Doing Double Duty

Have I mentioned that we live in a small house?

Remember - six people in 1200 sq. ft.

Things are tight.

However, the problem-solving and creative solutions thrill me.

Seriously.

Ask Husband. He knows that when I'm sitting in a room and it appears that I'm doing nothing, if you look really closely you can see the faint cloud of smoke coming out of my ears and know that the wheels are turning.

Things have been in a bit of an upheaval lately. As you know, Husband started a new job with the new year and now works from home. We set up his office in our bedroom because he needed a quite place to work and since the kids and I do school in the dining and living room that really was the best place.

Except:

It made me crazy.

Not kidding.

Along with our small house comes a small master bedroom. About 12x12. And since the small bedroom comes with a small closet we have to have a dresser in the bedroom. We already sleep on a full-sized bed to help everything fit and now we are adding a desk and chair. Ugh.

Basically, since Jan 1 the room has been arranged four different ways. I just could not get comfortable in there. And I know that some of you are probably thinking, "You rearrange your house all the time. What are you squawking about this for?" Folks, I don't rearrange the same room four times in 60 days. AND before we added the desk to the room it had been the same way for over a year. I was loving the setup.

And honestly it wasn't just the master bedroom. The whole house was feeling out of balance to me. Bobo's bedroom was just Bobo's bedroom.

Huh?

You see, every bedroom in our house does double duty except Bobo's. Princess' room is also the guest bedroom. Popeye and Bear's room is also the play room. Hub's and my bedroom is also his office. But Bobo's bedroom was just Bobo's bedroom. I needed it to do more.

So Husband and I started brainstorming possible solutions. Maybe we could move his office back into the 'batcave' and he and Bobo could just share the space. Husband doesn't bring clients into his office so it looking like an eleven year old's bedroom wasn't really an issue. Or maybe we could work our schedules out so we could put the desk back into the living room. Then the kids and I would do school in the morning and Husband could makes phone calls in the afternoon. Except, have you tried keeping four kids in one room of a house and quiet when it is cold and rainy for days on end?

Right.

Suffice it to say, none of our ideas where feeling quite right.

On Saturday we took a family trip to L-town for a little shopping. Bear needed some new jeans and Husband had a new suit to pick up. We decided to try to think outside the box while we were shopping and hopefully come up with a solution to our master bedroom/office problem.

It wasn't until we were almost home from our shopping trip that Husband had an idea. He wasn't really sure if I would like it and it did take me a few minutes of thinking it through before I loved the idea.

His idea was:

To move our schooling into Bobo's room.

Yes, really, that's it. But when I let it marinate in my mind it's brilliance was evident. You see, our school supplies are located in the hall closet. I have to get everything out and bring it to the table for school and then put it away when we are done. If I forget something I have to pause and leave the table to go get it. While I didn't realize this wasn't the most ideal situation, I guess I just figured it was my only option because of the size of our house.

Not any more.

Sunday afternoon Husband helped me rearrange everything for our new classroom. It works brilliantly. The desk is big enough for two of us to work at at a time and the shelves directly above it are big enough to keep everything within reach. We did school today and I NEVER HAD TO LEAVE THE DESK. Nor did I have to get everything out first and then pack it all away after.

I am loving this.

Of course, now I must paint the room. Right now three walls are a dusty dark blue. I'm thinking a light, bright green. And we are considering changing Bobo's twin bed for a full sized futon. That way we can use it as a couch during the day and Bobo will have a bigger bed at night. We've already found the one we want. =)

We have our master bedroom finally set up in an arrangement that I can live with. We solved that problem by removing the slipper chair we had in there (it's in the living room now) and putting the desk in it's place. Now the room is practically the same way it was before it inherited an office just with a desk instead of a big chair.

And now the house feels much more balanced to me. Every one's bedroom is doing double duty.

Just as it should be.

Bridget

My Jewelry Display

I have had an idea for displaying my jewelry for awhile. I saw it in a magazine and it burned on my brain. You just cover an inexpensive bulletin board in fabric and then use pearl tipped straight pins to hang your jewelry on it.

I've been waiting to purchase another bulletin board. However, when I was finding places for all the new Christmas presents I saw the brown bulletin board chilling behind my bedroom door and decided enough waiting. Time to use what I have. So this is how things started out: My pitifull broken jewelry box. It hardly held half my stuff. The rest was hanging on my robe hook in my closet and in boxes on the highest shelf. I never remembered what I had and hardly wore any of it.

Hopefully this new system will get me wearing more of my stuff.

I know the fabric makes it hard to see the jewelry, but trust me, it's there. I've almost filled the whole thing and its a big board! I also hung my silver polishing cloth on there and since this is just a half bath I'm not worried about too much moisture hurting my stuff. Basically, all we do is brush our teeth and do our business in there.

It does bug me a bit that the fabric is sideways and rather busy. I have some blue silk that I might change it out for. But until then, I'm really enjoying having all my jewelry at my fingertips.

Bridget

I didn't hang up all my jewelry. I have a few valuable and family pieces that are staying safely put away.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Or in this case, just casually mention it on your blog, and you shall receive.

In this post I mentioned how I had purchased some new ornaments for my tree and my only regret was not purchasing two boxes of them.

To my surprise another box of them showed up in my mailbox yesterday!! And they are the exact ones! Here they are on my tree. Thank you so much, Mema! Now they really stand out like I wanted them too!

In other news, Bobo spent his first night in his own room last night! He was so excited that he had trouble getting to sleep. It's not finished yet, but he's all moved in.

Don't worry, grandparents, the computer isn't hooked up to the internet and even though it's in his room he still has to ask permission to get on it. It's for their typing and game playing and because we really have no other place for it.

And of course, true to form, Princess heard the camera from the other side of the house and had to get in the picture.

He keeps saying things like "This is my first lunch with my own room" and "I love doing my school work in my own room".

I'm so happy for him.

Bridget

I should have known better...

...than to volunteer my husband for something with out talking to him about it first.

I'm sorry that the last post of yesterday never got posted. Hubs worked late, then brought dinner home and we all sat in front of the t.v. watching "White Christmas" while we ate. After the kids were in bed, hubs and I were up talking for a while and then we went to bed.

This is horribly anti-climactic after the blog teaser I left you with yesterday but because I don't want to keep you waiting any longer here goes:

Hubs is now a New York Life Insurance Company agent! We are really excited about this new career and will fill you in on all the details soon!

Bridget