I Wonder What's My Favorite Room?

The Boy and I have been seriously considering talking about making a plan to think about maybe moving. Not to a new city/state, just to a new dwelling. I have decided for no particular reason that I want another bathroom; neither of us wants to stay in a condo forever; The Boy would like somewhere to tinker with his beer-brewing supplies; we might like to get a puppy someday. But the notion of facing the uncertainty about whether or not our current home would sell in a timely fashion fills us both with abject terror so the discussion grinds to a halt pretty quickly … as would this Wonder, if I were to wonder about what kind of place we might find, so instead, I’ll focus on the favorite part of my current cozy home. And when I say “cozy,” that’s total real-estate speak for “awfully small”: we’re rocking fewer than 1,000 square feet, so there aren’t all that many rooms from which to choose.

I like our place well enough, and have actually said recently that if we could magically move it to its own lot, make it all on the ground floor, and add a bathroom (I’m really serious about this bathroom thing, y’all), I’d be content. The kitchen’s open and well-laid-out, there’s enough closet space, and I don’t hate the carpet enough to take the time or budget to change it.

Our little second bedroom, which we’ve turned into our home office since The Boy came home from his stint in Vegas a few (almost three! Where’d the time go?) years ago, is oddly enough my favorite room in the house these days. I say “oddly” because it’s not even finished … not a single picture hangs on the walls, there are no curtains, and a good stiff carpet-cleaning is long overdue. We ran out of steam after we painted, especially when the possibility of putting the condo on the market came up: we didn’t want to personalize things too much (or have a bunch of nail holes to fill) if we were going to turn around and leave soon after. And then after a while, we just got used to seeing the frames on the floor propped up against the wall rather than on the wall. Sometimes I pretend I can still smell the paint just so I don’t feel so lame … as though maybe it’s still not quite dry enough to decorate in there just yet.

But we did pick out some sweet little office furniture and a soft-purple loveseat, so when we’re in the house and not parked in front of the TV, this is where we spend a fair amount of time. The loveseat is just big enough for me to curl up to read with all my magazines at my feet while The Boy is at the computer desk. Turn on some Sirius and we’re good to stay in those positions for hours on a cold and dreary weekend like the one that just ended. The walls are a peaceful light gray (I think the color name is Porpoise, which makes me happy) and the loveseat’s throw pillows are super-fluffy.

One of the reasons I love this room is that when we’re both in the groove—The Boy tip-tap-typing away while I delve into issue after issue of backlogged magazines—that contented hush you find in a nice library steals over everything and time fades away. I never really liked my college library too much (I will forever contest that it smells vaguely of Band-Aids) but I did always relish the feeling of communal studying. And then when you simply had to talk about something other than whatever you were reading, there was a delicious little thrill from breaking that companionable silence.

Our office doesn’t have library rules: there’s the Sirius helping us rock out sans headphones, and we can still break for a chat if there’s something I read that makes me laugh or gasp out loud or if he wants help tweaking the phrasing on something he’s writing, but for the most part we’re just happy to be in the same space yet doing our own things.

So the unadorned, unassuming office is my favorite room in our tiny castle. What’s yours?