How We Live Here Now - Volume 1: Introduction

Hi. It's been a while. I've missed this.

I took a longer break than I planned. Life has gotten full. I’ve been fussing around with furniture layouts, knitting at my daughter’s gymnastics class, and attempting to garden with my kids. I’ve also been scheduling summer camps, refilling the watercolors multiple times a day, and trying to keep the toys tidied. Around the house, I’m adding color wherever it fits and making some changes to the overall function and feel.

The biggest change to our home is raising two kids here. Margot is nearly five(!) and spends most of her day outside, which means she comes home with lots of dirt under her nails and rocks in her pockets. She has established shy of a dozen fairy gardens in our yard. Hattie (rhymes with happy) is over a year old now and up for anything as long as Ross or I are carrying her. She's velcroed to one of us at all times, even sleeping nestled in the crook of my arm all night.

Having kids has made me more sentimental, more sensitive, more convicted in my values, and more drawn to color and warmth and things that bring joy. My perspective on the house has shifted in the years since blogging more regularly.

This blog started as a restoration project. Every decision was in service of preserving a century-old house. The historic materials, sustainable choices, the years-long hunt for exactly the right thing consumed me. That chapter is (mostly) behind us now, having undergone the biggest renovations and restorations. Now, I'm focused on tweaking functionality and designing around the family that lives here. We now have two little roommates who benefit from furniture at their height, toys accessible in our shared spaces, room to get messy, and places for their mom to still be creative, even after doing dishes for (checks clock) 70 hours a day.

I need projects I can accomplish during nap time (or many, many nap times). And when I say "need" I mean it. I yearn for the creativity of my art school days and want to show my girls that they can make things with their hands, too. That grown ups can have fun and that arts and crafts aren't just for kids. Not long ago my creative outlet was hand-painting a mural for 100 hours. But now, I have a much sharper sense of what my time is worth, so I'm extra choosy about what I take on, what I hire out, and what I just let be.

Somehow I've also taken on more hobbies than ever before. I'm committed to growing a real cut flower garden this year. I'm developing at least a roll of film a month on my 35mm camera. I have multiple knitting projects going at once. I have a stack of library books on the nightstand (admittedly waiting to be cracked open, but picking them up counts for something, right?). None of these are solo pursuits, though. I garden with the girls (or I try to, at least). I photograph my kids. I knit clothes for them at Margot's soccer practice. These are hobbies I'm folding into the life we already have, slowly. In a world that feels heavy and dark, I'm craving beauty and choosing to make it. The term "joy as resistance" has stuck with me.

Another hobby is collecting children's books from the library and reading them with the girls. The illustrations full of colors and the layers upon layers of patterns (oh, the wallpaper!) are on my mind. My home is the backdrop to my kids' lives and picture books have become my inspiration. I want to add more color, more pattern, more whimsy. For the girls, and for me!

How We Live Here Now is an upcoming room-by-room series looking at this house as it actually exists, day-to-day, in 2026. I'm revisiting each room, talking honestly about how we actually live in each space, grading my past decisions and reviewing how products have held up. I’m sharing what's to come in each room, too. Whether that's a project that takes 10 nap times to accomplish, or a little tweak here and there. I'm even considering a major change that I genuinely cannot bring myself to admit to the internet (yet!). Oh, and I'll also share some of the spaces I've barely mentioned in the past. Have I ever told you I have secret laundry?

The house is more lived-in than it's ever been in the last decade. I'm more excited to document it now (with baby bottles on the counter and dirty shoes on the porch) than ever before.

I can't promise a posting schedule. Did I mention the hours spent doing dishes? But I'm starting with the backyard, see you there soon(ish).

Follow along here, or on Substack for free, where I'll share this series plus some companion pieces that lean a little more personal than home restoration.