The (Two) Happy Folks' Home

Why do we choose to live where we live?  There are reams of  articles answering that question -- writers talk of cities or towns where they live, where the air is cleaner, where the quality of life is a few notches above where they used to live. 

Which brings me to the question -- what quality of life am I after?  Perhaps this is what I should answer seeing that I have consciously chosen to start a new life in the middle of a  couple of thousand square meters of uncleared land -- more than 3 hours away from where I currently live. 

A few years ago,  Jay and I made plans on leaving the city behind --  the congestion, the clutter, the complexities were no longer necessary nor worth it.  As you grow older, you look for the simpler, more minimalistic  life.  Our house had also become so full of "stuff" -- the things we had accumulated  through 40 years of marriage. Marie Kondo, help!  

Perhaps we took the easier way out.   Instead of looking at what we "had"  and wondering if they still "sparked joy" (traffic and noise ... definitely not) before throwing them all out --  we decided to build a new house.  Smaller, more compact --  we resolved to start fresh and keep it as spare and clear of all clutter as we could.  

This is the quality of life that we now both aspire to.  

It took almost two years of building but this month -- our clean, small house was finally finished and is now waiting for us to slowly move in.

The house has a  fairly spacious kitchen and I realized that the shelves can be transformed into a mini culinary library for my food related books.  

Early on, we said that this would be a house just for the two of us. We have never done much entertaining in our lives so the small space between the main door and the sliding glass doors that lead out to the tree filled backyard cannot be called a real "living room" area for when "company" calls. 

There is no couch, no visitors' chairs (how anti-social of us!) just two antique narra rocking chairs (that used to belong to a childhood friend's family). Perfect for relaxing and even napping on lazy afternoons.

We had specified to our architect and to our contractor that we wanted an  industrial type of design for the house  -- the ceiling is exposed, the walls and floors are all made of concrete with just a few wooden touches. Everything is simple and spare. 

To add some flair,  we looked for and found a pre-owned crystal chandelier -- in the curvy and very feminine "Maria Theresia" style.  Named after the 18th century Empress of Austria, this chandelier gave a much needed soft touch to our otherwise "warehouse"type interiors. 

The house has a den cum guest bedroom.  Our interior designer fashioned a day bed out of a pair of antique hardwood headboards gifted to us by a friend.  This house fulfills the requirements of a wedding -- something old, something new, something borrowed -- now I'll have to find something blue!

I dread the time when I have to transfer my hoard of books -- Jay believes I have too many and in my heart of hearts, I know he is right.  Perhaps that is why he had so few bookshelves set up in the den.  

The single biggest room in the house is our bedroom.  It's also the only room where I requested for and got a wooden floor.   The floor is made of wide planks of vintage wood, sourced from old homes.   Our interior designer had the bed custom made -- if you look a little longer you may notice the headboard looks somewhat like a stylized torii.  I hope I can invite good and benevolent kami in this house.

The land needs to be cleared and cleaned up.  I love that there are so many trees and foliage but I know they need to be trimmed.  There is a cliff at the edge of the property that looks over the mountains across where there are more trees (for now at least).  It is a lovely spot for a future meditation and prayer corner.
Our new  house is a work in progress but its bones and foundations are excellent. 

I know we will have an amazing time here -- in our (two)  Happy Folks' Home!