Ten Years at Catty-Corner Cottage

Our home, Summer 2019

Ten years ago, on February 5th, my husband and I closed the doors of our apartment for the last time, emptying it of the last box and lamp, and moved into our first home together.

A recent photo relaxing in the Dreaming Room upstairs.

This month marks the ten year anniversary of our living at Catty-Corner Cottage. I was instantly smitten with the house as soon as we saw the listing photos, and even though it had been months since we’d gone to see a house (we had been actively searching for over a year, but no house seemed quite right), I contacted a new realtor, and we went to take a look. I pored over every detail of the listing photos in a way I hadn’t done with any other property, until I basically knew the layout of the house and its details before we even went to see it. And when we did go view the home, I knew for certain that it was the place for us.

A photo from the realty listing, before we got our hands on the place.

One of the biggest items on my wish list for a home was to have an actual entry. I didn’t want a door that opened straight into the living room, which is the overwhelming norm for houses the size we were browsing here in mid-Ohio. But not Catty-Corner Cottage. There was a gorgeous entry that went right down the middle of the house, and a beautiful punched tin lamp that cast shadows on the walls like fairy lights. The back yard had a head-turner of a tree, (which I later found out was a Hawthorne, the tree of the fey) and was fenced in with a white picket fence. The yard wasn’t microscopic, but also wasn’t massive (just what we wanted as well.) And the place had character, such character. It wasn’t being utilized all that well by the previous owners, but I could envision exactly what I would do: a cozy reading nook piled with pillows in the gable area that was currently empty in the bedroom, a painted mural on all four walls of the currently drab brown dining room. The old cabinets in the kitchen even had black iron hinges on them.

Entry way from our first walk through, pre-moving

We named the place Catty-Corner Cottage because our cat, Corvin, was and is the king of our lives (rest in peace, Mister Man), and also because the location of the house was perfect: on the corner of two dead-end streets, around the corner from the highway for easy access to Tom’s job commute.

On February 5th, we spent our first night in the house together. It wasn’t the picture-perfect first night that we hoped for (there was a snowstorm, we locked both garage door openers in the garage and there was no entry door so we had to break a window the next day to get in, our memory foam bed frame wouldn’t fit up the stairs, so we had to sleep on a mattress on the dining room floor, the cat litter box dropped on the basement floor and spilled everywhere) but I still knew we would be okay. I knew it was meant to be.

We went to work immediately making the house our own. I painted Windling Trees on the walls in the bedroom. We scoured Craigslist for just the right pieces of furniture. I added quotes from Keats to the stair risers and the wall of the living room. I painted an Art Nouveau woman (we decided was Hestia, goddess of hearth and home) in the entry, and I started a blog to document everything.

Painting Windling Trees on the bedroom walls just a couple weeks after we moved in. The bedroom walls were pale green-blue before. I’ve never grown tired of this color I painted them right after we moved in: Behr Peanut Butter. It feels warm and glowing and I love it.

That spring we noticed that our new yard had about four plants in it, total. (I’m not exaggerating. On the whole property we had lamium by the entry, three hostas in front, some ferns in the back corner of the back yard, and about six day lily plants near the back patio….that was it) And so I discovered another new passion: gardening. We expanded the flower beds and started making a cottage garden all around the property. It’s still a work in progress today, but honestly what garden isn’t? And I love seeing it wake up each year.

A view from the bench at the bottom of our back yard, summer 2020.

My passion for decorating our new home eventually led me to start another blog called Domythic Bliss, and a Facebook group of the same name. That blog, along with my previous blog about Pre-Raphaelites, helped get me a job at Faerie Magazine (now Enchanted Living) and many of the friends I hold most dear today found me through my blogs or my Facebook groups. Catty-Corner Cottage has only grown more magical through the years, and we’ve invited more and more spirits, fey folk, and magical beings to reside here with us, whether we can see them or not.

Spending time with a friend, in the cozy nook I pictured in the bedroom as soon as we saw the space.

I’ve filled the house with art from admired artists and friends, painted the walls with that mural I saw in my head the first time I glimpsed the dining room. We’ve celebrated holidays and hosted theme parties.

A Midsummer party a few years ago.

I love this house so much. I have no idea how much longer we will be here, if we will be able to live here into old age and retirement. No one knows what the future will hold. But Catty-Corner Cottage is home. It was from the moment I first saw that listing. And I feel blessed beyond measure to have been its caretaker for the last ten years, and beyond into the future.

Ironically, I find that I haven’t taken many photos of our home lately. Instead, I’ve done several recent house tours on YouTube. Catty-Corner shines brightly at Christmas time, so if you want to get a good idea of how it looks today, ten years later, just watch this video from our last Christmas tour.