California

Today is our fifth day on the West Coast. We flew in Wednesday night, moved in Thursday morning, and were mostly unpacked by the weekend, thanks to family and a few spectacular new friends. We're starting to feel settled, but there's a learning curve to moving cross-country. Thankfully, I have an iPhone. "Siri: find a grocery store." "Siri: find me doughnuts." "Siri: is this compostable?" 

Our house is in Palo Alto, a pretty little city in its own right, about 30 miles south of The City (San Francisco). We're in Silicon Valley, hemmed in by the Santa Cruz mountains to the west (and just beyond them, the ocean) and San Francisco Bay to the east. That means that the sun is out every day and it's always 55 degrees in the morning/evening and 70-75 degrees with a crisp ocean breeze from over the mountain ridge in the afternoon. It also means that it's super geek-dom, which suits us fine. There are electric car charging stations on every corner, all of the middle aged men are either Asian or look like Steve Jobs, and kids discuss things like time travel on their way to elementary school (true story--Jordan overheard the conversation from our driveway). Every day, driving around, I notice one new, quirky sight after another: a Tesla dealership, the offices for apps like Evernote and Houzz, a succulent the size of a large sea monster growing in someone's front lawn, a triple tandem bike. It's incredibly fun.

Our house is full of light and has a little garden in the back, along with two lime trees and two redwoods. We're on a residential street that is also a bike boulevard, meaning that every mile or so there's a barrier to allow only bike and foot traffic through. Our claim to fame is that The Pink Bridge is five houses down from us--it's a tiny pink bike/pedestrian bridge that was commissioned by Pink Floyd when they lived in Palo Alto. The bridge is in pretty rough shape, but we are very proud of it. Ahem. Another thing we love about our location is that we can walk to several local, non-Starbucks coffee shops (including a Philz Coffee, which I can describe in four scrumptious words: mint mojito iced coffee), a couple of grocery stores, and a host of interesting little cafes and delicious holes-in-the-wall. We can also walk two miles to downtown Palo Alto, which has an Anthropologie, a Tibetan textiles store, and an ice cream sandwich shop (among other, less important things). There are also more Starbuckses and yoga studios than a person could ever visit in a lifetime.

Do we miss Atlanta? Yes. But it doesn't feel like we're 2500 miles and three time zones away, maybe because we're just a flight away. We haven't had time to feel sad, what with all of the to-do lists and fast action of the last few weeks, but I can sense a tiny bit of homesickness creeping in. Through this process of leaving home, the weight of the transition has hit me physically rather than emotionally, and I feel generally exhausted. But the beauty of our new surroundings, the friendliness of our new church community, the relief of finally making the long-anticipated move, and the pure fun of the crazy adventure is outweighing the challenge. I'm itching to get out, explore, and work on my two-year bucket list...but first, I'm tackling those last seven dreaded boxes. :)

In Between + Guest Space

It's a funny feeling to be somewhere in between Georgia and California. We're not physically in between--I'm thankful that we're not spending these transitional days driving west with a baby--but now that we've said goodbye to our home and most of our family and friends, it feels a bit like limbo, albeit a peaceful limbo. We moved out of our house over the weekend, and in two days we'll be flying out to meet our moving truck and start unpacking mountains of boxes into our new home. After spending the last month orchestrating The Great House Swap and scribbling endless to-do lists, it's a huge relief to have a few days to unwind and gather energy for the next leg of our journey. I've spent more than a few hours nestled in the corner of my sweet in-laws' couch, re-reading East of Eden, with a mug of tea next to me and old LPs on the turntable. It's been lovely. 

I thought I'd take a few of these quiet moments to share another look into my three-year decorating project. Today I'm documenting our guest room and bath. I never quite put the final touches on this space or hung pictures (one of my excuses being that I really hate to make holes in a freshly painted wall...oh, and I absolutely dread the process of hanging things), but here's a peek at the parts I did finish. 

The main upgrade in this space was, of course, to paint. (Painting, I'm fairly certain, is the magic solution to 90% of all decorating dilemmas.) In the guest bath, I also swapped out a plain oval mirror with a pretty white one, which is actually a thrifted gold picture frame, spray painted and fitted with a $10 mirror from Lowe's. The shower curtain was a lucky, mis-priced find on the sale rack at Anthro, as nearly all of my Anthro purchases have been.

I intend to get the new guest room in working order as soon as possible so that ALL of our East coast friends can come and stay with us. Take note, friends! And book those plane tickets.

