Chapter 613: Episode 326 Moving_2
Moving house, no matter the era, was always a significant event. Meng’s mother went to an old Taoist priest outside the village to choose a date, and they settled on the sixth day of April to raise the main beam and move into the house. Hua Xiaomai was not much help, so she planned to buy some delicate and practical items in the city to nicely decorate the new home, making it a bit more comfortable to live in the future.
Since they also had a little one, Walnut, who couldn’t be left alone for long, she dared not delay too much. She only purchased essential items, hired a cart to take everything back to the village, and calculated that she needed to make a few more trips to the city before the beam raising ceremony to properly organize everything.
It was not until then that she truly had the time to properly inspect the new house.
The new house featured an inner and an outer courtyard with a row of kitchens against the wall on the left side of the front courtyard. According to Hua Xiaomai’s suggestion, it was built spacious and modeled after the Daoxiang Garden’s kitchen—convenient and well-ventilated with a wide stove and complete range of kitchenware. Anyone interested in cooking would feel at ease as soon as they stepped inside;
The front yard included the main hall, the kitchen, and a storeroom, while the back yard consisted of three master bedrooms and four wing rooms. All the furniture was carefully crafted by the craftsmen; simple and elegant in design, perhaps not extraordinarily delicate but made from quality materials, very sturdy and durable.
They had specifically spent money to transplant several trees into the courtyard, and besides the flowers and plants, a small vegetable patch was carved out in the northeast corner. Though it wasn’t very significant, it was a good choice for planting onions and garlic on a regular day.
It wasn’t the time for flowers to blossom profusely yet, but the lush greenery was dazzling. At dusk, the heavy sun cast golden hints on the white walls and black tiles. Standing in the courtyard for a moment, the air was filled with the refreshing scent of grass and the dry aroma of wood. Even the forest behind the house, usually deep and quiet, now seemed more lively.
In this era, new homes didn’t contain many toxic materials, but regardless, a newly repaired house was always somewhat damp. Hua Xiaomai, holding Walnut, stood in the yard for a while before stepping outside, pointing to a cluster of small flowers on the ground to show him.
"Those craftsmen are skilled, but the furniture they made is a bit ugly, right?"
She chattered happily in Walnut’s ear, fully aware that he couldn’t understand her yet, but she kept talking, "Your dad really has no sense of aesthetics; such ugly furniture, and he had no objections, just happily paid the craftsmen. Don’t you think that’s silly? But Walnut..."