Our city home was built in 1911. It is called Labbato’s on the Knob because the area surrounding our home was settled by Italian immigrants and was coined, Spaghetti Knob. The story goes, up on our hillside, settlers felt the nostalgia of home due to the steep hills and hot and sunny landscape. They grew grapes and raised goats and chickens. It reminded them of the old country.
Perriee and I packed up the house several years ago and started looking for a new home and neighborhood. What we ended up doing was unpacking into our new vision of the same house. We set up the first floor dining room as our bedroom and revamped the entire upstairs to dedicate to Airbnb space. The initial intent was to convert our home into a bed and breakfast but we quickly learned about the restrictive zoning regulations in our tiny Northern Kentucky city, so here we are. As I type on my lunch break my heartbeat quickens at the thought of returning there. It is peaceful. It is home.
Four hours later:
“There”, or, “here” (at the moment, since I am home) costs a big chunk of our income. As much as we absolutely love living here, we realize that not having this expense, in addition to retaining our current income, would save a lot of money. In our current situation, we could depend on an hour commute to work in the morning, requiring a 4:30 a.m. departure time. We get up at five in the morning, currently. This would push it, but going to sleep each night, nestled in the woods could be easy to do at eight o’clock each night.
Perriee and I have many maps of how to plan for our future, all scribbled on scraps of paper and within various notepads. Here is our plan for today: figure out how much of the farm payment needs to be paid off before we can refinance and get listed on the deed. In that period of time, plan to build our cabin, catio, and duck pen. Sell our house in the city and begin a daily commute for as long as we can take it. My guess is that we will figure out a way to just chill there and quit our jobs.
“A duck pen and a catio?” , you say. Mr. Mittens, Tux (fluffy cat dudes), Howard Day-z, Nick and June (our Khaki Campbell ducks) are the other very special residents in our city home. “Tell me more!”, you say. No worries- this blog will be heavily seasoned with them. If you can’t wait, feel free to follow them on Instagram: @mr_mittens_the_marvelous and @howarddayznicknjune
Your homework: map out your life on a scrap of paper then do it again in a month, rinse, and repeat. You can’t mess it up. See you next week!
Making Time for Tipi 