one year here

We have lived in our new home for one year now.
We've done a bit of landscaping and added a treehouse out back, repaired a water damaged plaster wall and replaced the hot water tank, made friends with neighbors and built a mantel and touched up so much paint, among another million small things. We've certainly finished more than one project with a bit of a better done than perfect motto.
We still need more bookshelves. Like, yesterday. We still need to hang art on walls and curtains on windows, but we believe in sunshine and nothing to hide, so we're not in a huge rush.
The days of chances being taken and changes being made are mostly over, and having somehow managed to survive the renovation process with some veneer of sanity, we are feeling very settled.

Nothing about our house is particularly magazine worthy. I mean, there is no delicate balance of mid century modern and Scandinavian simplicity. It's more like a decade explosion, mostly because we've chosen things we love (and can afford) - rustic farmhouse and hand-me-downs and vintage cottage and IKEA. Although parts of the house are new, it all feels well-worn, furnished with children and scuffed edges and all the usual complications of age.
We actually still have boxes to unpack, but at this point I'm not sure we really need whatever's in them. We have sold/trashed/donated so much shit the past two years. The extra room to breathe is way more valuable. We did not build the house with the intent to fill it with things, but we are so grateful for the space it affords us to fill with our favorite people.

^ and yet the boys tried to convince us to let them sleep here in this tiny nook, like we don't even need their bedrooms.