Well, we have reached our destination! Operation Bemus or Bust has been achieved. Three months ago, we sold our home in California, packed our whole life on to a big semi-truck, flew our family across the country, set up shop temporarily in our summer cottage, and now, we are finally settling in to our dream lake house... and resuming a bit more normalcy. 2500 miles later, we are New York residents and Bemus Point locals. This has been the most difficult, exhausting, and spiritual adventure. We trusted our gut instincts, we listened to our hearts, we tested our patience to the max, and challenged ourselves mentally and physically. We are a stronger couple and a stronger family because of it, and we have proven to ourselves that we can get through anything, as a family unit. Now we can finally breathe again, take our time designing and "Groverizing" our new home, and just sit back, watch, and enjoy our babies grow.
In our first week in our new house, the boys and I became "hermits" and we hibernated at the house. Its not like we had to go anywhere.....we played indoors, outdoors, and we primarily slowed down to get some unpacking done. Interestingly, since I packed up the entire household back in CA, I guess I was responsible in unpacking everything! HA! My goal was to unpack 4-5 boxes a day..... man, did I love the sound of a box being collapsed and folded after it was emptied!
As you can see, the kids enjoyed unpacking the boxes as well, and we built forts and tunnels out of them!
First on the unpacking list was the boys' rooms (and clothes), their toys, the living room, dining room, the kitchen, then our master bedroom. My poor clothes were again on the bottom of the totem pole, but hey, when you don't have to leave the house why bother with organizing clothes just yet. The kitchen took the longest to unpack..... so much packing paper and since it was packed by the movers I had to slowly unroll the dishes and glasses from the boxes. Then, we had to wash everything. Our fine china and Bohemian crystal is still boxed up and waiting to go in a custom china cabinet built-in. At the end of our 2nd week, we were fully unpacked (minus the guest room, and TV/ DVD components and movies..... those are waiting to go into a new media wall system we are buying for the game room.) LOL Don't giggle.... we really do have a game room! And a library, and a "sunset room"! That's what's been fun about this house, for the design geeks Brad and I are, we are like kids in a candy store. Neither one of us has ever lived in a house this size, and we have so much space, many rooms to design and decorate, and shop for! We keep coming up with ideas, blending our old designs with some new fabulous ones! Although we want to get everything done before next summer when we open for visitors, we are taking our time and perfecting each task. (As in the kitchen remodel and fireplace remodel. ) You can bet that as one room is completed after another, we will reveal it on here!
Here are some things I love about our new house:
1) Practically every window has a lake and sunset view. The dining room/ family room and master bedroom have a 180 degree view of the lake.
2) It has a surround sound stereo speakers on every ceiling on the whole main level, game room, and outside deck! (you can control the volume in each room as well)
3) Our new Samsung washer and dryer and spacious laundry room..... that thing is running all day, now if only we had a machine that would fold and put the clothes away! LOL
4) The sound of boats and jet skis cruising past our house, and on some nights you can hear the steam boat
5) Our master bath has a shower with glass blocks against the outside wall and at certain times of the day when the sun shines through the glass blocks it illuminates the whole shower and the iridescent tiles sparkle! I enjoy my steam shower when everything sparkles around me :)
5) We are a 5-10 short walk to the village. We can stroll over there with the stroller, or ride our bikes.... (when Brad has his boy nites he usually just takes the bike and rides it back after he's been drinking :) We can also take our boat over to the village and dock it there at any of the restaurants on the water (not in the Winter of course).
Our new home is starting to feel and look like home.....
I absolutely love having a big kitchen. Although its not quite our style just yet, it feels SO NICE to have all the counter space and an island. I missed cooking for my boys...... one of our first celebratory dinners was a Moussaka replica of our favorite dish from California's Panini Cafe. The boys thought I did a good job, very proud of myself! That's all you have to do.... if you can't find your favorite dish else where, then you just do your best to make it! Hope I can accomplish this with our favorite Thai and Indian dishes!
Upon moving in, we received a wonderful housewarming basket from our friends Tom & Karen (our neighbors at the cottage):
In the middle is Kristina's husband Greg, and next to him is Amanda's husband Josh (on right):
Oooops, almost forgot...... thank goodness for having a dishwasher again!!! Jax seems to appreciate it as well!
The boys love eating at the counter these days...... so much easier like this:
Here are the boys on the driveway, Taj is very excited to be able to push Jax around in his blue car!
and here they are showing off the newest house accessories.... our new Restoration Hardware aviator chairs in the family room :)
It's all coming together, and looking good! More to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment