Nesting, city living, and housekeeping
We live in a major city, and live inside the actual city - not the suburbs. Home is a 1,100 square foot open concept 2 BR/2BA loft so we are minimalist in what we choose to have in our living space. It's part of the reason why we don't have fifty billion toys and stuffed animals (although we still wouldn't even if we lived in a mansion), and we really try to stick with the absolute essentials where we can. So many have asked us when we plan to move, and the answer is "Not anytime soon". Maybe in 3-4 years? Lily is currently in our second bedroom which also doubles as a guest room and it's actually worked out pretty well. We plan to move Lily to the guest bed after she turns 3 (with side rails) and Violet to the crib Lily is currently in. It seems pointless to purchase a toddler bed for her when we have a perfectly good bed right here. We'll have Lily sleep on the couch if we have weekend guests. Lily was in our room until she was 14 months old, so that's currently our plan. If we have a third child while still living here, we'll just need to move by the time the youngest needs a crib. ;) We really love city living - all of the museums, parks, Aquarium, Zoo, etc are within 10 minutes of us. It's not something we are in a hurry to give up at all. We're realists though and know that we'll eventually need to move because when we start homeschooling, we will need more space so we can have a dedicated area for learning. Hopefully we'll be able to stay in the city and find a house we love within our budget, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it! If you had asked me where I would be in life 5 years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed life would be this amazing. I trust the Lord has the perfect plan for us as far as housing in the future and it will be better than anything Ethan or I could dream up. For now: we are content with where we are and making the most of it!
Our loft was in serious need of some reorganization with the shift in our family dynamic. We're not normal people at all. For some reason we do our nesting AFTER babies arrive rather than before. To be fair, this time around we were waiting to see if we would need to pull out Lily's outgrown clothes or not since we didn't know if we'd need boy or girl clothes.
My mom was a huge help in sorting through all of the clothes and packing them into bags arranged by size. Lily's clothes have been kept in a couple of drawers in our closet since she was born, but with the addition of Violet, we knew we would have to make more space somewhere. We turned to IKEA for the solution and purchased the Expedit bookcase in high gloss turquoise as well as some bins to keep it in. I love the color of it, and someday if we move, we can use it in the horizontal position in a playroom or schoolroom for toys/homeschool supplies. We did install a couple of drawers within the bookcase for her smaller clothing items like socks, hairbows, and underwear.
As you can see, it fits perfectly against the wall, and all of Lily's clothing and shoes fit in it. Violet's clothes are now in our closet where Lily's once were.
Ethan downsized his office area in our room by getting a smaller desk and smaller computer monitor.
His old monitor was actually an LED TV that is now in storage for the future. The Micke desk is also courtesy of IKEA. It's actually pretty awesome since it stores both of our laptops inside the main drawer, and the charger cords are invisible since they go through the desk. He was able to take the armrests off of his office chair so he could keep using it.
We thought we were going to sell the old desk, but Ethan put it behind our couch when he moved it out of our room... and I've been using it as my desk or as a folding surface.... so now we aren't sure whether we will keep it or sell it. The good thing is that thanks to Craig's List we can sell it in a couple of days and be rid of it if we decide it needs to go. For now, it's staying as sort of an experiment.
We reconfigured our living room furniture arrangement as well to better accommodate the desk within our loft and are really loving it so far!
We also went through our downstairs storage unit and closet and purged tons of stuff, and just reorganized things in general. My sister will be getting a huge bag of clothes and shoes that I haven't touched in the past two years. When I told her she dryly responded, "Oh, so you can replace them with new clothes?" Haha. Not so much. I probably won't do much clothes shopping until I'm done having babies and nursing. Right now I have two wardrobes: maternity and regular. Those will get me through until then. Plus, a lot of the clothes I love won't work very well with nursing since they aren't easy access... so I'll stick with what I have and wait for the having babies and breastfeeding chapter of my life to close. THEN I'll go on a crazy shopping spree. :) Goodwill also received quite a few bags of things as well.
Three weeks ago, looking at the list of everything we had to do was slightly overwhelming, and it seemed like we just kept adding to it as we checked things off. It felt like we were just running on a hamster wheel getting nowhere fast at times... anyway, we slowly but surely chipped away at all the things that needed to be done and actually finished them all. My parents being here this past weekend was SUPER helpful in allowing us to finish up the last little things since they would get Lily out of the house so we could work mostly uninterrupted unless I needed to tend to Violet. Both of us breathed a sigh of relief when it was finally all finished...feels like we have our house back and everything is in its place. It's always refreshing to get rid of tons of things and free up storage space too!
Doing all these projects and tasks with a toddler and a newborn had its challenges, but we still managed to get it done. Sometimes it meant only one of us could be working at once, other times it meant me nursing Violet on the couch while Ethan held up items from boxes while being directed by me which pile it went to. Other times it meant working like madmen if both were asleep at the same time. We really try hard to keep our house in order because we are both happier people when it is. It's not always magazine perfect - especially with a toddler who loves to make messes. It IS possible to keep it the way we like it though...it just takes teamwork and patience - AND lower expectations than pre-kids.
