Welcome To Our Little Cottage In The Woods

[singlepic id=37 w=500 h=350 float=] (Alternatively titled "A Week In The Life Of My Family")

Yay!! I've been so looking forward to sharing the images of our new cottage with the world! My partner Graham built it himself this autumn, and it is on the property of a friend of ours. It is less that 300 square feet- one larger room that serves as living, dining, and bedroom, and one smaller bathroom containing a clawfoot bathtub, laundry baskets and clothing, and a composting toilet. Aside from the toilet and the lack of an internet connection or cell phone reception we have all the luxuries of modern living- hot water, electricity, etc.

It is a few minutes outside of Nevada City, California. We have been living in it for about a month now and are just thrilled with it. As this article points out, living in a small space, even with a young child, is very do-able and has many benefits!

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First off, let me introduce you to Speckles. Speckles spends most of her time on a manzanita branch perch a few feet from the window by our bed. The rest of her time she spends flying directly into said window. She probably is just confused by the reflection, but sometimes I feel as if she has an urgent message for us, or that she is an omen of some sort.

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Now this is a funny little story that could have had a disastrous ending but, thank you stars, didn't. Graham went to our storage unit to get all of our daughter Mycelia Violet's children's books out. There are a lot of them. I read voraciously and am of the mind that you can never have too many books around, so she has hundreds (like me). Now it was late when Graham got home so he left the books in their boxes in the back of our truck overnight. And it rained. But somehow the damage was minimal. We spread all the books out over the floor, turned both space heaters on, and left for a few hours.

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Here we are in the garden of the family from which grew the beautiful musician Mariee Sioux. Graham and Mycelia played outside while Mariee's equally beautiful mother Felicia and I went through her vintage collection. To die for! (A few pieces will be coming into the shop in January).

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Here is some "sugar smoke" from when Graham baked up some *delicious* bay leaf and lemon shortbread yummies for a cookie exchange and clothing swap I attended a few nights ago (where I scored mightily for myself and the shop).

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Bathroom coziness.

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And here's my favorite little corner of the cottage- the clothes rack.

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And the little sprite herself, wearing her favorite vintage shawl.

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The outside is still donning Tyvek Home Wrap and is therefore very un-photogenic at this moment :-)

But you can see the surrounding landscape in many of the photos that are in the shop right now. Just look for green grass and manzanita trees.

Hope you're all as warm and bundled as we are this Winter Solstice!