Moving on up, a birthday and a redo!

So.. after going back and forth for the last few months about moving or just adding on, we have decided to just add on to our house! When we bought this house over a year ago, we KNEW it was too small for us. It only has 3 bedrooms, no dining room and one full bathroom.. and with a family of 8.. that’s not much space! We have managed okay with only three bedrooms.. we have 3 boys in one room, Allie in another and Ben and I in a small room downstairs. That means Braden and Parker have been in the “food storage” room in the basement.. (don’t worry, they have a door to the outside connected to their room! LOL).. but as they kids get bigger.. they are going to need more space. We don’t have a dining room right now, so we currently all just stand around the kitchen eating each night, and we don’t have a family room either, so there is only one gathering room, right as you enter the house, that we all hang out in. We knew when we bought the house we would add on to it, but we waited a year to live in it to see exactly “what” we wanted to add on. Then back in December we got the itch that maybe we should just move instead of adding on. It’s a buyer’s market right now, and we can get a lot more for our money.  We found some awesome houses.. that were HUGE,  gorgeous and IN our price range…. but after thinking about it long and hard.. we decided to just stay where we are at. We couldn’t part with our little old house!

This house was built somewhere between 1905-1910 and it has all the features of an old, lived in house. It also has a very private backyard.. which makes us feel like we are in the country, but we live smack dab  in the middle of what I call “the perfect neighborhood”. We love it here. We love that all of the kids in our neighborhood (from ages 8-18) play night games in the subdivision all summer long, we love that we are just around the corner from my dad’s house.. 2 blocks away from the library, grocery store, bank, post office, and community outdoor swimming pool. It’s an older neighborhood, so it’s  filled with a lot of families, of all ages..  and we love it. The houses we looked at buying were newer houses, built out of town (still in Shelley) but out of town, away from all of that, and we would miss it.  It’s funny how sometimes even though you can have a nicer, newer house.. the “perfect” house.. isn’t always worth over having the perfect location.. you know what I mean?  So since we decided to stay here, and just add-on, we have also decided to not overbuild for where we live. Which means, the master-bedroom we were going to build on, is no more.  We are just going to build on a family room/living room, and two more bedrooms. Ben and I have been living in the smallest room of the house, right off the living room.. because with 6 kids, they need more space than we do. There is actually a master-bedroom in this house, that the previous owners built/added on.. upstairs. It’s a huge room.. with a walk in closet and a big bathroom (just down the hall). Because of space issues, we put the 3 youngest boys in there (actually 4 at one time).. but since we are going to add-on, we decided it’s time for Ben and I to move on UP and the 2 boys to move down!  Noah kinds ends up sleeping wherever each night anyway (he starts in his bed, but ends up in the living room, our room, allie’s room.. etc). So we decided he doesn’t need a bed right now, and can make due until we add-on).

 

 When we moved in, we re-textured and painted most of the downstairs, to get rid of that old (rough) texture on the walls.. but since we decided to move upstairs, we thought we better do it right and re-texture and paint all of the rooms/hallways up there too. That included the “master-bedroom” and Allie’s room which is also upstairs. So for the last two weeks, our house has been in crazy mode. Beds, dressers, toys, etc.. everywhere.. and we are still not done! LOL.. Since Allie’s room was getting repainted, we decided it was time to get new bedding and do some re-decorating. She had a bigger queen size bed in her room so when guests came over, they could use her room. But now we will use the boy’s room for that. So to give her more space, we have downsized her bed to a twin (one of the beds ben built for the boys, and he repainted it white). But she also got to pick out new bedding! She has had High School Musical bedding for the last couple of years.. and so I was surprised at only 9, she wanted a more grown-up look! She actually picked out the paint all on her own, and her bedding.. which is very modern and so much more grown up! I was impressed! We got the quilt at overstock.com and the light at drugstore.com . The quilt is actually SO pretty in person! It has lots of different textures to the patches.. and it’s a comforter not a quilt. SO fun! We got her a new dresser (the one she has had for years, we found at the dump and repainted it, but it’s just not big enough to hold all of her clothes anymore.. and the drawers were so hard to open). So we bought her and all of our boys new dressers at a local second hand store here in Shelley called “Hidden Treasures”.  Great stuff! The dressers were all new but so inexpensive! (our boys have not had dressers for the last 2 years, we bought those big grey tubs at wallmart and lined the “master-bedroom” closest with tubs. They each had 3 tubs- one for shirts, pants, and pj’s. That way the could just dig through their tubs to find their clothes.. I thought it would be much easier for them, than big tall dressers). Now that they are bigger and in a room that doesn’t have enough room for all the tubs,  we broke down and bough them dressers too. Ones that actually open! LOL

So we have been busy with that. Allie’s bedroom is all re-textured and painted, and so is the hallway, now we just have to do our bedroom and the bathroom. Our bedroom is SUCH a mess.. stuff everywhere.. we just moved it all up and basically threw it in there. There is a ton of space up there, but right now you wouldn’t be able to tell with boxes everywhere, tubs, etc! but it’s a work in progress. 

Yesterday was Noah’s 4^th birthday!  It was a fun simple birthday party with just family, cousins and a friend, Lauren. He was So funny because we have been asking him for the last month what he wanted for his birthday and he kept saying “I only want an ice-cream sandwich!”.  We would ask him,, don’t you want toys? Or something cool? And he would say NO, only an ice-cream sandwich!   Too funny! He actually ended up getting a little bit more. We bought him a bag of tootsie rolls, a pack of tic tacs, and a bag of soft chewy cookies. And a plastic bowling set we found at the dollar store.  It was the cheapest easiest birthday ever! I made cupcakes.. and we served ice cream sandwiches for desert! He also got a few fun gifts from his cousins.. and it was fun. You should have seen his reaction when he got his presents! He would be like “ TICK TACS?? I GOT MY VERY OWN TIC TACS!!”  We all were laughing so hard. Funny kid!

 
Well that’s an update for me! I am busy this week creating a online class I am going to be teaching for http://www.gotcrafts.typepad.com/ Ican’t wait! It’s going to be SUPER fun.. and hoping to launch it in April!  Spring Break is just around the corner, have a lot to do around here, so not sure we are going to go anywhere.. but we will probably end up doing some fun things around town, like bowling, movies, maybe even camping out  in the backyard.. it was almost 55 yesterday! I wore flip flops! I couldn’t believe it! there is hope spring is on it’s way!! LOL

Well have a fabulous week.. thanks for checking in..

Christy

Comments

[lori jolley]

Wow! Sounds busy! And fun, too! It's the perfect time of year for updating and re-doing! I've been feeling the spring cleaning and rearranging itch! I'm soooo glad its getting warmer!!

[Alicia King]

looks good Christy, I want to see it when its all finished!

[Marilyn]

Noah totally cracked me up when Julie and I were there picking up our kits. He also told us all he wanted for his birthday was and ice cream sandwich. I'm sure glad you could grant your sweet 4 year old his one true hearts desire! What a great mom! Hey and good luck with the remodel. Thankfully the weather is improving so you can send the kids outside through most of it.

[Tina]

Q man only wanted green apples :) He got his very own bag of giant ones. Too funny.
I was at Hidden Treasures today...that place is so dangerous for me!