Okay, so the only constant in our lives is obviously change, and I for one, DO NOT LIKE CHANGE!! It's great to see new things created to make our lives easier, to see medical advances that help to prolong/treat family/loved ones longer/easier and to see life continue to flourish and families created. I know that all takes change, of course, but I don't like it on a personal level.....
As many of you know, we are in the middle/final phases of our 4th or 5th remodel of our home. We did the initial facelift when we moved in on February 14, 2003, but we were halted with the completion of it with the early arrival of Austyn who came a month and 2 days after we moved in. Phase 2 came when Abbie was born and Courtney took off 4 weeks from work in August/Sept of 2004. We re-did the flooring in the main level of the house by ripping out carpet and replacing most of it with hardwood flooring, only a small patch of carpet remains in the living room, and vinyl sticky parque floor in the kitchen/dining room and the re-finishing of existing hardwood floors as well. Phase 3 entered in with a remodel of the basement into a dedicated laundry room and family/kids play room in the basement. We tore down walls, leveled floors, created new walls and storage units to make the basement functional. The whole time we had in mind that one day we would make the newly remodeled family room into a bedroom when all the kids were older and needed their own space....that comes into play here now, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not entirely sure time wise when Phase 3 happened, having all our babies in 3 years makes for blurry memories sometimes:-)!! After Patrick was born in May of 2006, Courtney took off 6 weeks(if I remember correctly, again, blurry on those memories:-), and Phase 4 began. We had 2 huge shade trees cut down so we could have a driveway, which we desperately needed, and Courtney and his Dad did all the grunt work to level out and create the area on their own before some great friends from church came and poured the cement....this took about 3-4 weeks of hard work/long days and the challenge of super hot days and dealing w/ a newborn preemie. Now Phase 5 came in the form of new built in cabinets, they had always been there, but we tore them all out and created a new layout and updated look that would function for our family. Throw in a bathroom remodel, painting of kids rooms and ours a couple times, new appliances, re-growing the back yard, which is now all for not w/ 2 dogs in our home, adding on to our front porch deck, re-doing our enclosed front porch w/ a new slider and windows and ceiling/paint...and maybe we've surpassed into Phase 10 now!!!
Our current project began back in October, when we decided that Austyn is in need of her own space now that she's almost 9, and we desperately needed a 2nd bathroom, so the remodel 2.0 began on our basement!! We put up walls that had been originally torn down, decided to completely re-design our layout, moving the laundry room to the other side of the basement that it was one and creating the 2nd bath right off of that, and are currently in the final wall building process of Austyn's room, which is where the old laundry room used to be. We also have re-organized my storage room to equip a home brew section, and we cleared out our enclosed 3 season porch that was full of crap, okay, some of it was family treasures, but most got thrown away, to created a long time dream of a hot tub room, AKA, Courtney's Man Cave, complete with beer on tap and tunes for all!!!
Now, through it all, Courtney and I, with the help of our parents here and there, have done it all!! We hired out help w/ pouring the driveway, soley b/c it would of taken WAY TO LONG to do the driveway by the wheelbarrow full:-)! I love that I married the handiest man in the world(he'll say that's not true at all, but I believe it 10000000 times over), but change is hard!
Before our current remodel, I had my laundry system down to a T!!! We had a laundry shoot that was located in the kitchen, I know, weird, but it dumped right into the laundry room below it, and made doing laundry for 5 people, a piece of cake. In the last month, our laundry situation has been lacking, to say the very least!!! Since my laundry shoot was created into a heat/ac vent after our furnace went out 2 days in a row last week, and the fact that my laundry shoot was in Austyn's new room and not the laundry room anymore, made things very challenging to keep the system running smoothly:-(. I am proud to announce that this week, I think I have found a new to us process that will work!! Doing laundry 2 days a week, as suppose to everyone having their own day, has been a huge success and I was able to do all laundry in the 6 hours the big kids are in school and have it all put away and everyone is happy!! BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE YEAR, THUS FAR, for me!!!!!! I am in need of a new organizing system for my storage room/stock pile, but will cross that road when the basement is closer to finished and I get the huge bunk bed out of the girls room, and across the street to our neighbors who are in need of it.
If anyone out there has any ideas as to things that work for your family in the organization dept, I would love to hear them!!! I'm still having issues w/ my piles throughout our house, and the toys keep having babies it feels like, so any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Hope I didn't bore you w/ the ramblings, but crazy is as crazy does, as I'm currently learning!!!
