I moved to a Condo in Salt Lake! – Kalyn's Kitchen

There has been a lot of change in my life in the past few months, but I am now happy to move in and live in a very nice apartment in a wonderful historic area of Salt Lake!

in more than 17 years I’ve been blogging, I’ve worked hard to keep the blog mostly about food and not so much about me. But over the years I’ve shared personal news like Teacher birthdaysAnd the unforgettable tripsAnd the Fun gifts from the familyAnd the Moving to a bigger houseAnd the Nine months of home renovations in my first home! This type of publication in an archive is called The things I think about. These are posts that some readers may not be interested in, but I like to collect them as a history of my life.

Today I’m sharing the news that I’ve moved into an apartment in Salt Lake City, which has been a process that has completely taken over my thoughts and life for over three months! During this time, there was not much new content on the blog. I was happily surprised no one noticed, and I’m also grateful for all those good recipes I’ve created in the past that I was able to showcase again while I was managing home renovations and repairs, packing, selling the old home, and moving. Thank you for your support and patience during everything that was going on!

Why did you want to move:

Lots of people decide to downsize when they get older, and while I’ve long loved having a big house where my big family can congregate, after Covid, it definitely wasn’t fun. For several years I have been telling people that I want a simpler life! Finally in March 2022 I started looking for apartments. I wanted a very walkable neighborhood in the historic part of town, close to the restaurants, shops, and friends I left behind in Salt Lake when I moved in 2013. I didn’t want an apartment in a huge development and was hoping for somewhere with some charm that I loved in my old home in Salt Lake.

Why my movement was particularly difficult:

Moving around is always difficult of course, but my movement got especially complicated due to a spare pipe that damaged water in my old house and a water valve accident that damaged water in the apartment during my move. Both resulted in major homeowner claims and months of restoration work. During that time, I lost nearly ten pounds from the stress, and at times it felt like it would never end.

I love where I ended up!

But now I live happily in a nice apartment in the Historic District of Salt Lake where there are beautiful mansions, huge trees all around, and a variety of interesting restaurants within walking distance of my abode. It’s an old classic building and my apartment has some areas that are definitely old, but I’m learning to love it.

What does this move mean for the blog?

I don’t plan on ending blogging anytime soon even though I’m past the age at which many people might retire! But the new apartment doesn’t have the perfect food blogger kitchen I have in my bigger house, and the two rooms they have for food photography and blogging office are replaced with one smaller room here. But this past week I finally cooked with Kara In the new kitchen and we got it working, the new desk has great photo lighting and seems to work well for my daily computer work too.

And although the new apartment has a huge outdoor patio, there are no water connections, so I wouldn’t be able to have any kind of garden here. So there are no new posts about gardening, but I still have all the previous garden photos and tips collected in my category Garden Updates. Fortunately, I have several family members who have amazing gardens, so I can still cook with fresh veggies every summer!

Here’s a sneak peek at the new place:

In the photo at the top, I’ve given you a peek at the African art decor I’ve used in my homes for nearly 25 years now. I’ve collected masks, batiks, and statues, as well as some portraits of famous pieces from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. And some technician Purchased even in AfricaAlthough I got most of them in import shops. (These are just quick iPhone photos, so don’t judge quality harshly!)

The apartment has two fireplaces and this in the living room has three sofas and some chairs which makes a great place to entertain a group of people and have a conversation. Now that I’m back in town, I see a lot more friends than I used to!

If you follow me on instagram or in Facebook You may have seen the boxes and boxes of the cookbooks you took to the thrift store. But there were still three bookcases with cookbooks in the new apartment, and I was already looking at some of them!

My favorite room in the new place is this small sitting room with windows on two sides, a fireplace and a large TV on the wall. This is where I sit in my favorite chair and read almost every night!

The apartment has a very old kitchen, and I’m not keen on taking on the task of replacing worktops and cupboards. And I might never do it because old things grow on me. The biggest change in the kitchen is having an electric stove for the first time in my life, but Kara and I are determined to make it work!

And here’s the small office/photo room where the blog is now done. You can’t see on the wall three shelves of plates, napkins, silverware and other photographic gadgets (although I made more than half of the shelves I had before).

And if you make it clear at the end of this post, thanks a lot for the support! Certainly the people I met (in person and online) are one of the main things that made blogging so rewarding and fun for me).