Here is us, in all our Christmas glory from last December. Today, (November 16, 2021) we are slowly but surely decking the halls. Slowly because every single strand of lights went out and every suction cup won’t stick and we are living out a true Griswold family Christmas. And to top it off we were at the ER last week when Nick stepped off the mower wrong and tore something in his ankle. SPECIAL times in the West household haha. But we will have cheer this year, broken lights, broken ankle, we are determined. ITS THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.
I wanted to share some Christmas photos from us at home last year because it is our absolute favorite time of the year and these images needed a permanent spot on this blog.
If you’re new here, I write this post every single year on this day. November 16th, 2015 is the day we closed on this home. It was broken, brown, and to put it nicely, a complete mess, but we saw HOPE. I really love looking back every year at the precious moments that have happened in our family, the memories made here, and how we just keep on making this little place our own.
2021, this year for our family has been much more refreshing than the last. While we are still navigating life in a pandemic, the vaccine brought on a little normalcy and our careers are back on track, we are healthy, life is good-ish.*
I still look back and feel proud and amazed at all we have accomplished in the last 6 years. It’s nostalgic to look back. It feels good to relive hard work and know that we’re enjoying that labor now. It feels like Nick and I have lived a lifetime since closing on Our Humble Hideaway. We’ve grown our careers, we’ve grown our family. There have been times (mostly in the early years) where I wanted to give up. It all just felt like too much. But month by month, year by year we have chipped away and taken something broken down and neglected and turned it into our dream. One thing I absolutely love about living here is how the options are endless. We can grow a gigantic garden, build an addition, build a studio, plant trees and flowers, renovate and decorate… my creativity and passion flows here. I love planning future endeavors and setting goals for the next year. I love adding to the landscape every year. I love making little improvements that have big daily impact. My gratitude for this land is overflowing.
So, what did we accomplish on our home this year!? (You should look back at past posts to see where we started!)
Here’s a quick recap of past years renovations:
2015: Close on home & Move in
2016: Remodel Existing Bathrooms, Paint, Replace Fencing, Clean up the Property, Replace interior and exterior doors, tons of small projects
2017: Kitchen Renovation, New Flooring, & our Porter Gene joining the family
2018: Barn/Studio Renovation
2019: Driveway addition and clean up, Master Bedroom Reno, Master Bathroom Addition
2020: Reside Garage to match barn, Nolan Henry joined our family
2021: Remodel Mudroom, Add Front French Doors, Remove Wall To Sunporch/Add Renovate Dining Room, Finished Basement 3/4 Done, Added to the garden
2022 Goals: Wildflower Field, Grow Dahlias, Grow Flowers For A Cut Garden, Add stairwell Window upstairs, and whatever else I come up with that I can’t live without ;)
Below is our dining room renovation this year! I started with the before photos. When we bought the house it had a very random sunporch that we never used. It was dark and cold and truly made no sense. It also made it hard to get out front, lots of doors and twists and turns. Our kitchen is quite small and we never had space to entertain inside… So we got the idea to knock down that wall and make the sunporch a dining room. We removed the bay window in the kitchen area and added french doors. When I tell you this is one of my favorite projects we have done yet, I MEAN IT. We LOVE this space. We can all sit as a family. The space is large and bright and so so so useful. And the french doors off the kitchen, omg! We LOVE leaving them open when the weather is nice. The access to the deck is perfect. It should have always been this way. We are truly so grateful to have been able to do this project. We still once a week say “don’t you just love this space” and it was done 7 months ago.
BEFORE
AFTER
And of course once you start one thing it leads to another… We call that PROJECT CREEP. It just keeps on creeping into the next space. We decided to also redo our mudroom to match that is off the back of the house. Forgive me for the before photos, that’s what it looked like when we bought the house. Terrible quality, but you get the gist!
BEFORE
AFTER
I am so glad we did this little extra! It ties all the spaces together. And what was once a dark pass through that I kinda dreaded being in, is now a fresh space that we can put on our shoes and store all the “things.”
The other main project we did this year was finishing our basement. We finished it about 65% maybe!? The most important was creating a work from home space for Nick since his new job is completely remote. I love this little desk area. Its cute and fresh and private from our monsters which is most important.
