My House is Getting Bigger.
So we have been here 2 months now and things are moving along nicely. We have chickens and chicks and broilers. And ducks and a cow steer. Oh, and the pigs. We can’t forget Jefferson (my husband’s namesake). And there was the immediate need to remodel and reconstruct.
Here are some pictures of our current living room. The garage door is still in place and the press board is covering the walls. The good news is this room is well insulated…because…because doesn’t everyone build with 2×8s and insulate their garage? And although the room looks bright and cheery I am telling you that is only made possible through the magic of Photoshop. It is really more dark and cave like.
To the left of the back door is the laundry area. To the right is the shoe cubby area.
It’s a pretty cozy room and we have a shoe/jacket/computer/to do list area. Please ignore the fact that all of the jackets don’t fit on all of the nails I pounded Jenna pounded into the wall after we priced out hooks. And the boots have no real home so they reside in the middle of the floor. Hey, it works, ok?
Someday I’d like to have this wall in my laundry/pantry area finished. Wouldn’t that be groovy? I do like the press board look and the back of the drywall look is exceedingly chic and industrial but I’m not sure if we might be crossing the line into ghetto. What about the sink that has water lines but no drain? Is that problematic?
Laundry, laundry everywhere. Except the two boxes of jackets. That is more of the outwear that doesn’t really have a home. It seems that here in the land that has weather (as opposed to the land where the sun shines constantly) we have a need for 3 different types of jackets, per person, at all times. We also have big need for lots of inner wear as evidenced by the piles of laundry in the dirty clothes hampers.
I think I’ve shown you the dining room. Here it is again. The fan is there to push the hot air around the room when we have a roaring fire going. And we’ve had some opportunity to build a toasty fire since it was only 26 degrees out last night. That is a bit nippy and the house dropped down to about 65. Which is pretty good considering I have a big roll up garage door as one of my livingroom walls. In case you were unaware, garage doors are not air tight. See the laundry basket?
Lookie here, what we have in the laundry basket. A sleeping baby. I have been doing some training with Jodi lately. One of those things she needs to learn is how to sleep just about anywhere. Yep, she’s getting good at it. :)
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I love reading your blog, we too are a family with birth and adopted children.
Just wanted to say, to not worry about explaining “messes” or things out of place. Honestly you could clean up the area for the picture, then go get your camera and before you could click the picture the room would have something out of place…. again.
Love reading about your journey.
Well shucks, you KNOW we want to see what’s on the white board!
We have decorated large parts of our house with OSB board……only we PAINT ours.
Do they call is press board in Missouri?
Hey, my baby was just sleeping in the same blue laundry basket in the kitchen yesterday! You were spying on me, weren’t you?
She didn’t have it quite as cozy as Jodi, though. Just one towel and a small blanket.
I’m getting ideas just seeing that garage conversion. It’s looking good.
We have laundry and jackets everywhre right now, too. It takes forever to switch out the summer stuff for winter.
I love the ghetto look. Very chic. :-)
Who cares about finished walls when you have a laundry basket full of squishy-soft baby? LOL.
We have that very same overflowing coat/boot problem, but we only have 1/3 the population at our house. . . hmmm. . . must be a Missouri thing. :-)
I think your house is awesome. Looking at the pics, I just didn’t remember it looking like that at all. I guess your wonderful hospitality makes up for anything ghetto looking. :) It’s a wonderful place for your kids to grow up in….
You have an Expedit shelf! I love Expedit!
hmmmm……looks like a happy home to me:) Loved the freshly laundered baby:)
Moving right along… great!!!!! :)
Love,
Chas
How exactly do you train a baby to sleep anywhere? I so desperately wanted to with my daughter, but she slept absolutely nowhere but her crib/bassinet/pack n play. She didn’t even sleep in the car (except on 17 hour rides, after screaming for 90 minutes first). We tried–church in a sling? Screamed. In my arms? Screamed. In the car? Simply didn’t fall asleep or screamed. We gave up and never went anywhere at nap time–which was nearly constant as she was this weird baby who slept nearly all the time. Boy did we wish she’d sleep somewhere other than the crib!
Just a PS: This is an honest question because I heard a lot about doing this when she was a baby and I so wanted to do it but it just didn’t work. We did things like swaddling her in the same blanket and laying her down near us but not in the crib and she’d just stay awake. Or playing the same music, or whatever. It just never worked so I wonder if you have a magic idea in case we have another kid to try it on!
Katie,
How are you heating the garage/living area. We too want to transform ours little by little into a family room. I would love to go ahead and start using it but it is so cold out there right now.
Thanks,
Trixi
That, my friend, is called a “baskinette.” It was all our fist born had to sleep in for the fist 3 months of his life! We lived in a 24 ft motor home with a double bed. I was afraid I’d sqwoosh him if I slept with him. So I put him in a baskinette on the floor by my bed- and had to remember to step OVER if I had to go potty….
Love the sleeping baby in the laundry basket!