Earlier this summer we realized that there was a need to stay in our little condo a little longer. Our anticipations had been to move into a bigger house before the baby came, but that was not possible. So I began making arrangements so that we could all fit without feeling too cluttered.
It is fun to look back at pictures of this place when we were first married. It was just us with 3 bedrooms (although small) and very little "stuff". It was "big" and wide open.
It will be fun to look back at this place and see what we have done and how we fit our family in here as it more than doubled in size and we collected more and more things.
I'm trying not to be a pack rat and not to have too much clutter...but well....
I thought I was doing pretty good, but when I look at the pictures it feels like it looks a bit cluttered. I promise it could be worse. Here is what I have done:
Kids Room:
All 3 kids will live in this room. I wanted a little antique look all along and have modified to a more unisex looking room as Jake joined our family and the kids shared the room. I got rid of the white furniture and continued looking for more vintage, or vintage inspired items.
This area is for the baby. I got rid of our old crib and changing table in search of a Jenny Lind style crib and a dresser that I could use as a changing table. The dresser was free from my mom's neighbor and I spent about $25 on paint and casters to make it match the decor better and to make it taller for use as a changing table. It has 6 drawers and is great storage. Also, under the bed I have baskets for extra baby bedding and baby shoes...the rest of the space under there? Well, it will be used for diapers and food storage! I got the bedding at Target on clearance and the "mobile" at Cost Plus Imports. I bought the crib on Craigslist used. The seller requested $40 and I was more than willing to pay that price, especially because she delivered it to me. However, when she dropped off the crib she said that $30 would be just fine! Lucky Day.
Earlier this summer the kids got bunk beds. Maes won't sleep on the top, so we are in the process of putting and extra bar up there to make her feel safer. Also, with the old trundle gone we have room for food storage under the bed and shoe baskets (half off at hobby lobby). My kids have too many shoes. However, the shoe baskets cover up the food storage boxes! I got the kid's bedding at Target and Cost Plus World Market on clearance naturally!
I don't think this is a great photo of this area. I wanted this room to look pretty unisex as the girls and Jake would be sharing it. Near both of the girl's beds I have framed vintage pictures of little girls. This area by this old dresser is dressed up in boy style with my old Anasazi stuff, Native items from Nate's mission in Brazil and various object brought back from Nate's world traveling sister. One item is a utensil used by cannibals in Fiji. You cannot see it in this picture. The globe, which is actually a night light, sort of represents the world traveling and the old fishing boxes have my art supplies in them, but matched the decor too well to just keep them in the hall closet.
I also added an extra set of coat hooks. My kids have a bit too many bags...however they seem to remember things, so I cannot secretly give any away. I need to wait until they are ready. Maesyn has had her backpack for years and I think I'll have her use it until I cannot repair it any longer. Jake's back pack was given to him by a neighbor and hopefully he will use it until it falls apart.
I am trying to look for an extra row of hooks for our living room so that the kids can hang up their backpacks and sweaters right when they come in rather than have them walk to their room where they just drop all the stuff behind their door.
I used to joke that we could fit another child in the house, but it would have to go naked because I did not have any space for clothes. Well, you get creative when you have to make due. We are renting a small storage unit and have some stuff at my parents house as well. I bet I could fit that whole storage unit in any possible nook in our house and at my parents, but it feels nice to have some breathing room and to feel a little self sufficient. I'm glad my parents offered some of their extra space too...so we are still a little bit dependent.
Ok, this closet. I added an extra clothes bar. Maes has her stuff on the bottom, so she can dress herself. I threw a small dresser in here for Jake's clothes. We also have the Sunday box in here, but I might want to find a more accessible place for it.
The two little ones have their clothes up high and then I have some totes of keep sakes, clothing to grow into and the kid's sleeping bags.
Maesyn has a basket of her journals- she loves to write and draw in them. She also has her littlest pet shops stored in here. I put away all of the "chokeable" items a few weeks ago, but I decided that Maesyn was old enough to take care of these on her own.
The Play Room:
I've taken pictures of the insanity of this room a few times. It has not changed too much. The bedrooms are the only rooms with carpet and I thought it would be nice to use this room as the play room so that I would not have to worry about messy carpet. It is sort of a multi purpose room as I have no other place for the bikes or treadmill.
It is organized and I have a space for everything and Maes knows how anal I am about it. She was reluctant to play in a friends play room because it was "messy". I'm just a little nuts about organizing and baskets, and totes.
We gave the kids the old computer. We can play music on it and it fills the house. Maes was sure to let me know that this computer is slow. How does she remember that? We are hoping to get it cleaned up so it will speed up and get the wireless router working so that they can play PBS KIDS and look at the blogs of their far away family members.
