The first days of our new home!

Hi! I'm Erika.

I am moving into the first house my husband Paul and I have ever purchased together... five minutes from where we live now. First time home ownership for me, not for my husband. I had wanted to start posting on a daily basis from the day the house was ours, but I did not anticipate the amount of time that I would be spending there without internet. I want to document all the changes we are making, the thought processes, the plans for the future of the house... things like that. We've only been allowed in the house for twelve days now and it feels like I have so much catching up to do as far as writing everything out... so I will begin now with the background on our house. 

The house is not new, it was built in 1979 by the people we bought it from. It's a contemporary in an amazing location; backed up to a big, beautiful pond and a very underutilized county park. I don't know if it's because we are out in the country near the county line, or if people simply don't know about it. I knew about it only because I had been looking at Google maps out of curiosity for things near my husband's house (since we are in the middle of nowhere). I went to the park and immediately noticed the house. I have been dreaming about it for about three years now. 

One day late this summer, Paul and I went to the park and he said, "Hey Erika! Your house is for sale!" We put in our offer within the week and they accepted. The house would be ours on Halloween (which happened to be our secret one year wedding anniversary -- our wedding ceremony was in May). The sellers became tenants for a month after settlement and moved out November 30th. They were very sad to go, from what I understand. There were several coincidences that we found out connected us to the house from the beginning: 

• Paul's best man is the cousin of the seller. We found this out after the offer was put in.
• The seller's other cousin is a fellow accordionist we are friendly with.
• The seller's first and middle names are Paul's first and middle reversed.

A few shocking tidbits that we have been told about the house so far:

• A cross was burned on the lawn many years ago in an apparent act of antisemitism.
• A thirteen year old boy was struck and killed on his bike directly in front of our house in the 80s. His parents, who live close by, leave a flower near the end of every month on our lawn and a bouquet of flowers is left in April for his birthday.
• Lots of wildlife, which I knew, including a RIVER OTTER! I had no idea they were even around here!
• The park had been a spontaneous home to a ton of immigrants. They had set up hammocks, fished, trespassed on the neighbor's property, had shady friends, and left trash all over the place. They were ultimately told by the park rangers that they could not camp out there and all left. Weird.
• Hunters on a hill next to the park. You can see their orange vests on the hill this time of year, as well as hear their gunshots. They have ventured too close to the park on occasion and police have been involved. It makes me worry, because how would people going to the park know? Kids love to play in the woods. Scary.

Makes me wonder what else we'll find out. Eee.

So what are we changing about the house? The biggest thing is the paint. It turns out that painting Paul's house was an exercise for painting this one an he is happily giving me the creative reins for this house as well. I know I like light gray as a neutral. I know I love deep gray and bright orange and turquoise and intense purple. I love the boldest of colors. It's just the placement in this house that is throwing me off. I just have to keep telling myself, "if I make a mistake and end up hating a color, it's only paint; paint can be changed." Makes me feel a little bit better about choosing what is basically hot pink for an accent wall in the dining room. Ha.

I am not a fan of yellow. Yellow rooms and yellow light make me feel weird. It just so happens that the main color throughout this house is egg nog. For real. Just ask my husband: 

The accent walls in the kitchen/living room I like to call "crab mustard yellow." You can see here that we patched up a giant hole in the wall from a tv mount and various cords hanging out all over the wall. We are not mounting our tv, so that had to go. We are also changing the wood around the fireplace to some slate slabs.

This room will be the library once we have bookcases put in. The color choice has been agonizing for me because the stone wall dictates what I can paint. The paint here is a subtle metallic gold. It really is nice, but it makes everything yellow. I have decided I am just going to have magenta accents everywhere and hope it doesn't drive me nuts.

 For this room, I want to crochet one of these rugs you can make from an old sheet:

We have no furniture from our old house moved in yet because of the massive amount of painting that is yet to be done. Even though the house is completely empty except for a dining room set that we had to pick up since, y'know, we bought it, I have managed to get a scant amount of living out of the house.

I was able to bring over my solitary box of Christmas decorations over and put up my tiny 2' black tree on the credenza. This is as Christmas-y as I get (if it were my choice, I would have absolutely no part in it) and I am happy with it since it is rather lovely, in my eyes.

Long story behind these birds which I won't get into. I am down one, but the remaining five are on the chandelier now and I really like them. Paint sample behind them.

 Our dog, Feather, came over for a visit. 

She didn't recognize herself in the mirror and charged it a few times. She must smell the previous owner's dogs still in the house because she ran all over the house with the hair on her back straight up. She also promptly laid two of the biggest shit piles I've ever seen in the basement. Go figure. Pretty sure she will love it here, though. The park, man, the park!

On Thursday, I brought over enough supplies to make sugar cookie dough. 

I collect cookie cutters so I love any excuse to use them.

The Williams-Sonoma customizable message cutters are really cool, but it took quite a bit of experimenting to get the best results. 

This is a set I got as a wedding shower gift. LOVE them! They are super detailed. I do like my dough for this recipe to be rolled very thin, so I don't get the benefit, but I will try to find a recipe for rolled dough that should be thicker.

I made the cutest cookies for the neighbors. Totally proud! (Except for the obvious reject stars that I baked anyway - Paul doesn't care what they look like!)

I found that if I used a cake decorating paintbrush to scoot the nonpareils and sugar into the imprint from the stamp cookies, it looked a lot neater.

Paul is totally fascinated by the kickass double oven (and so am I)! He was thrilled that he could monitor the temperature inside and predict when it would reach 400. He is an odd one.

Bonus pic of my recipe book and a ceramic cat I fought feverishly for on ebay for the exterior of the house - a Baltimore staple! It must be hung up ASAP!

I had my oldest nephew, Jack, over on Sunday to help me decorate some cookies.

We haven't had alone time for quite a while so this was very special. He is my favorite person ever. 

His masterpieces.

We hung out all day, took a walk around the park even though it was cold and misty, did some coloring and tried to play Uno. Maybe next year. It was a great day, though!

Hopefully I won't make another entry this long again. I just had a lot of catching up to do or else I would be kicking myself. I leave you with the view from my back deck of the sunset this evening. Can you see why I love this place!?