Each day I write a list that has three things on it. Those are the three things that I strive to get done that day. Sometimes one of those things is as simple as "Empty the dishwasher". If I'm able to get more done, great! If not... oh well. I also have a checklist for the end of the day that is pretty simple and consists of: picking up toys, rearranging couch pillows, wiping down the kitchen counters/dining room table, and making sure all dirty clothes are in the hamper. We incorporate Lily into as many of these things as we can so she learns responsibility. When she's older, the "one toy at a time" rule will apply, but right now she's not there yet. Doing those things every night before bedtime guarantees that the house stays neat most of the time and gives us a fresh start every morning. In the interest of being real and honest: there are always those nights where that checklist is thrown to the wind and this mama goes to bed early instead. ;) I'm far from perfect! Also, if you were to come to my house during naptime, chances are good you would see the living room completely askew from my tiny tornado if we hadn't gone out that day!
Our loft was in serious need of some reorganization with the shift in our family dynamic. We're not normal people at all. For some reason we do our nesting AFTER babies arrive rather than before. To be fair, this time around we were waiting to see if we would need to pull out Lily's outgrown clothes or not since we didn't know if we'd need boy or girl clothes.
My mom was a huge help in sorting through all of the clothes and packing them into bags arranged by size. Lily's clothes have been kept in a couple of drawers in our closet since she was born, but with the addition of Violet, we knew we would have to make more space somewhere. We turned to IKEA for the solution and purchased the Expedit bookcase in high gloss turquoise as well as some bins to keep it in. I love the color of it, and someday if we move, we can use it in the horizontal position in a playroom or schoolroom for toys/homeschool supplies. We did install a couple of drawers within the bookcase for her smaller clothing items like socks, hairbows, and underwear.
As you can see, it fits perfectly against the wall, and all of Lily's clothing and shoes fit in it. Violet's clothes are now in our closet where Lily's once were.
Ethan downsized his office area in our room by getting a smaller desk and smaller computer monitor.
 |
| Before |
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| After |
We reconfigured our living room furniture arrangement as well to better accommodate the desk within our loft and are really loving it so far!
We also went through our downstairs storage unit and closet and purged tons of stuff, and just reorganized things in general. My sister will be getting a huge bag of clothes and shoes that I haven't touched in the past two years. When I told her she dryly responded, "Oh, so you can replace them with new clothes?" Haha. Not so much. I probably won't do much clothes shopping until I'm done having babies and nursing. Right now I have two wardrobes: maternity and regular. Those will get me through until then. Plus, a lot of the clothes I love won't work very well with nursing since they aren't easy access... so I'll stick with what I have and wait for the having babies and breastfeeding chapter of my life to close. THEN I'll go on a crazy shopping spree. :) Goodwill also received quite a few bags of things as well.
Three weeks ago, looking at the list of everything we had to do was slightly overwhelming, and it seemed like we just kept adding to it as we checked things off. It felt like we were just running on a hamster wheel getting nowhere fast at times... anyway, we slowly but surely chipped away at all the things that needed to be done and actually finished them all. My parents being here this past weekend was SUPER helpful in allowing us to finish up the last little things since they would get Lily out of the house so we could work mostly uninterrupted unless I needed to tend to Violet. Both of us breathed a sigh of relief when it was finally all finished...feels like we have our house back and everything is in its place. It's always refreshing to get rid of tons of things and free up storage space too!
Doing all these projects and tasks with a toddler and a newborn had its challenges, but we still managed to get it done. Sometimes it meant only one of us could be working at once, other times it meant me nursing Violet on the couch while Ethan held up items from boxes while being directed by me which pile it went to. Other times it meant working like madmen if both were asleep at the same time. We really try hard to keep our house in order because we are both happier people when it is. It's not always magazine perfect - especially with a toddler who loves to make messes. It IS possible to keep it the way we like it though...it just takes teamwork and patience - AND lower expectations than pre-kids.
Each day I write a list that has three things on it. Those are the three things that I strive to get done that day. Sometimes one of those things is as simple as "Empty the dishwasher". If I'm able to get more done, great! If not... oh well. I also have a checklist for the end of the day that is pretty simple and consists of: picking up toys, rearranging couch pillows, wiping down the kitchen counters/dining room table, and making sure all dirty clothes are in the hamper. We incorporate Lily into as many of these things as we can so she learns responsibility. When she's older, the "one toy at a time" rule will apply, but right now she's not there yet. Doing those things every night before bedtime guarantees that the house stays neat most of the time and gives us a fresh start every morning. In the interest of being real and honest: there are always those nights where that checklist is thrown to the wind and this mama goes to bed early instead. ;) I'm far from perfect! Also, if you were to come to my house during naptime, chances are good you would see the living room completely askew from my tiny tornado if we hadn't gone out that day!
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