*Lyrics from You Won’t Let Me by Rachael Yamagata from her album Chesapeake. Every time I hear her voice, I ‘like’ her, or I click the little ‘thumbs up’ button on Pandora. The song is a little sad, and perhaps that’s how I feel about this process of letting our house go. But, make no mistake, we’re on the market and ready to entrust this lovely spot to another deserving family. Doesn’t make me love it less, or wish I could pick the whole house up and put it in my pocket. For now, more room tours to make you love it as much as we do…

House Tour: Offices

This room is really quite large - it's easily the second largest room upstairs, and I claimed it for my own. I'm greedy like that.

When we first started out looking for homes, fourscore and 7 years ago (I think that’s actually about accurate!), we thought we’d want at least three bedrooms: one for us, one for guests, and one for an office. Jeff has worked from home for almost the entire time I’ve known him – starting out as a freelancer and working his way to co-owning his own thriving business – so having a space that was dedicated to his work was essential in our home search. We ended up finding this 4 bedroom house, which worked out because at one time my brother lived with us (and at another time my mom lived with us), and we had guests for most major holidays and many a weekend in between, so we had plenty of room to share and spread out. After my brother (and mom) moved on (and out) to other situations, I ended up with the opportunity to get a dedicated office/craft/design studio of my own. And, even though my artistic career is in its infancy, having a whole room (with a fireplace!) to spread out and work on projects (like the desk, or the paintings, or the art), as well as work on design drawings for client projects, has been amazing.

Also, when we turned our whole world upside down to do the Great Renovation – which included contracting our entire living space into three rooms from seven (not including temporarily losing two out of three bathrooms, and of course the kitchen, for 4 months) – having those extra bedrooms came in mighty handy. The guest bedroom became Jeff’s temporary office, and my now office served as our master bedroom during that time. And, Jeff’s real office, which had served as the maid’s quarters in the olden days, was renovated to expand the closet, and close up the passageway between the bedroom and the maid’s bathroom (now the master bathroom).

At any rate, the two bedrooms that we use as offices also serve as overflow guest spaces during particularly busy holiday times (we had 16 people here last Christmas, which was amazing). So, even though they’re just another couple of rooms in our home, they help to create a feeling of homeyness for our friends and family, inviting them to stay if they so choose, and help us to feel like we have the space to be creative, productive, or otherwise independent in the world. And I love them both. So, have a look see at the rooms, and their lovely transformations from when we first bought the house until now.

Enjoy! xoxo