turn our home into an amazing expression of who we are as a family

i managed to get 75% of our belongings out of the boxes and “put away” when i ran out of storage space, money, and energy. our furniture is mostly hideously ugly hand me downs, the bed is sagging and hard, the shelves are breaking under the weight of books and photo albums. i did manage to get a little arts and crafts area set up, and a table to ate at in the kitchen. we decided that a new comfy bed was the next priority, so we spent all the disposable income on that and it is coming on wednesday. next up is building some hope chest-benches so that we have somewhere to store all the camping supplies and chistmas decorations.

there is some good news. when we went to buy the bed i discovered that my credit has gone from attrocious to merely fair over the past few years of my frugality. so i guess the hand me down furniture and garage sales of my beloved items were worth it.

as much as i would love to paint murals on the walls and buy hand crafted furniture, it is more important to build a future. to compromise between these goals, we are turning the sheets, which are too shallow for our new luxurious bed, into curtains.

i spend far to much time stumbling about the internet, and have been collecting really cool pics i find online. i am going to print them out and put them in frames from the goodwill to decorate the walls and inspire me to paint more. kim also has a collection of maps that could use framing and hanging. maybe that will help, too.

i realized that to achieve this goal i must figure out who we are as a family. we are one man, one woman, 3 little ladies (5, 2, 9m), 2 cats and one little dog. beyond that we are loving, loud, creative and simple. the children play mostly with their imaginations, blankets, pillows, crayons and paper. all of the clutter and unused toys do not reflect us properly, so these must go! before any real decoration (curtains, rugs, etc…) begins, we must get to who we really are. let the games begin as soon as bear bear goes to preschool monday and i only have fat baby at home a few days a week. i cannot wait!

as we think we will (esp with three little ones underfoot) but we did manage to declutter and rearrange/straighten the first floor and do a general cleaning. seems so open, light and airy. i guess that’s what spring cleaning is all about. now i need to tackle the upstairs (little ladies’ rooms). we are going away this weekend for a lovely relaxing family holiday and i can think of no better way to end it than to come home to a clean and tidy home. at least the man is on board with the plan!

getting rid of all the junk/unused things and preparing for a good deep cleaning. even my 5 yo is in on the action! my back will be sore but it will be worth it (i hope).

this goal is going to never be done as our home tends to morph and change as we do, but there are some basic things that need to be done. spring cleaning is at the top of the list. this includes a good decluttering. i am so proficient at this that my husband worries about the cats when i get in a “we don’t need this, toss it” mood. next we need curtains, shades and rugs around here (we moved in not long ago). i am going to make the curtains and at least one braided rag rug has been started. we also need to frame photos, paintings, etc… and get them on the walls already. i do want to change the kitchen color first tho. the window panes need scraping b/c whoever painted them was clearly blind, lazy or both and the baseboards (cupboards too) need a good scrubbing. oh lordy, this is becoming overwhelming. i think i’ll go take a nap.

where the ef is my stuff?