When does a house become a home? The first shower? (Or the 30th?)

As molding goes on, tiles get cemented to the floor, and the heat actually starts to work, the house is taking shape around us.

My bedroom ceiling is painted a bright Provencal blue. At night I lie in bed and stare out at the trees through the big glass doors, currently bare of curtains (details to come).

Sometimes it feels as if I am sleeping outside, the stars and moon illuminating the bed.

In a week or so, the spiral staircase will arrive, linking the downstairs to the upstairs.

Although pretty much every finishing in the house was purchased on sale or after a hard bargain, I have ended up spending the most money in the bathrooms -- and they look it. The pink-tiled shower, green onyx vanity and grey marble floor in the upstairs bathroom are lovely.

I can't wait to use the shower.

I am only now beginning to feel like this house is really going to become a home for us.

Even the two cats have reverted to their old ways -- meowing oddly in the night until we tell them to shut up, chasing each other around the house, sleeping at the foot of our beds. After months in the basement, our black and white male cat would like to sleep most of his day away on my lap.

But since I'm not about to turn into a crazy cat lady, I don't allow that.

It's just that our felines think I'm a crazy cat lady.

Among one of the really dumb questions in an online dating site I saw recently was: "would you date someone who owned a cat?" To which one smart guy responded: "WTF? Who "owns" a cat?"

Even as I write, my old friend Tad is here to paint the upstairs ceiling. Because the house is two stories high now in the loft area, it is the architectural element that ties the upstairs and downstairs together.

Oh, don't I sound hoity-toity. I'm not, you know. There is some risk involved here, both financial and emotional -- at least for me, with my conservative ways.

But I'm hoping that the gain will be more than the cost. And it's getting to the point where
I can imagine this being the case.

Particularly when I look at the trees, or the kid's rooms, the dining room, and imagining parties and intimate dinners, showers and glasses of wine on the deck.

Happy times. Maybe some sad times. And times to chase that elusive sense contentment.

Or maybe just to await it.

I think I can manage that!