Making it home. (intro)

  Two weeks ago, our little family of four (plus two pups) moved from Indiana to coastal South Carolina. My husband's company opened an office down here over a year ago and an opportunity popped up for us to relocate. So over the past 2.5 months, we packed up our lives and said goodbye to to the life we spent almost a decade building in Indiana. As with just about everything, there is so much more to it than those three little sentences can say. 

  From the outside looking in, it probably seems a little crazy that we would move. Heck, it even feels a little crazy from the inside looking out! We loved our life and our home and have the best friends and family in Indy. But in lots of little (and big) ways, we were ready for this move and knew it was a good decision for us. It's definitely not easy to say goodbye and start fresh in literally every way. Even still, we are excited for this adventure!

  One of the biggest adjustments of this entire move has been the physical move from one house to another. In the past 3 years, we've lived in 3 houses. Two years ago, we bought what really truly felt like a forever house to us. Super spacious with room to grow, a big backyard, in a great neighborhood with the best neighbors, and just overall a place we could see our family growing into for years and years. 

  With a different housing market (we moved to a resort town by the beach!), we knew things would look different in South Carolina. But knowing and experiencing are different things! The house we bought down here is different in nearly every way from our last home- lots smaller, different neighborhood, reconfigured space, etc. I was telling a friend the other day that settling in has felt sort of like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Unlike our last move, when we were upgrading and had more space than we needed, this time around we find ourselves scratching our heads and trying to make up for the spaces and things we don't have anymore. 

  It's awkward and sort of fun to retool our home from how it has always been in the past. Add to that trying to build a life from the ground up in a state/city where we know next to no one. You could definitely call it an adventure! 

  What is the point of an adventure if you don't embrace it? That's just what I'm going to do. My social calendar is pretty free and clear for the foreseeable future and it seems like the perfect time to do a bit more writing and documenting life- starting with how we're embracing our switch from our big forever home to a smaller, not dream house. Hope you follow along! 

I love my home. {natural light}

  One of the very first things I noticed when we looked at our home with the realtor was the natural light. If you stand in the center of the house, at any time of day, you will be able to see sunlight pouring in from one direction or another. It is wonderful! And makes our space seem more roomy and airy than it really is. Benefit of small house? No true interior rooms and lots of natural light all day long!

  I wouldn't really say I'm a skylight or high window fan, neccsisarily. But this house may have changed that for me. We never have any lights on around the house unless it's nighttime and all the pretty light we get makes for the best photos. All those bright monthly shots of Caleb? I never edit a single one. Well, honestly, I never edit any of my photos because I'm lazy. But thanks to all the natural light we get throughout our house, I never need to!

Its the narrows row of windows above our front door and down the hall, above the guest bath shower that pour in the most light. 

  And that big, awkward half circle window in our dining room- so so much light comes through! At the top of the stairs leading to the bonus room there is a cute round window {with crooked panes inside that drive me bananas} and it pours light down the dark stairway and into our entry. 

  The bay window in our kitchen lets in all the golden evening light and the big wall-to-wall windows in Caleb's tiny room make for the most glorious morning sunlight to wake up to {especially for a kid who is up with the sun most days anyway!}.
  As we get closer and closer to having another little person in this house and make plans to get rid of our guest room in lieu of another nursery, it gets easier to list the growing pains and frustrations with this little house. But the more I dive into making a list and taking inventory of all the things I love about our home- the more I really do love it. What's one of your favorite things about your home? Natural light? Lots of storage? I'd love to hear! 

What I love about my house.

 Have you read this book or this book? I've read each of them over the past couple of months {this one is my favorite!} and they've both given me a new perspective on my house. I loved them both so much, I'm adding them to my birthday list. Lots of thoughts about being content, using what I have in front of me, and making this place into a home I love. 
  Honestly though? There's a lot not to love about our house. It's small, cramped really. And feeling more and more cramped all the time {ahem baby number two ahem}. It's builder-grade in every sense of the phrase. It's located in a very transitional neighborhood. We have tiny closets. And hardly any space to host guests, which will turn into no space to host guests when the baby comes.
  Of course, I wasn't blind to any of those things when we bought our house 3.5 years ago. But that's ok! It's just our starter home! We'll upgrade all of those things in 5ish years! That's what we told ourselves. And it's true, we will move one day, probably sooner rather than later. But instead of waiting for that day, I've decided to spend more time thinking about what there is to love about our house instead of the things I wish I could change.
  And when I start to list them, I realize there are a ton of things I do love about our house. So, that's where I'm starting. With the things I do love about my house. And an impromptu mini-series was born! Stay tuned over the next few weeks for little bits of what I love about our home. 
  And I have a feeling this little mini-series is going to motivate me to paint a room or two and plan some small home projects. Maybe I'll even be able  to convince Justin to help me paint our kitchen cabinets?? A girl can dream!