If you click the photo you can see the notes I added in flickr. Or see every title here

One of the things I’ll miss about living in a smaller home, is the fact that it forces you to sift through your belongings on a regular basis. Before Christmas and birthdays I take loads of toys to Goodwill in order to make room for the inevitable new items. AndyZ and NikkiZ share a room. If I left every toy in there that anyone had ever purchased for them, there would be no room for beds, cribs, or dressers. It’s already a tight squeeze as it is, and it’s a large room. Clothes also have to be weeded out when new items are purchased. I very rarely put a new item in my drawers or on the rack until an old item has been thrown in the donation bin. We are at capacity in this home. At least at a capacity I’m comfortable with – because I still am a fan of empty spaces. Our attic is full. There are no cars in our garage because it is used for things like kayaks and canoes and bikes and lawnmowers. This limited space means that if something isn’t used or cherished, it is sent off to be used or cherished by someone else. THIS IS A GOOD THING. We should all do this because the things that are sitting untouched in your kitchen, in your child’s toybox, or in your husband’s dresser – those things could be used and loved by someone less fortunate than you.

So – these are the only bookshelves in our home designated for MrZ and I. (Each child has their own bookshelf in their room.) As MrZ and I both really like owning our favorite books, we often buy more books to add to these shelves. There’s several books from a matching set from my grandparent’s home and I also kept a substantial stack of my Dad’s books. (The rest were donated). These factors had our bookshelves overflowing up until last week. I finally went through every book on every shelf and kept those which are truly our favorites. Either because we love the words, or because we’re sentimentally attached to the books themselves. I took pictures of the shelves as I feel like they say so much about us. We’re obviously Geographers by study as we can’t part with many of our old college textbooks. Someone is a huge fan of the Young Adult Fiction section. There’s many spiritual, health, and political books – separated by more poetry than the law should allow. We even have an old-school Plane Trigonometry text book. (Can you guess who that belonged to?) I just love these shelves. I love that there’s random kitschy items on there as well as puzzle boxes. It’s just a great snapshot of who we are as a family, and I love it.

We hope to be moving into a bigger home soon. One that will probably allow us more room for books. While part of me giggles with excitement over this possibility, another part will be sad to see the condensed reflections of our personalities that only a small home can create. I’d like to think I’ll still be diligent about weeding out stuff other people can make better use of, but will I really be if I’m not forced to by limited space? Probably not. Lord knows I’ve lived in much smaller places in the past yet I had no problem filling this house to capacity in five years.

In my defense, we’ve also added two humans to the mix in those five years. That’s gotta give me some sort of an excuse, right?

So. Our shelves. Aren’t they nice? Now…I’ve shown you mine. Will you show me yours?

When we bought our house 5 years ago, we knew it was a temporary purchase. We hoped we could get some equity out of it and use some of our savings to buy a bigger house for what we hoped would be a bigger family. At the time I was pregnant with NikkiZ and we hoped to have one more. We find ourselves now finishing up projects to get our house ready to sell, and we’re now thinking about what we want out of the next home. Some of the projects on the current house are ones we meant to do from the day we bought it – like paint our bedroom. It still has some pretty tacky wallpaper border and the trim is this awesome mauve color. And by “awesome” I mean “hideous”. We’re probably at least a few months out from being able to put it on the market, but that hasn’t stopped us all from talking about the MUST HAVES in the next house.

Since we’re definitely wanting something bigger, and our budget isn’t that high, we’re betting we’re going to have to go for older than our current home. So far, our MUST HAVES are as follows:

• A bathroom that company can use that is NOT used daily by anyone to shower/bathe. Our current “public” bathroom is the one LilZ uses to shower and get ready. This means it has to sustain a healthy cleaning before company comes over because it’s used constantly. I would like to NOT have to worry about this. A half-bath option would be great.
• 4 bedrooms PLUS an extra room. Since our kids currently share a bedroom (which has MONSTROUS benefits I’ll be sad to lose) we’d like to give them each their own room and then an extra. It wouldn’t have to necessarily be a “bedroom” – but some sort of room we could make an office with a fold-out couch for company. We have a lot of out-of-town company come in and we never have a place for them to sleep. We also need an office area since we both do so much work from home.
• An eat-in kitchen PLUS dining room. We currently have ONE eating area which is also our Messy Kids Projects area. I’d like to be able to have a table in the kitchen where the kids could do messy things, but a nicer table in a separate room for family dinners. We’ve never even considered buying a real dining room table because the kids will just destroy it with their crafts.
• A dog-friendly yard. There are a lot of houses in this area built into a mountain with little/no backyard. We need an area that we can fence in for the dogs as we’re just not disciplined enough to walk them as much as they need.

Other things we’d LOVE but are not MUST HAVES

• I would LOVE to have a garden tub. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I soak in the tub several nights a week so if there was anyone who could use one? It would be me. But – that is something we could someday upgrade if the house didn’t currently have one.
• LilZ would REALLY like his own bathroom that he could keep as messy as he’d like without worrying about me nagging or the kids destroying his things.
• Porch/Deck. I love to sit outside and read or just drink coffee and watch nature. My in-laws have the most amazing deck you’ve ever seen and I would love something like that. Something conducive for grilling out or visiting with guests. This is also something we MIGHT could add-on if possible, so it’s not really a MUST HAVE. It sure would be nice, though.

