So, adding another person to your house seems to shrink your space, am I right? (Right, well I suppose it doesn't actually shrink your space; everything just feels more crowded.)
So, Karl and I think WE NEED MORE SPACE!! LET'S MOVE!
When all four of us are in the bedroom plus the two dogs (one of whom weighs NINETY SEVEN POUNDS... I'm not naming any names...ROXY.) (Listen, I'm not going to go into how many ways Karl and I have plotted to kill the dogs with their big, muddy paws and pile after pile of shedded hair... and their collars that jingle and wake my children... and Arlo, OH ARLO, trying to crawl into Nate's bed or under the crib panting like a big pansy every time it so much as rains. Can't WAIT for tornado season to ramp up!) Oops, sorry, I guess I did want to go into that. Clearly, we would not kill the dogs. THEY'RE FINE. We totally love them. (Honestly, they're the laziest, most relaxed dogs you'll ever meet. Arlo lets Nora crawl all over him and even Roxy has been known to allow Nate a horseback - dogback? ride or two. If I could just get them to STOP SHEDDING they'd be perfect.)
So, where was I? Oh, right, space. Moving. Here's the problem. We want the impossible. We don't want to do ANY (ANY ANY ANY) renovations BUT we want to stay in older neighborhoods (preferably close to ours). We want a little more space (current: 1200 sq ft) but we don't want much more.... MAYBE JUST ONE MORE ROOM. We debated. We drove around and looked. We drove around and looked some more. Nothing met our criteria. (Nothing came close.) (Ok. That's a lie. The spaces that came close were so NOT in our price range.)
Then, we decided (reaffirmed?), we love our house. Both are kids were (literally) born in this house. How can we LEAVE?!? Our house payment is beyond cheap and allows us to do many things. (Read: I worka part time. Nate playa the soccer. We eata the outa.) (Sorry. That was just annoying.) We also have excellent neighbors that feed our kids cookies and bring them presents and hand me downs and watch our house/get our mail while we are gone. So, long story short, for the time being, we're staying put.
Instead we are taking part in MISSION SWITCH ROOMS AND PURGE PURGE PURGE.
We moved our bedroom to the room off the kitchen which was formerly Nate's room... having a toddler right off the kitchen was a challenge. (Whenever people are over don't they always wind up in your kitchen? They do in ours.) Karl and I were constantly tip toeing around so as not to wake him - as you might guess, the child who never sleeps needs little help waking. This means Karl and my new room is smaller (and we lose the bathroom - major bummer) but, so far, I LOVE being right off the kitchen and I love how OUR room now feels like the center of our home. We are also getting new bedroom furniture seeing as we're in our 30s and are still operating on mostly hand-me-downs and Target furniture. (Not that there is ANYTHING wrong with that; we just want to treat ourselves!) Also, we are mounting a TV in our bedroom. I'm still unsure how I feel about this as we haven't had a tv in our bedroom in years and I was set on being a one (or none) tv household.
So, who is in the master? BOTH KIDS. AND ALL THEIR TOYS! I didn't realize how much I would like them being in the same room and how much I would like them being tucked away back there (or at least that's how I perceive it; there isn't much 'away' in a smallish space). Nate has a double bed and the baby has her crib (which she totally sleeps in for PART of the night! Ha!). They've been sharing for about two weeks now and, like I said, LOVING IT. For the record, Karl (who never shared a room) was against it and I (who shared a room with my sister until I left for college) was for it. We briefly discussed the boy/girlness of the situation and decided we would eventually split them up (suggestions for ages?!? We are thinking when Nate is 8 or 9? Or whenever they are ready?)
So, who is in 'the nursery' that was never a nursery? It's our office. No guest beds, no toys. Just a couple of desks. The big Mac computer. My sewing machine that will someday be used. A bunch of screen printing equipment. Our hamper. The dog beds. Ok, let's face it. Right now it just has a bunch of various piles of crap, threatening to topple, as we transition. (Ex: Karl: 'Where should this stack of bad 90s rap CDs go?' Me (merrily): 'Oh just put it in the office!') It definitely is the room that needs the most work but I'm still busy purging closets and stealthily throwing away cheap Hot Wheels, crappy coloring books and random Chick-Fil-A kids meal toys that were purchased to bribe my child.
We're also doing random small projects like replacing the cheapo blinds that came with our house and painting the back door purple. (Why yes I do have an orange front door and a purple back - what of it!?) We also finally replaced both the front and back doors as they both were hollow interior doors that I'm pretty sure Nate could have kicked through! Ahhhh the things you don't know when buying your first house!
I realize that I'm rambling BUT I wanted to share the UPHEAVAL of our lives at the moment. Cue sappy transitional music. AND SCENE.
