Tour: Part 1

I have drafts of four different posts saved— about race, witchcraft, gender and dead bodies. None of them are quite ready. So instead of that serious stuff that is rattling around my mind, may I present:

THE AMAZINGNESS THAT IS ROBIN WOODS Part 1 of many because I have a lot of cool stuff to show off.

I had deep consideration of whether naming a house is pretentious. It kind of is. I don’t care. I’ve leaned into it. I love this house and I love the property and something that is loved this much deserves a name.

The road to get to our driveway isn’t paved. It’s all gravel and dirt, with deep ruts that get deeper out after a hard rain. The road winds around a very, very big hill to the top. Our moving truck couldn’t get up it. The movers had to load our furniture into two smaller trucks to get it here.

The county doesn’t maintain it— it is up to the us and the other eight houses on the road. We have one neighbor with a Bobcat who seems on top of it, replacing gravel and smoothing it out, one piece at a time, never quite finishing all of it completely before it wears down again. He also kindly cleared off our drive after the recent snow. He has yet to ask for money to reimburse him for gravel, despite us offering.

If you come visit us, we will warn you that the road is rough. Somehow you’ll still feel obliged to tell me it was rough when you get here.

Neighbors park their cars at the foot of the hill in bad weather and use their trucks or SUVs to shuttle to and from.

Our house is near the top of the very big hill. It’s nestled just under the highest ridge, so the wind blows over the top of our house and we are protected from the elements. Our driveway leading up to our house is sizable to the point Dove and I take “driveway walks” to stretch our legs. You cannot see our house from the edge of our drive.

Dove and I have started creating a mental picture of the previous owners of Robin Woods, based on bits and pieces of what we’ve learned or noticed or been told. The house was built in 1985 and has had a single owner, an elderly couple. The house seems to have been built with lots of love and whimsy.

The real estate agent who sold it got teary-eyed at closing, because she grew up visiting her childhood friends who lived here and had fond memories of the place. (Our fantastic real estate agent shared the tea on this.)

There is wood everywhere. That sounds dumb— it is a cabin, after all. All of the walls facing the exterior are made of wood. There is a significant amount of built-in wood shelving. Our bathrooms have real wooden vanities. None of the wood quite matches. We’ve heard that this house and another one on the street were built by the same person, with lots of wood and scraps from various other projects.

I love it. It makes me feel like a squirrel that lives inside of a tiny acorn. I love walking around the house turning off lights before I go to sleep and everything is bathed in a warm honey light. I have no plans to cover or paint any of this wood.

The previous owners had bespoke light switch covers in every room.

Aren’t these amazing? I’ve replaced a few but mainly just embracing it.

Chick wasn’t particularly enthused about the “babies dressed as teddy bears with underwear on their head” in their room. TV’s room had the white cat and we were absolutely not allowed to change it (even though I kind of wanted it myself).

The previous owners loved wallpaper something fierce. Almost every room was wallpapered before we moved in. I’ve got a lot of before and after shots but I’ll start with the main bathroom.

Main bathroom before, complete with wall to ceiling wallpaper.

Main bathroom now.

I have shown this before and after photo of my rooms to people and I invariably get, “but that was cute! You should have just kept the wallpaper!”

I totally agree— if it was in good shape, I could have leaned into the vibe. But here is a closer up look of it, from this bathroom.