Nesting

Our house has been in a sort of upheaval these last few weeks since we are moving things around trying to make room for another person in our house. Basically we are making a playroom in the garage, moving Lexa into the girls’ room, and getting the baby’s room ready for Ellowyn. We are finally nearing the end, but here is a list of all the things we have done to get things ready and some that still need to happen.

First, we installed some shelves in the hallway. The books from 2 bookcases in the garage went on these shelves. The bookcases are moving to the living room to hold DVDs.

We bought two big sturdy storage racks to put in the garage to hold all the stuff (Christmas decorations, tools, etc.) to get them organized and easier to access.

Cliff and our friend Jordan put an air conditioner in the garage and also built a platform for our chest freezer. (We have a one-foot step along one wall of the garage for some reason so in order to fit the freezer against the wall, we had to put it up on a platform built over the step.)

Cliff also installed flooring in the garage, a bunch of interlocking rubber mats, so the kids wouldn’t have just bare concrete to play on.

We also rearranged a few things and put ALL the toys in the garage to complete the kids’ play room. They were so excited (mostly about the floor) and now we have strict rules (which I’m sure will get more lax) about putting the toys away and keeping them in the garage. This morning when I showed Elizabeth the finished space, she was disappointed that the food storage was still there. I guess she thought we were giving them the whole garage.

Meanwhile, in the girls’ room, now that all the toys are gone we have room for Lexa’s new bed. Suzanne graciously gave us her toddler bed (Let me know if you need it back now!) and it will be set up in the bedroom with the other girls. I’m not sure how well it work at first. She may not stay in there. We bought another gate for the top of the stairs so at least she won’t be falling down them in the middle of the night, but she still might wander around. I guess we’ll figure that out as we go.

The other things we still need to do are to put the bookshelves (currently they are on the porch) and DVDs in the living room, move all the kids books (which were in the living room) to the girls’ room, move all Lexa’s clothes to the girls’ room, wash all the baby clothes, and clean up the baby’s room.

The nice thing about all this reorganizing is that it is satisfying my inner need for order and categorization. I love having all of one type of thing in one place. Instead of toys being in the girls’ room and the living room, they are now all in the garage. Instead of books being in the living room and the girls’ room and the hallway, they will all be in the girls’ room grouped together by type and size (although I’m sure they won’t stay that way for too long.) All my books are upstairs and organized by type. And the best part is that the living room will no longer look like a toy store exploded in there! That mess will be safely tucked away in the garage.

The hard thing about all this reorganization is that my house is really chaotic right now and it drives me crazy! Last night I had to sit outside on the porch for a little while because EVERY ROOM was in some state of disarray. Ugh.

All this for a little baby who will take up less than one square foot of space. Too bad she won’t remember having a room to herself for the first year or so.  She'll most likely be sharing a room with a sister or two for the rest of her life.