J is home with me this week. It's been nice having him around to help with the kids when they've all been here together (our parents have had them over at their houses a lot). Now that I am feeling a lot better, we've started working on the garage (aka black hole). A while back we put up a wall in our garage splitting it into two rooms– one is a traditional storage space that opens through the garage door and the other half was my home office/craft space that opens into the house. Now, two pivotal things have happened since we converted the space. The first being that I returned to work. The second being we had a third baby. When I returned to work, it completely diminished my need for a home office. I quit my work from home job for the regular job and I didn't find myself with any time on my hands to do things like keep up my online store. So, suddenly I didn't really need the home office half. And we really drove the nail into the coffin when I got a laptop for Christmas and J took our home computer to his office to replace the one he had been given. Going back to work also really did damage to my time for crafting. And the only crafting I have continued has been knitting which is very nice and portable and doesn't really need a craft space. So, as with all things neglected my space became invaded with junk. I fought hard to keep my space free of it but J loves using the area to hide clutter in and we got the news that baby three was coming.
Knowing baby three was coming, we knew we'd have to rework our living situations and the decision was made that Daughter and Eldest would share a room for the next couple of years. The baby would have a nursery and then once it was of the age to sleep in a big bed, we would put the two children of the same sex together and let the other have its own room. So the first thing we redecorated was the kids' room. We bought bunk beds and the Trofast storage system from Ikea as well as some shelves. The room is almost done but not entirely I have to admit. For instance, the closet is a completely wasted space right now. We had installed one of those pieces for a closet and it has completely fallen apart. So the closet has things heaped in it and thrown in carelessly. In the room, we are still trying to get two children's worth of things into a room that once held things for only one. We are also trying to do it when the children are absent as the best way to make space is to pare down. To really make the whole arrangement work, we realized what we really needed to do was redo the home office again.
This time, the plan is to convert the space into a play area/craft room. I'm not ready to give up a craft space. I enjoy creating and I don't want to relinquish it. I know that right now, things are beyond hectic but I know that things will calm down and fall into a routine that I can work around and when that day comes and I have the time I'm craving, I'll want to go in there and use it. The fact is, I have had several urges to pop in there and do something small and quick like maybe a simple scrapbook layout but the room is so destroyed that all of the crafting items are unreachable.
So today, we began our work on the room. J was actually not happy that we had to work on that half of the garage because he really wanted to tackle the other side which is a COMPLETE disaster. Unfortunately, the weather eliminated that option and so we worked together. We put together boxes of donation items and bags of garbage and he dismantled the computer desk that was falling apart. It's not close to being done. It's still in that stage where when I look at it I huff and shake my head. I don't know where to start or where to go next. It all needs so much attention– the baker's rack, the printer shelf, the floor, the corner of empty boxes I used for the store, the trash everywhere, the toys, etc.
Tomorrow, I'm going to keep going. J is taking Eldest to the museum to see the Dinosaurs of China exhibit and my mother in law is going to watch Daughter. This works beause I really need to get rid of toys. And I need to separate baby toys from the rest of the bunch and create some sort of system in the baby's room so that I can store them in there. I really wish I could have a garage sale. I am seriously unloading an insane amount of things to Goodwill and I know that they are excellent garage sale material but I live in a gated community and a garage sale is just not going to be worth it here. And where it would do really well is my mother in law's house but that would mean storing things until it's a good weekend to have one and then move everything over there and spend the HOT day out there and I get exhausted thinking about it so I force myself to forget the money I could make back and just move on. I would like to have the baker's rack cleared out tomorrow as well as the printer shelf. This way, I can rearrange things to accomodate the train table and hopefully I'll be able to use the printer shelf for toys. I'd like to bring down the big toy box from upstairs too. I want the kids to have a safe place to play in upstairs (their room) and downstairs. I think if I can accomodate things the way I have in mind, I'll even be able to buy a small child's table and chairs. And of course, the more things are downstairs, the cleaner the rooms will be (or so I'd like to imagine).
So wish me some luck this week. I'll definitely need it!
Mutant Supermodel 