This is our home. I love our home. This September we will have lived here for three years. My husband found it when we were looking to move our growing family from a tiny townhouse just a few miles away. When he drove me past it for the first time I said, "that could be really good... or really bad."
Turns out it was really good, and just gets better as we make our own updates. It was designed and built in 1965 by the man we bought it from. When our real estate agent brought us to see the house the owner was home and gave us a tour, telling us about his life and the two boys he and his wife raised here.
He was a commercial artist (he designed the Mr. Goodbar wrapper!) and he and his wife both painted. He made a large art studio for himself, but once he got married and had kids, they used that space as a playroom and added two bedrooms onto it. Now it's a perfect space for our two boys.
They then made part of the lower level into a studio, which has a closet with shelves of paper that he left for me, including some old sketchbooks... with drawings in them, I believe done by his wife.
He also gave me his drawing table and his wife's easel.
At first I thought it might feel strange to live in their house and keep so many of their things (we've kept other furniture, lights, books, dishes...), but all of those things just turned out to be part of the house and its story. And they've turned into things I now treasure.
This is my drawing of another package design done by the previous owner of our house. When we went on our last tour of the house with him I asked if he was planning on taking this empty can, because if he didn't want it anymore, I definitely did. He left me two of them.
And... here's a little pile of Mr. Goodbar mini's I drew the other night.
