Major Redesign

Well, the house selling thing really isn't going as we'd hoped.  All this time our real estate lady told us "just wait til spring!"  Spring is here.  We've waited, and it's now the middle of May.  Not a single bite in this house since we put it on the market 4.5 months ago.  So, a new plan is in the works.  I still don't know how it will work, but it's all we can think of to do.  With our tax refund, we'd planned to get the cars fixed up; serviced, new tires and most importantly new back seat belts that our malamute, Haku, kindly chewed off both our cars when he was a hyper deranged pup plagued with the worst case of separation anxiety.  I think Mike nearly had him euthanized after that.  In fact, I'm still surprised today that he didn't.  Anyway, with this new plan, we're going to have to stretch our tax refund even further.

See, in order to fit us, and the baby into this house (not to mention along with 2 cats and a large dog), we need new furniture.  In getting this house ready to show, we got rid of over half of our stuff, including some old borrowed furniture that was too big for this tiny house anyway.  Our stuff is still packed up in boxes over at my grandparent's house waiting for us to get a new house.  But since that probably isn't going to happen, we've devised a plan that just may work in our favor for the time being.  

Task #1: eliminate the office!  Our 2nd bedroom has been our storage room & office since we moved in because this house lacks so much in storage space.  We've already gone through everything we stored in here 4 months ago and packed it over to my grandparent's.  Now, it's all about removing the computer and putting it somewhere else in the house so that this room will be all baby's.  When you have a house as small as this, you wouldn't be surprised how difficult this task really is.  So, in comes the devised plan of buying new furniture.  After much searching, we finally found a desk that was both compact and just as importantly economical to our budget.  It is our hope that it will fit into a small corner of our living room that is currently the home of a 4-shelf bookcase.  Of course some re-arranging of the living room furniture is once again in order, but we think we can do it with a bit of hard work.  Once that task is complete, this room will be empty and ready for us to redesign it into a nursery!

Task #2: Prepare the baby's room!  This is really the more fun tasks we get to do, even though it isn't in a new house.  I've already picked out the paint color to use and everything.  It's a pretty pale yellow called "morning sunlight".  I was determined to give our long awaited daughter a room dedicated especially to her and all of her belongings.  And actually, it was important to us that we do this so that we will be able to keep the cats out of her room, since our cats think everything is made especially for them--especially if it's new!  A nice new crib?!  Puuuurrfect new cat bed!  You catch my meaning.  So, as far as baby furnishings go, aside from the crib that we don't have yet, most of them are hand-me-downs.  I mentioned in a previous post that we are refinishing my mom's baby dresser that was made for her, which I also used when I was little.  We're planning on using it as a changing table as well, so we don't need another piece of furniture that we don't have room for.  Aside from that, I have a storage chest that I got when I was little that I'm also refinishing for her, and my grandparents are lending us their little cradle that my dad used when he was a baby and was passed down through many family members, including me when I was an infant.  The cradle, however, won't be in the baby's room.  It will have to be in ours, so that brings me to the next task....

Task #3: Rearranging OUR bedroom!  When babies are first born, it's recommended that you keep them with you at night at least for the first few months, if not longer.  So this is why bassinets and cradles and bedside sleepers are so common.  They are just tiny beds designed to fit where you need them, like in the parent's bedroom.  Well, they obviously haven't seen our bedroom!  Fitting anything in there is a challenge and a half, but one of the things we have to tackle in there is the fact that when we moved half our furniture out, we also got rid of our dresser that I was borrowing from my aunt.  It was a big old thing with one of those huge mirrors on top.  We were always slamming into it, but we needed it for all our clothes because the closet in there is about 2'x2' and barely fits Mike's work clothes all stuffed in--forget about mine!  So, we need a new dresser.  Preferably one that is taller than it is wide so we can utilize what little space we have in there.  For 4 months, I've been living out of a suitcase.  No kidding.  We have one skinny little 5 drawer dresser that we use to store our socks & underwear, and that's it.  I packed all my regular clothes away and put my maternity clothes into a suitcase which I now live out of. That needs to stop because I'm gonna need my other clothes back.  Besides, I'd really like to start living like I actually live here instead of like I'm just visiting!  Then, in order to fit the cradle in there, we're going to have to get rid of at least one of the nightstands, and shove our bed against the wall.  One thing I'm not sure of is whether or not we'll have room to keep that underwear dresser.  It might have to go too, and hopefully we can keep our clothes all in one.  One of my space saving ideas is to get a bed that has drawers underneath to store things.  That would be helpful, but then again, pricey.  So, we're still searching for the best way to go about doing task #3, but hopefully we find the answer soon because it's all driving me crazy.  Just so you know, nothing ever goes as planned.