we are telling ourselves “temporary.”

And it is.

A couple weeks ago we sat down with an architect to sketch our someday home.

We are excited and nervous and oh-so-happy that life is moving forward after many years of waiting. One of these days I’ll tell our story of trying and failing to sell our first home, of the holding pattern we lived in for four years as we waited for someone else to fall in love with our little yellow house. But for now, we are learning contentment in this transition, savoring the simplicity of apartment life, and focusing on other efforts as we wait for next spring to arrive.

How are you learning contentment these days?