Aubergine

"I live in a purple house with a green door."

Klara, age 5

But doesn't Aubergine Cottage sound bloggy-er better than

Purple House with a Green Door?

Eggplant Establishment?

And truth be known, I love everything cottage.

So Aubergine Cottage it is!

relaxed

chipping

old

new

simple

seasonal

understated

flexible

cozy

colorful

FUN!

It's actually an 1869 farmhouse with a solid attempt at Greek Revival but on a farmhouse budget.

We bought this mortgage in 2006 and have been chipping away at the many many many projects that came with this old house.  

I love it though. 

I love this house.

I love our yard. 

I love our neighbors. 

How does that happen? 

Truly, our neighbors became immediate family.

I LOVE that!  

You can't buy that.  

They fell in our path when we fell in love with this house. *

So fortunate.

We bought this house when we were 5 months pregnant with baby #1.

We were like, "Yah, it needs a ton of work but we have like 4 months to get it done!"  **

We moved in when my son was 10 months old :) and it took 6 more years to get a permanent kitchen.

Although our house is 145 years old, I tell my kids "Daddy built it." 

*Love of my life will read this and say to himself, "YOU fell in love with this house, not me!"

** Love of my life (with help from friends and family) gutted all of the garbage (crumbling horse-hair plaster and lots of layers of paint) out of this house and yard (which previous owners had used as a garbage dump) and re-stabilized (there were broken carrying beams and 75% of the sill was eaten away by termites 40 years earlier....),

rebuilt and restructured it on late nights and weekends, while working full-time and being an amazing Dad.