For my birthday in 2019 I was given a Cut Flower Garden book from my good friend Valerie. I was immediately inspired. I read the entire book front to back and was ready to get in the dirt. When the pandemic began we were at home so much I started to grow a few flowers. This year I was able to grow more. And next year we have plans for even MORE. There are VERY few things in the world that slow me down, that bring me calm, that bring me peace. When I am planting, cutting, caring for, and arranging flowers I feel all of those things. I would find myself watching the wind just blow them, staring at the uniqueness of each petal. I got so passionate about it. As a mom, you know how impossible it is to carve out ‘you’ time. So I have BIG dreams but smaller expectations. We are taking it one season at a time, learning as we go, and creating as much beauty and peace as we have time for. I would never ever be able to do this without the help of my mom, who is always the first to grab a shovel and offer a hand. We were able to plant large zinnia rows that brought me so much joy. My mom and I also planted 5 hydrangea bushes, 4 lilacs, 3 rhododendron, 4 peony, 4 rose, and so many other perennials. They will take a few years to mature, but I am SO excited. Along with our 20 pine trees we also got a weeping willow in the ground. I am so excited to see it grow over the years. Next year I am going to take a stab at growing Dahlias. But our biggest gardening project yet is turning 15,000 square feet into a wildflower meadow. We had to correct a water problem this year and while they were here excavating I asked them to tear up a rectangle of the yard. If all goes well next summer this yard is going to paradise. I truly cannot wait. Here are some flower photos from this past summer!
2021 also allowed us to turn my studio into a photography space full time! This was an exciting change as our hearts were pushing us to get out of hosting events and really cherish more family time on the weekends. Having this space for my business, and to rent out to other photographers has been incredible.
We also did lots of mowing (Nolan LOVES taking rides), stock tank pool fun, stained our deck, and enjoyed late summer nights.
This year we lost our sweet baby Scout. Scout joined our family in 2013. I volunteered at a shelter photographing dogs just out of college and inevitably I left with one :) She is so so so incredibly missed in our home. We had 8 good years with her, but unfortunately she got a rare cancer that made her quite ill. She got sick in 2020, but according to the vet made a miraculous recovery where we got an extra year with her. It felt like a bonus and we really cherished that time. We wanted to honor her and never forget the love and laughter she brought our family. We deiced to plant a ‘dogwood’ tree as a tribute to her. We spread her ashes in the dirt, and planted it with a plaque so we could see her sweet face every time we walk down the hill. We love and miss her every single day.
This year brought us the joy of taking our first family vacation as a family of 4! If I’m being honest, we were worried haha. But the trip truly went amazing. The boys had a blast, the weather was perfect, the drive could have totally been worse. It gave us more confidence to do more trips like this in the future. It was lovely and I hope we can do more vacations like this.
I’m not sure I could choose a favorite season here if you asked. I have this vivid memory in my mind… We viewed the house October 15, 2015… The leaves were so beautifully changed. We pulled onto the gravel drive, I hadn’t even seen the house up the hill, and I said “this is it.” So maybe its Fall!? But I also love this place covered in snow. And I also LOVE this place covered in flowers. I could argue it all. It’s November right now and we just came off of such a fun Halloween with the kids. I love the opportunity this property provides for outdoor parties, bonfires, hay rides, and sweet autumn memories. We had such a great Fall.
I had this thought about traditions the other day. What a tradition is, what it means to us, what it takes to continue it. I LOVE traditions. I love special things that you get to look forward to every year. Nostalgic feelings and memories. Seeing how things have changed over the years, and how some things have stayed the same. But keeping traditions is hard. It takes so much effort. You have to be willing to put that tradition before your laundry, before your to do list, before your job, before a full nights sleep. I am so passionate about traditions and keeping them alive. The tradition of writing this post for example. I am chest deep in editing and an extremely busy Fall, but writing this post every year is so important to me, so I made time for it. I put it above all else. That’s how I see the important things, like decorating for the holidays, making magic for the kids, gathering our friends together in October 9 years in a row to take our beloved truck photo. I really sat and thought about the word tradition this week and it just stayed with me. How important it is to me and my character. How if you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. You can find the time to prioritize the most important things to you. And the tradition of renovating this house, of hosting our friends and family here, of having birthday parties and bon fires under the string lights, and even the simplest of things like our nightly family routine. This home has really brought out the best in our family. Its brought out exactly who we want to be, who we were supposed to be. A place we can be creative, a place to work hard, a place that makes us beam with pride, and a safe place to put our babies to bed every night. This year and every year we are so unbelievably grateful for Our Humble Hideaway. What it does for us as a family of four, how it encourages this revolving door of friends, it’s been such a beautiful 6 years. We love your forever Our Humble Hideaway. See you here next year!
