Slow Goodbyes: The Sun Porch

In my tour of slow goodbyes to our Kokomo house, I'm spending today saying goodbye to the room where we spent the most time and least time - simultaneously.

How, you might ask?

Well, it's the newest room in our house, so we've spent less time there proportionately speaking, but once the room showed up on the back of our house, we spent a lot of time there. It made all the difference in the house, actually!

When we moved into the house, there was a slab outside the sliding glass door, and it had a privacy fence around two sides of it. When we bought the house, it felt really private. But it didn't take long for privacy to feel a bit prison-ish. The space was so unusable. With no shade back there, it was so hard to use the space on sunny days. It was never out of the sun, and in the heat of Indiana summers, it was downright unbearable.

So we saved and last summer, we were able to add the sun porch. We couldn't afford a four season room, so we got a three season one and tried to make it as livable as we could (year round) by adding a heater for the winter. We had plans to add a portable air-conditioner this summer, but you know - moving. :) 

Even though we only used the room less than a year, we loved it, and we think it was always meant to be part of the house. It definitely completes it.

See?

We made four years' worth of memories in this space in the few months we enjoyed it.

We started out with my mom's birthday lunch - when it was about a day old.

And then there was Christmas morning out there:

And just Christmas in general, when I decorated the place like a tree farm. (It was my favorite.)

We had our Easter lunch out there:

And Ryan's little quarantine birthday party!

And our indoor camping trip...

Not to mention all the daily life we enjoyed out here - especially in the mornings and evenings:

Yes, this little room was so good to us, and I'm so thankful we used it to the full while we were here. It was the first reaction of some, when they heard about our move, to say, "But you just added that room!" We did, and we will miss it. And we enjoyed it. And the new owners LOVE IT. This little square of space has just begun to live. 

We won't have a space like this in our new living area, and that will be strange and different. But it's also okay! We will enjoy the outdoor space beyond our walls and the chance to live small town life. I'm really excited about it already!

Meanwhile, thank you, little sun porch, for being a great space for us and holding close so many memories in such a short time!