Sunny Days

It seems like everytime I post pictures of our sunroom I get at least one comment along the following lines:

If I had a room like that I would live in it.

When we put in the offer on the house we knew we loved it. We loved the kitchen. The trees. The gorgeous sun room. The "rural" feel of an undeveloped woods behind us and the suburban convenience of a grocery store just 2 miles up the road. The brick exterior. The lots and lots of windows. The whirpool tub in the master bath. But we also knew something else--the house was lots bigger than what we really needed (or truth be told had wanted).

Still, we bought the house. Our furniture which had almost filled our 1100 sq foot rental was swallowed whole by the 4000 sq feet of our new house. Entire rooms sat empty. Heck, with the exception of the kitchen, the entire downstairs was unfurnished. People who came over would look around, confused "You just move in?" Yea, about a year ago.

We furnished the rooms, making the most of what we had. Our master bedroom, the rec room, my craft room, the kitchen. Everything else has been patiently waiting. And given our insistence on a) buying quality furniture and b) paying cash for it it's going to take us a long time to furnish the house.

We decided to start with the sunroom for a couple of reasons:

1)We had a vision. This was the one room where we actually knew what we wanted.
2)All the windows meant the space could be furnished with considerably less "stuff" than would be needed in the other rooms. Which made it much more affordable.

We finally bought our sunroom set last fall. Unfortunately, by the time it was delivered we were barreling into winter. One little secret of a 4000 sq ft, two story, mostly empty house with lots of windows? It is impossible to keep the downstairs warm in the winter. No matter how high we crank the heat, it refuses to budge much above 58 degrees or so. When you are putting on jackets to cook dinner, you don't want to go hang out in the (uninsulated) sunroom where it is even colder. You just don't. So this spring was the first time we've really been able to enjoy our sunroom and you know what? I kept forgetting to! Having spent most of our nearly 2 years in the house exclusively upstairs, I just didn't occur to me to go downstairs and sit in our lovely sunroom.

One upside to our 4.5 days without power earlier this year was that we "discovered" the sunroom. I marveled at how wonderful it was to sit and study in the natural light with the cats lounging nearby. And so, on weekends, I've been making it a point to drag my study materials downstairs and camp in the sunroom for the day. As fall sets in, I know it is just a matter of time before the chill in the air drives me upstairs.And so, I am already looking forward to next summer, when I can enjoy it with a just-for-fun book or a bit of sewing in hand instead of a hefty text book and reams of paper.