We are really hoping this house to be the one we live in as long as we live here. I’ve hated the past five years having to make interior design choices knowing we’ll be selling it “soon” – it kept us from doing some of the crazy things I really wanted to do. So we really want to be happy with the choice we make. What about you? Is your house your “forever” home? What were your requirements when you bought it? Are you dreaming of your “forever” home? What are your MUST HAVES?

I would like a Garden Tub too, please!

My room is going to be PINK and PURPLE and SPARKLY!

My Dad used to keep our “best” pieces of “art” growing up and either hang them on the fridge or would put them in these books/journals he kept. It always made me feel really accomplished when one of my creations was chosen. Like it had been selected for some exhibit somewhere. And it made me feel really confident in my skills as an “artist” so I kept doodling/drawing my entire life. I took art classes in high school and continued screwing around with various artistic endeavors even into adulthood.

Now, at some point along the way I realized my skills were limited. I would get ideas in my mind but they never turned out the way the looked in my head. In other words? The ideas were there, but not the talent. The creativity, but not the skill. Now, the drive still allowed me to make some cool things, and in school I had one or two things that actually did get put in student expos, but all-in-all? I was simply someone who liked to create but who wasn’t all that great at it.

BUT – the fact that I kept (and keep) going with it is something I owe to my Dad. And it’s something I swore I’d foster in my children as well.

I used to have a long empty wall in one of my apartments in college and I filled it floor to ceiling with LilZ’s artwork. Once we bought our house, my first mission was to actually frame some of it. And hang them in – what I call – the Art Hall. He currently has several pieces hanging there and they range from preschool to 5th Grade. 6th grade didn’t give us any art classes so nothing was created that year. This year, however, we had another art class and some of my favorite pieces have been done. Here are the two I matted yesterday.

I haven’t bought frames yet because I wait and do that when Hobby Lobby puts them on 50% off. But I’m looking forward to adding them to various empty walls around the house. I’m not going to put them in the Art Hall because I want to save room there for some of the other kid’s art someday. But, we have so much empty wall space, there will be plenty of choices. And I’ll hang them proudly knowing that my son is very talented. But that he also has his mother’s creative drive which means one thing: My walls will never be bare.

Well. NikkiZ’s room is painted and she is currently sleeping in her bed in the room. I’m so happy this is essentially over that I could just about cry. The rest of the house is still in disarray as it had kinda gotten chaotic over the last few weeks, but the furniture that belongs in her room is all there and in the right place. Nothing really on the walls yet and AndyZ’s side isn’t done (crib has to be reassembled and a new crib mattress needs to be purchased) but for all practical purposes? We’re done. The remaining tasks are minor.

Of course – I’ll wait and do the official Before/After photos when those minor tasks are completed – but for now: The current home of NikkiZ and future home of AndyZ. Pay Special Attention To The Curtains. I made them myself and crossed my first item off of my list of 101 things in 1001 days.

NikkiZ’s half of the room

AndyZ’s half of the room

THE CURTAINS. Amen.

We are heading out of town this weekend to visit my parents and my brother so MrZ is going to take this chance to start painting NikkiZ’s room. It was a horrible week the last time she had to be moved out of her room and I spent most of the seven days in tears due to frustration and lack of sleep. We thought that removing she and I from the house for at least two of the nights would make it less likely I need to be committed before this transition is done.

Many of you asked why we were bothering to paint her new room when we moved her in. I agree – at first glance the colors are awesome. However, MrZ let LilZ and I paint that room ourselves when we bought the house. LilZ was 10 at the time. 10-year-olds are not the best painters. Neither are klutzes with a shaking-hand issue (that would be me) so the paint job is far from perfect. There’s paint on the ceiling and the trim and the outlets. Also – a growing boy has resided in that room for three years now. Played several games of tackle with his friends and spilled several drinks. The walls are now beat up, filthy, and missing chunks of paint where things have crashed into them. Finally – there is the solar system I braved painting that turned out not so great because I AM NOT AN ARTIST. So – all of these things lead to the fact that the room needs a fresh coat of paint. And what better time to do it than before AndyZ gets here.

Also – There is going to be a LOT of stuff going on in that room with two kids different genders. I need a more neutral wall color just to keep myself from being over stimulated! I already get a headache in there will all of the pink AND the blue and green walls.

So…we’re painting. Or, MrZ is painting. But, since I can’t help with the actual painting (not that he would want me to) I am taking charge of moving all of the crap out of the room. AGAIN. What is up with all of the manual labor I’ve been doing? AM I INSANE? Yes. Yes I am.

Here are some pictures of this phase of the Great Room Switch of 2008.

LilZ is going to loving coming home to a changing table in his room

It was fun while it lasted, but it’s time to say “Goodbye”

Remind me not to teach astronomy any time soon

It’s a good thing we don’t entertain a lot of company. This is not the decor I usually go for in my living room.