Our California Home

We just turned over the keys to our home here at Edwards AFB, California, and are feeling rather nostalgic. Oh, how we've loved this home! It's been our little Utopia in the middle of nowhere, and we created such beautiful, happy memories within its walls.

This is where, after years of waiting, we finally started our lives together. For three years, Matt came home for lunch every day. For one of those years, our sweet boy excitedly greeted him at the door. We cooked meals, baked cookies, chatted with friends, played the piano and guitar, cuddled up on the couch, and made plans for the future. It was our home base from which we launched many adventures both near and far, from the beaches of Orange County to the beaches of Kauai to the beaches of Positano, Italy. Our greatest adventure began here when we brought our first baby home.

In this home, we had a simple little life with our own little family, and it was all so perfect. It's hard to leave behind the house where so many wonderful things took place, but luckily we understand that home really is wherever we are together. C.S. Lewis said, "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." So here's to our happy homes and adventures still to come!

That said, here is our California home! We had a family emergency on the day that I had planned to take nice pictures of the house, so the pictures I ended up taking later were a bit sporadic and I missed some obvious views (like a normal, front-of-both-couches view of the family room. How do I not have that?). Next house, right? Meanwhile, my very favorite room of the house is Jake's nursery, so that will get a post of its own next.

The entry/stroller parking (it's a spoiled little thing, that stroller):

The living room:

The dining room:

(I never did finish styling those shelves...)

One shot of our beautiful orange oak kitchen:

Ah, and back to the dining room:

With a view from the living room and a view of the covered patio:

Walking back through the family room:

The guest bedroom/office/bike parking (because apparently nice bikes don't belong in the garage?):

The bathrooms:

The hallway looking into the master bedroom:

Our room:

Typical pillow fight. Jake loves it.

The end! We lived on base and painted nearly our entire house, which means we subsequently had to repaint the entire thing back to white. To any of you who might ever consider doing the same, just know that it was entirely worth it. For just $200 of greige, blue and green paint initially and $200 of white at the end, our basic, boring base house felt like a comfortable, inviting home for three years.

However, my siblings (or, as Heidi astutely put it, "indentured servants" since I paid their way in exchange for labor) who came out to help repaint to white might disagree just a little bit. So I do have a few suggestions, like: Don't do the world's most awesome paint job in which you paint every single little nook and cranny that no one will ever have to see, because it means that you will have to do the world's most awesome repaint job later. And you should probably not paint bathrooms, or at least don't paint every square millimeter behind the toilet. Okay, that basically covers it. Also, just be aware that creating a "before" out of your "after" -- that is, painting an ugly, yellow-y white over your pretty colors -- isn't all that satisfying. It was quite telling, though, because as soon as our colors were gone, it didn't feel at all like our home any more... which made us even more grateful that we had made it our home to begin with.

Just for kicks and giggles, a couple scenes from painting (compliments of my dear siblings):

Clearly, they love doing business with me.

Actually, we had some super-fun late-night paint parties to 90's pop, so it couldn't have been all that bad. Plus, they got a trip to California out of it! Basically, indentured servitude rocks.