After months looking, we finally found a house we love in our new town of Placerville!

In Los Angeles, we lived in a tiny Craftsman style house in Highland Park. We loved that little house, even though we'd long outgrown it. We have way too many collections between us—guitars, records, music equipment, cookbooks, dishes, furniture—you get the point. Then we had kids. At that point, the housing bubble burst and were stuck in our little house for many years, until our luck finally changed last year.

When we moved up to Northern California, we tossed around some ideas about putting up a prefab house on some property we own, or just living on my parents land and building something there. After being at my parents house for a few months, I realized my husband might not be happy living in a rural environment. A few examples:

At night, he thought a machete yielding psycho would come out of the trees to get us. (I'm not kidding.)
He mentioned several times that this is the sort of place where zombie apocalypses happen. (Still makes me chuckle.)
He constantly mentions how “dark” it is at night. (OK, you got me there dude. It is dark out here.)
If nobody was here when he would come home, he would turn around and leave.

Clearly, he watches too many horror movies and tv shows.

I brought a city boy to the country and I had to come to grips with it. So I started looking for homes closer to town.

It took several months, but we eventually found our perfect fit. I was looking for an older home that was built with real materials—wood floors, wood siding, real bricks, stone, etc. I didn’t want any new weird laminate anything. We needed a bigger house with real materials, a smaller yard and good vibes.

Our new house is a nice size—we can easily accommodate all our collections, two kids and possibly my mother-in-law if she decides to join us here. We actually don’t have to share one bathroom between us all anymore—this is a big upgrade!

The yard is a nice size with a fence for our animals. I didn’t want any more acreage to take care of because I’m already working on the vineyard at my parents' property most of the time. Our new kitchen is huge and now there's room for everyone to hang out in it, which always ends up happening.

I feel a huge relief to have found a place that we have room to grow into and a place to grow old in. Placerville is our home now. Truly. Now I have to go unpack some more.