My mom bought a cute wood table and chair set for my kids a few years ago from IKEA. She started staining it piece by piece...She had 11/2 pieces done. This week I put it together and Nate finished staining it. Under the table are stuffed animals...then under the easel we have the babies. I think I have a trash bag of stuffed animals in storage as well as one or two (i hope just one) totes of toys. We are rotating them... I sort of think it would be a good idea to give them their old toys for Christmas!!!!
Note to self: my kids don't need anymore stuffed animals...or Toys!
I'm debating if we need that TV in here. It does not get the digital signal, however it plays VHS and the kids use it fairly often...that means that we should keep it. Right?
We brought the toy box in from the living room. Now all of the toys (well most of them) are in the play room. We put a buffet table in the living room and it now stores all of my art supplies and I've gotten some pretty positive comments on it. This toy box has the bigger toys like ....hmmmmm. I cannot remember. 
You cannot really read all of the font on this. Here we have some baskets of toys...baby toys, horses, wooden blocks and wooden beads. The kid's dress ups have moved to the corner on hangers and the closet is mostly full of toys. I have a little bit of food storage in here, but mostly totes of legos, barbies, cars, tools, little people, dress up accessories, and a bin of balls! I also have the baby backpack in here and Nate has one of his 6 guitars squeezed in too!!!
Although there are a lot of toys in here, sometimes I want to find a way to lock the closet! - No my kids are pretty good about cleaning up, considering their ages!
The Laundry room:
I am pretty lucky to have a laundry room and it is very useful. The previous owner had installed some shelving in here and my mom helped with a second long shelf above the washing machine a few years ago. For my birthday my dad helped me put more shelving up. This is how we use this space.
We got a freezer a few years back and it is so helpful with food storage. On the other side of the freezer I have laundry sorting as well as two shelves for my art class supplies. Now I don't have to find strange places to store the kids stuff in the "seen" areas of the house. I also have my clay stored in this area.
As this is what you see if the laundry room door is open, I tried to store the "cuter" items 0n these shelves. The paper goods and food storage items are in nicer baskets. I think it looks pretty good for "clutter".
I would like to included laundry soap in my 3 month supply, but I recently went through it. Fortunate there is still room for more stuff in here. I also need to get my sewing machine back in here and I have fit some of the baby things....bib basket, booster seat.
Now that we are "mostly" organized and ready for the baby...maybe I can relax the next few days before school starts. We still need to get a car seat and I really want more hooks behind the door...I think it will never end really, it is not in my personality. But I'm glad that Nate and I worked together to get this done.
Now, we just have to keep things CLEAN!
It is fun to look back at pictures of this place when we were first married. It was just us with 3 bedrooms (although small) and very little "stuff". It was "big" and wide open.
It will be fun to look back at this place and see what we have done and how we fit our family in here as it more than doubled in size and we collected more and more things.
I'm trying not to be a pack rat and not to have too much clutter...but well....
I thought I was doing pretty good, but when I look at the pictures it feels like it looks a bit cluttered. I promise it could be worse. Here is what I have done:
Kids Room:
All 3 kids will live in this room. I wanted a little antique look all along and have modified to a more unisex looking room as Jake joined our family and the kids shared the room. I got rid of the white furniture and continued looking for more vintage, or vintage inspired items.
This area is for the baby. I got rid of our old crib and changing table in search of a Jenny Lind style crib and a dresser that I could use as a changing table. The dresser was free from my mom's neighbor and I spent about $25 on paint and casters to make it match the decor better and to make it taller for use as a changing table. It has 6 drawers and is great storage. Also, under the bed I have baskets for extra baby bedding and baby shoes...the rest of the space under there? Well, it will be used for diapers and food storage! I got the bedding at Target on clearance and the "mobile" at Cost Plus Imports. I bought the crib on Craigslist used. The seller requested $40 and I was more than willing to pay that price, especially because she delivered it to me. However, when she dropped off the crib she said that $30 would be just fine! Lucky Day.
Earlier this summer the kids got bunk beds. Maes won't sleep on the top, so we are in the process of putting and extra bar up there to make her feel safer. Also, with the old trundle gone we have room for food storage under the bed and shoe baskets (half off at hobby lobby). My kids have too many shoes. However, the shoe baskets cover up the food storage boxes! I got the kid's bedding at Target and Cost Plus World Market on clearance naturally!
I don't think this is a great photo of this area. I wanted this room to look pretty unisex as the girls and Jake would be sharing it. Near both of the girl's beds I have framed vintage pictures of little girls. This area by this old dresser is dressed up in boy style with my old Anasazi stuff, Native items from Nate's mission in Brazil and various object brought back from Nate's world traveling sister. One item is a utensil used by cannibals in Fiji. You cannot see it in this picture. The globe, which is actually a night light, sort of represents the world traveling and the old fishing boxes have my art supplies in them, but matched the decor too well to just keep them in the hall closet.I also added an extra set of coat hooks. My kids have a bit too many bags...however they seem to remember things, so I cannot secretly give any away. I need to wait until they are ready. Maesyn has had her backpack for years and I think I'll have her use it until I cannot repair it any longer. Jake's back pack was given to him by a neighbor and hopefully he will use it until it falls apart.
