my very own space

Now that the weather has turned, I’m happy to have my nook back. It’s technically a three season porch so in the winter months it is uninhabitable. Even with the direct morning sun, you could still see your breath in there. So, the door stayed closed and my little room sat empty most of the winter.

In our old house, which was a small two bedroom, we had an extra room that we called the sun room because it had two walls of windows. It was one of those useless rooms that was too removed from the kitchen to make into an extra dining space. We tried that when we first moved into the house, but the room was awkwardly square.

We tried it as a sitting room. But because it was so small and oddly shaped we couldn’t find furniture that fit the space comfortably enough to make sitting there desirable. And in the winter, you could just feel the cold air seeping in through the cracks. Cozy it was not.

Its next iteration was a playroom which occurred during that phase of toddlerhood when BPC (Big Plastic Crap) takes over your life and we unsuccessfully try to wrangle all the pieces of play into bins that seem to be only good for dumping not containing. Eventually, our boys grew out of this phase and so Legos covered every surface of the room. It became a pit of crap (you should never call your kids’ stuff crap in front of them, it scars them for life – trust me) that we were forced to look at every time we entered and exited our house.

Then I decided that I needed to reclaim some space in my house. The boys could have their toys in their room. Yes, you can play AND sleep in the same room as revolutionary as that sounds. I was taking a lot of art classes at the time, and so I turned the room into a studio space just for me that I came to love.

Here it is during its early days:

And as soon as we decided to sell our house, the stager said that my treasured art room needed to go and be replaced with yes, a sitting room. I guess she was right. We sold our house fairly quickly and somewhat painlessly.

Having that art room made me realize how much I craved my own space. When we moved into our new house, there was another awkwardly shaped, useless room calling my name – a sleeping porch our landlord called it. A narrow enclosed porch off our bedroom that had zero potential. Even the previous tenant said it was only good for storage.

I took it on as my very own space.

What I love about this room is twofold. First, I didn’t buy a single thing. I challenged myself to use the odds and ends that we already had that didn’t work anywhere else in our house. The table was donated by a neighbor who had trash picked it but didn’t have a good use for it.

My nook is sort of like a museum of my life meets the Island of Misfit toys. It houses my self-help book collection, pictures I love and our family’s beach sand collection. It’s great example of using what you have.

The second thing I love about this room – it has a door.

I do most of my writing when the house is empty at our family computer in the dining room. I’ve tried to write in my nook but I’m always too distracted by the windows and the views of kids and neighbors going about their day.

So what I do in my nook is read, draw, listen to podcasts and sit. And sit some more.

There are no chores in the nook. Only things that I feel pulled to do.

Our house is small. We share a lot of things. But the nook, I don’t share.

I need the physical space, because I need the mental space. I need an island in a sea of sibling bickering and Pokemon battles. I need a place that doesn’t remind me of to-do lists or unanswered emails.  A place where dust adds character and laundry doesn’t to wait to be folded.

A place where I’m not Mom or hon or Kale – I’m just me. Even if it’s just for a minute or two.

It doesn’t have to be big or fancy. But it does have to have a door.

Do you crave your own space? Do you have your own space? What do you do there?