Paint colors: Sherwin-Williams Worldly Gray (bedroom), Martha Stewart Chinchilla (bath) // Shower curtain, lamp shade, quilt: Anthro // side tables: Target // black and white pillow: Urban Outfitters // alarm clock, white vases: Ikea // black table lamp: Hobby Lobby // bath mat: World Market // metal bathroom shelving: TJ Maxx // galvanized tub: Ross // soap dispenser: Target // tree painting: done by my grandmother // everything else: thrifted

A Tour of Our Living Space, and Some Thoughts About Art

As I tear apart three years worth of decorating in preparation for our move in a few days, it's cathartic to be able to share a few photos of our living area that I took a few weeks ago when it was still intact. Now, books are piled high in storage rooms and closets, walls are bare, holes are in the process of being spackled...

Our house is a 1970s ranch that came complete with formal living room and den. When we moved in, it was spacious and cozy, but it just didn't have a great flow. Upon entering through the front door, you were greeted by a small doorway into the den, along with a very large, blank wall that divided the formal living room from the den. It wasn't quite clear how to make your way into the main area of the house. And the large dividing wall between the two main rooms blocked much of the light on both sides of the house. Finally, we solved the problem by cutting a huge hole in the wall to create one continuous space for gathering, jamming, sprawling, and general hanging-out...ing. Now it's a living room, library, music room, and teaching studio, all in one. 

 

Other than cutting a hole in the wall, the only other major upgrade we undertook was to paint, paint, paint...white, white, white (with the exception of the black wall in the dining room, which is a story for another post!). Originally, most of the walls were painted beige, and the foyer was covered in wallpaper, which I also smothered in a good, thick coat of white paint.

These bookshelves were a labor of love. Pre-bookshelves, we had stacks of books all over our house.  My Pinterest-inspired "brainstorm" resulted in many evenings of team engineering, sketching, measuring, driving to and from Home Depot, wood-staining, measuring some more, and finagling, but we finally achieved our goal of building affordable pipe-and-wood bookshelves. As usual, Jordan provided the brains and brawn behind the finished product. And, at long last, our books had a home! (At least...for a while. Now most of them are packed away for two years. I'm planning to make good use of a library card.)

This space doesn't have a specific style or theme; I didn't plan it. It's a conglomeration of old and new, vivid and neutral, light and dark, modern and traditional. But every object in this space has a little part of our story in it. Our living area contains everything from treasures found at yard sales (the vintage map, the creepily awesome monkey table, the Turkish pillows, and probably 75% of everything else), childhood possessions (one of the globes, the xylophone, the guitar), special gifts (the mandolin, the framed poster from my undergrad senior recital, many of the books), family pieces (the starburst clock, given to me by my grandfather and lovingly carted 1000 miles by my brother; the retro chair, salvaged from a dank basement; the armoire and dresser, which belonged to my great-grandfather; the painting over the mantel), to carefully scoped out and saved-for purchases (the tufted chair, the foyer mirror, the cowhide).

I don't mind packing up all this stuff and and looking ahead to our new place in California. Part of the reason is that I feel ready for a new challenge. But the rest of the reason, for me, is that it's not so much about having a lasting finished product as it is about the little baby steps of curating, of arranging and re-arranging, of bursts of inspiration that sometimes fail but sometimes realize the ideal image in my imagination, of enjoying our space by beautifying it and inviting others to enjoy it with us, of crafting and creating functional solutions with Jordan, and of gathering in our space with our people, regardless of the state it's in, walls or no walls, stuff or no stuff...moving boxes or no moving boxes. :)

Our imminent move, along with some other blog posts that have been circulating the internet, has really prompted the question in my mind of why decorate? Or, to phrase it another way, why beautify? The question merits a much longer blog post and discussion, but in the meantime, here's one thought on the matter that occurred to me while writing this post: the question at hand is essentially the same question as why perform music? As a violinist, one of my jobs is to study, practice, and perfect a piece of music and then perform it. Once. And then it's over. I move on to the next piece or project. Sometimes, I improvise a piece of music in performance, and those configurations of notes are only heard once, ever, by the people sitting in the audience. And even they will forget those notes within a few moments. What's the point?

But most people don't ask me that question. They understand intuitively that there is some intangible reason, some good reason, for spending time and money on my craft, my instrument, and my preparation for the sake of performing music well, however fleeting the finished product is. And that is how I see the creative pursuit of working on my home. It is a canvas that occurs in time and space, to be used and enjoyed in the present moment, and if it is gone tomorrow--whether due to a move or to a disaster--then it is enough that it was beautiful and and pleasing to the eye and welcoming today, despite its imperfections.

Does this mean that everyone needs to perform music or decorate their home? No. Does it mean that hospitality depends on decoration? Absolutely not. My point is that it is not futile to create beauty where you can, regardless of whether it is lasting.

And there you have it: my living space and my soapbox! :)