I am trying to look for an extra row of hooks for our living room so that the kids can hang up their backpacks and sweaters right when they come in rather than have them walk to their room where they just drop all the stuff behind their door.
I used to joke that we could fit another child in the house, but it would have to go naked because I did not have any space for clothes. Well, you get creative when you have to make due. We are renting a small storage unit and have some stuff at my parents house as well. I bet I could fit that whole storage unit in any possible nook in our house and at my parents, but it feels nice to have some breathing room and to feel a little self sufficient. I'm glad my parents offered some of their extra space too...so we are still a little bit dependent. Ok, this closet. I added an extra clothes bar. Maes has her stuff on the bottom, so she can dress herself. I threw a small dresser in here for Jake's clothes. We also have the Sunday box in here, but I might want to find a more accessible place for it.
The two little ones have their clothes up high and then I have some totes of keep sakes, clothing to grow into and the kid's sleeping bags.
Maesyn has a basket of her journals- she loves to write and draw in them. She also has her littlest pet shops stored in here. I put away all of the "chokeable" items a few weeks ago, but I decided that Maesyn was old enough to take care of these on her own.
The Play Room:
I've taken pictures of the insanity of this room a few times. It has not changed too much. The bedrooms are the only rooms with carpet and I thought it would be nice to use this room as the play room so that I would not have to worry about messy carpet. It is sort of a multi purpose room as I have no other place for the bikes or treadmill.
It is organized and I have a space for everything and Maes knows how anal I am about it. She was reluctant to play in a friends play room because it was "messy". I'm just a little nuts about organizing and baskets, and totes.
We gave the kids the old computer. We can play music on it and it fills the house. Maes was sure to let me know that this computer is slow. How does she remember that? We are hoping to get it cleaned up so it will speed up and get the wireless router working so that they can play PBS KIDS and look at the blogs of their far away family members. My mom bought a cute wood table and chair set for my kids a few years ago from IKEA. She started staining it piece by piece...She had 11/2 pieces done. This week I put it together and Nate finished staining it. Under the table are stuffed animals...then under the easel we have the babies. I think I have a trash bag of stuffed animals in storage as well as one or two (i hope just one) totes of toys. We are rotating them... I sort of think it would be a good idea to give them their old toys for Christmas!!!!
Note to self: my kids don't need anymore stuffed animals...or Toys!
I'm debating if we need that TV in here. It does not get the digital signal, however it plays VHS and the kids use it fairly often...that means that we should keep it. Right?
We brought the toy box in from the living room. Now all of the toys (well most of them) are in the play room. We put a buffet table in the living room and it now stores all of my art supplies and I've gotten some pretty positive comments on it. This toy box has the bigger toys like ....hmmmmm. I cannot remember. 
You cannot really read all of the font on this. Here we have some baskets of toys...baby toys, horses, wooden blocks and wooden beads. The kid's dress ups have moved to the corner on hangers and the closet is mostly full of toys. I have a little bit of food storage in here, but mostly totes of legos, barbies, cars, tools, little people, dress up accessories, and a bin of balls! I also have the baby backpack in here and Nate has one of his 6 guitars squeezed in too!!!Although there are a lot of toys in here, sometimes I want to find a way to lock the closet! - No my kids are pretty good about cleaning up, considering their ages!
The Laundry room:
I am pretty lucky to have a laundry room and it is very useful. The previous owner had installed some shelving in here and my mom helped with a second long shelf above the washing machine a few years ago. For my birthday my dad helped me put more shelving up. This is how we use this space.
We got a freezer a few years back and it is so helpful with food storage. On the other side of the freezer I have laundry sorting as well as two shelves for my art class supplies. Now I don't have to find strange places to store the kids stuff in the "seen" areas of the house. I also have my clay stored in this area. As this is what you see if the laundry room door is open, I tried to store the "cuter" items 0n these shelves. The paper goods and food storage items are in nicer baskets. I think it looks pretty good for "clutter".
I would like to included laundry soap in my 3 month supply, but I recently went through it. Fortunate there is still room for more stuff in here. I also need to get my sewing machine back in here and I have fit some of the baby things....bib basket, booster seat. Now that we are "mostly" organized and ready for the baby...maybe I can relax the next few days before school starts. We still need to get a car seat and I really want more hooks behind the door...I think it will never end really, it is not in my personality. But I'm glad that Nate and I worked together to get this done.
Now, we just have to keep things CLEAN!
