Finally . . . A Project!

For months--14 weeks--to be exact, I have been itching to do something creative; to move furniture; to totally throw the whole house in chaos. . . . Having a newborn however pre-empts that. It's really just surviving that first bit+the other three kids+soccer and, just, life!

Tonight, I finally got some of that itch out. We moved all the kids (excepting R who is still in our room) into one bedroom and turned the now spare room into a school room. I have had this recurring dream that I find a spare room in our house. Although this is not quite the fulfillment of that dream, it is kind of like gaining a bonus room!

We have a small-ish house which I LOVE. I like small space living a lot. However, the reality is that there is one dining room, one living area, our laundry is in the kitchen and there are no bonus spaces. So up until now school happened at THE table. The one we breakfast at, lunch at, have company at. This meant that after breakfast we pulled EVERYTHING for school out and whether or not we were done at lunch, EVERYTHING had to be either stacked all over the dining room or whisked away. And being sort of laid back (and a bit lazy) and loving naps, the thought of picking up with lessons after lunch (and dragging it all out again) was enough to call it quits for the day.

Now that we have a dedicated space, it will be much easier to run down for lunch mid-math lesson, leave everything out and after lunch get right back to work--at least I hope so! We can also let Mr. O nap in his own bed and J can still play with his toys.

We are putting the kids in the smaller of the two bedrooms because it has a bigger closet for clothes storage and the schoolroom will also serve as the play room. The kids are excited to be together and have a play room. Miss A has gotten this idea that the playroom is going to have a ball pit. Yes, indeed. A ball pit. This cracks me up because of the idea of it and the fact that no matter how many times we explain that, no, we will not have a ball pit, she keeps on believing.

Things are not really "done" yet, but I thought I'd share pictures thus far because it's been so fun to work on this. The pictures are all leftover from the boy's occupation. After T finishes the bunk beds, the black desk will probably go into the kids room.

 Looking in the door. Yes, that's a trampoline. I guess if you have a trampoline in your bedrooms, there's no reason why a ball pit doesn't make perfect sense!
The curtains really need hemming. Also, the beloved German Shepherd needlepoint is crooked! Gasp.

 Here is another view of the table. This table was in our first apartment and house. I had forgotten it was in the attic (I know, right, I hate it when people are all like, "I had furniture in my attic that I forgot about and we just pulled it down and it worked perfectly for us" and here I am doing just that). I had not forgotten about the chairs, though. Love these girls and am glad to have them back in use. Stink! Another crooked picture!

The blue bookshelf is called "the Library" in our house it holds all of the little children's books. We have a mate for the blue bookshelf that is in our room right now. Whenever we find a piece of furniture for our bedroom to replace it, I'd like to put the other shelf beside the kitchen. Now that J is beginning to read, I'd like to have the big kid stuff more accessible.

 Almost all of our toys but the Thomas track are in this room. Miss A has my old dollhouse and all the doll "stuff" is kept in the drawers below. She is a bit of a messy housekeeper and her domestic sphere is rather dismal.Wonder where she gets that from?

And the closet . . . blergh. It needs some serious work--mostly another shelf to separate school stuff from toys. It's very visually bland and I'm only sharing it because 1, I always wonder what's behind closed doors, and 2. Maybe it will motivate me to do something about it!

That's the schoolroom so far. Still a few things to move into the room like games, puzzles. I'm very excited that with the holidays coming it it will be easier to host folks and keep up with schoolwork. I'll try to post more as we do more.