I am facing the fact that we won’t be moving in the near future… Where I want to go is just too expensive, jobs are scarce and things are just not timed very right with finances etc…
So if I can’t move, I need to make the most of what we have now.Which means in our homeschooling life and our home life…
We have been living in this house for almost 5 years now and sadly it still doesn’t feel like a home. So I have been thinking about what would help and I think that changing rooms around would help with the flow of the house.
We have a split level with 3 closed rooms on the basement level (office, guest room and large Playroom plus the laundry room) and 2 bedrooms upstairs (our rooms) with the living room and kitchen.
Right now the boys are in a room that is 10 X 11… with a very small closet (in their room are two overflowing dressers, a bunk bed and a toddler bed)… and our bedroom is slightly smaller though we have a larger closet…
My idea would be to have the boys room where the playroom is now which would have the advantage of having space for their bunkbeds, their dressers, a large closet and I would put the guest bed in there which would become Khéna’s bed… and there is alread some shelves up for books etc… and they would still have room for some toys if we decided to have it like that…
Our room would go in the office space downstairs which is the second largest room in the house so that we would be near the boys room and because the room is bigger, Simon could have his clothes in our room also (right now his clothes are in the guest room) and we would be on the same floor as the laundry.
The other advantage is that all of our daytime living space would be on the same floor… I would have my sewing room upstairs and easier to access, and because it wouldn’t double as the guest room we could put our other table in there which we could use for crafts, puzzles, games etc and it would give me extra room for cutting fabric etc…
I am still debating on whether to keep the office downstairs and have the playroom upstairs or vice-versa….
Anyway… those are my plans and I really want to do it and soon but it is hard to even imagine where to start. It would be a great oppurtunity though to declutter even more and do a deep clean of the house…
Has anyone done something like that? any tips on where to start?
Hi, I have the same problems with my house. It just doesn’t feel like home. I do not like the way it feels at all. We are stuck here for a while too. I wish I knew where to begin! My mind is always re arranging things, but it becomes overwhelming!
Good luck!
Fiona
I know what you mean. We have been wanting to move for two years and have had our home listed for about nine months and still no action. 🙁
We are running out of space (with three kids)and I am frustrated because I can’t start any projects (like gardening or composting) because I am scared of moving and losing all my hard work. Sigh…
I feel your pain.
I hear you! We moved last year — were able to do it, just barely, but things didn’t go as planned and we haven’t been able to finish renovating our house (or put in a furnace or fix the roof). Before that we lived in a 2 bedroom lower-duplex. The kids shared one tiny bedroom that was separated from our bedroom by glass French doors… It was becoming impossible — they had no room to play, and no privacy at all.
My main suggestion from my experience with rearranging rooms is to measure before you move anything. Sometimes it looks like it should fit, but then it doesn’t. Have a plan. Know exactly where each piece will go before you move anything. And measure measure measure to be sure it fits.
Don’t try to do it all in one day.
Good luck!
We’ve got space issues, too, and the clutter bothers me a lot. My kids seem perfectly content, though. All of our rooms double up. The kids’ bedroom is their playroom. I sleep in my office/sewing room. My husband sleeps in the TV room where his clothes are. I move things around a lot. When I move rooms, I just start carting things out of rooms and piling them up in others. It usually takes just a day to rearrange the whole house.
we just made a big switch in our house – if i can get off my tush i’ll blog about it. but we pretty much made the downstairs the “adult” space… we have a raised ranch – and previously had the downstairs space the play area, with the upstairs as the “formal” living room. that was a joke! we had this huge space that was never used – and toys everywhere! so i enlisted my brother and we changed around the big things in a day. we moved the “nice” furniture downstairs, the “crap” upstairs – and now it seems to work. hubby and i have our kid-free space downstairs – for my puter, photography stuff, and his guitars – and the boys have a play area they can be comfy in. it has REALLY helped with day-to-day living, too. since all of the real living space is upstairs, i feel ok with letting the boys romp in the play area while i clean in spits and spats. i don’t have to try to cram everything into naptime!
good luck! it’ll be a pain at first, but TOTALLY worth it!
It is really such a daunting task… but we have started!
What?! How exciting! Wish I could help!