Where the Hearth is

When we first toured our cute little house back in August, I felt nearly instantly that it was the house we'd been wishing for (even though we'd actually only been looking for a couple of weeks, and it was the first single-family house we looked at). It was, in many ways, our dream home. If it had had a wood stove and a two-person claw-foot tub (and maybe some cathedral ceilings with skylights) it would have been too good to be true. Aside from those oversights, it was nearly perfect. There were only a few things that we decided were worthy of immediate change once we bought the house: pulling out the carpet in the playroom and putting in a wood floor, taking out the popcorn ceiling in the playroom, installing a wood stove in the living room, and adding some open shelves to the kitchen walls. The playroom was finished soon after we moved in (and it's fabulous and I'm planning to do a post about it soon), but the process of installing the wood stove has taken much longer than we originally anticipated.

Just this past Monday, we finally got the OK to start the first fire. And oh, how lovely it was.

the first fire

The wood stove dream comes from several different places. First, I generally run cold in winter. And I don't particularly like to feel cold. I find that I tolerate the cold much better if I have a warm place to sit by. In many of our past homes, I spent much of each day parked directly above a heating vent (in my college dorm, I think I spent most of the winter sitting on top of the radiator). Using a wood stove to heat the house solves my cold issues in two ways: we can keep our house warmer overall, and there's always a super warm place to sit by. Second, I love the smell of burning wood, and I love watching flames dance around in a fire. Third, I think of it as a sustainability issue. I like knowing that if--for whatever reason--gas is not available to us for use as a heating agent, we'll still be able to keep our house and family warm. Fourth, it's much cheaper to heat with wood than with gas. Fifth, it's just kind of quaint. From the chopping to the stacking to the carrying-the-bundles-of-wood-inside-while-snow-blusters-about-outside, the whole process just makes me smile.

half-naked babies lying in front of the fire
make me smile too

Now that we have our wood stove up and burning (and it's been doing a most excellent job keeping our house super warm (as in maybe a little too warm, but I am not complaining (though my children are)) without any supplemental gas heat thus far--even overnight!), our house really feels like OUR home. It reminds me of how when Luke and Jaz were first born in the hospital, they wore the teensy disposable diapers that the hospital provided. On their second day, once I was feeling less drugged, I made Lena go home and get our stash of cloth diapers because I just couldn't stand it. And as soon as their newborn bottoms were wrapped in soft cloth, I remember feeling suddenly so strongly like they really were MY babies. And that's how it was with the wood stove, too.

Leo, 5.5 months

Apparently, for me, home is where the HEARTH is. We are quickly growing accustomed to the new routine that involves maintaining a fire (our stove has a catalytic combustor--so cool!--which makes it slightly more complex to use than some stoves), and simply loving the fact that the stove will be the new back drop to our winters. Leo will learn to crawl (soon!) in front of it. 100 games of Monopoly will be played in its glow. Dozens of novels will be read to the sound of the crackling fire.

Wishing that everyone everywhere could be blessed with such a warm and cozy home this December.