the start of something big.

I know I have gone a bit MIA again this week. I did share my love birds cross stitch though, so one point for me. As far as working on any posts behind the scenes, that would be a negative. Why, you ask? Well, I got an idea in my head. A really big idea and it’s stuck in there and how I work is that I get an idea, work at it like a crazy person until I get what I want, and then probably collapse in front of a DVR full of America’s Next Top Model.

I’ll tell you my idea. More like a big project. But we’ll get there. You need some background info first.

We live in a small house. Is it super teeny tiny small? No, but it is small. 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. We aren’t bursting at the seams, but we have to keep our stuff in check and be clever about how we store things. Someday I’ll share a house tour so you can see what we are working with, but given the fact that I have already begun implementing my idea-more-like-a-project, that will have to wait. Things are kind of a mess. 

So those 2 bedrooms I mentioned above… that’s what this project is all about. Before we had Sawyer, we lived in the "big" bedroom, which is strangely located directly off our living room. Old house, weird things. Just go with it. When I say “big bedroom” I am not talking that big. I dug up an old picture of what our room used to look like:

You can't really see how big it is, but it's not much bigger than what you are seeing there. It was a beige-y brown wonderland. I have a major issues with neutrals/lack of color. Seriously, our living room looks like you’re just sitting inside a big, giant pile of khakis. It’s on my radar of things to change about our house, but for now, khaki pile it is.

So that’s what our bedroom used to look like. The other bedroom was our office/lame guest room. I don’t have any pictures because it wasn’t really noteworthy I guess.

When we found out we were having Sawyer, we decided that we were going to switch bedrooms, take the small room, and give the baby the bigger room so we could have his crib/dresser/changing table AND a guest bed in that room. Because we were bursting with first time parent naivety, we thought that if we ever had a guest, our baby would sleep through a guest being in the room with them and that the guests would likewise love to share a room with an infant. By the way, we hardly have guests, so this whole “we need to keep a guest bed” assumption was rather dumb.

So switch the rooms we did.

This is Sawyer’s nursery (before Sawyer was even born, hence the fact that everything is spotless, organized and flawless).

It worked out pretty good because babies have a lot of stuff and we were dealing with living in the small bedroom and we had a system down. We have just been living with it.

When Sawyer was about 1, we finished half the basement to be his play room. Now we had a place for his 10,000 toys. Most every toy he had was moved down there. It looks like a plastic factory threw up down there, it’s not decorated perfectly (or at all), but it serves a purpose. Keepin’ it real shot coming up:

 Do you see where this is going? Sawyer now has the big bedroom, half the basement as his playroom, and 2 parents that are realizing it’s time to reclaim a bit of their home. I know as a mom I am supposed to be a happy passenger on the self-sacrifice train, but I have my limits. We are the adults, we pay for this roof over our heads, and we have a right to a little of the space, right? Right.

It is time to switch the rooms back.

Maybe (if you’ve actually read all of this and not just glossed over the pictures) you’re wondering just how small our room actually is. It can’t be that bad, you say. Judge for yourself:

That's actually clean considering what it normally looks like. Plus we never make the bed, ever. What's the point when you can't even comfortably walk around the bed to arrange the covers and pillows? It’s tiny. There is about a 18 inch wide strip on either side of the bed that we scoot along to crash into bed. In front of the bed there is about a 2-3 foot wide strip that we used to get dressed in or in my case, have a panic attack in because THE ROOM IS SO SMALL. The only redeeming factor is the closet. 

It isn’t even that big, but it is the biggest one in the house. Since we don’t have a linen closet, it also houses extra towels and sheets, not to mention all of our clothes, shoes, bags, etc. Needless to say, it is cramped in this room.

At first, it was kind of nice. Cozy, if you will. Plus the first 9 months of his life I was walking around like a sleep deprived zombie so I didn’t care what my bedroom looked like as long as there was a bed. However, in the past year or so, it has really started to wear on me. It is constantly cluttered, I can’t relax at night, and I just don’t like it.

FINALLY she gets to the point: We are switching our rooms back. Ohhhh man, is it a big job. I have started with cleaning out all of the junk from our room. 

This is day two of purging. So. much. stuff. I seriously don't know how it all fit. 

We have already hauled 6 bags of our junk to charity. I considered selling it, but then decided to be lazy generous and give it away. I have found that garage sales in general have such a low return on investment that we don’t even bother. We can help out others and just give it away, and that’s what we do. I have gotten rid of all of those jeans that - let's face it - I am not going to fit in again, those high heels that never get worn, tons of t-shirts, purses, wallets, hats, and so much other junk. It has made me realize how much stuff has cluttered our lives, and how little we actually need. More on the “stuff addiction” to come.

So for the next few weeks, maybe even months, I’ll be sharing posts related to our new room makeover and all the fun that comes along with major home projects. I have so many ideas and inspiration and I can’t wait to share. 

For the first time in a while, I am excited to blog about something. Is that terrible to admit? Well, it's true. For the past few months I have been kind of lost in this blog of mine. I started this with the intention of sharing things I was already making, and it turned into sometimes making stuff to share, and that’s where I began to get overwhelmed. I tried too hard to keep up, and I think I am done with that. I am really excited to share what I think is a relatable project. A lot of people have small homes that you just have to make work, and not a ton of money or time to invest in them. Plus, I just feel passionate about this project. I am pretty much consumed with thoughts of purging our home of clutter, how to solve our organization and storage problems, how to add color to our khaki paradise, how to incorporate some of my handmade things and crafts, and how to save money while doing it. I am a pretty firm believer that if you are doing something you love, it will translate to others in one way or another. I am back to doing what I love and I am so ready to share it all with you.

This may be the longest post I have ever written. If you read it all, you win!

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