A New View

We have been purging and freshening up our space the past few days. It seems like we can be inundated with stuff. When it starts to feel a bit overwhelming, I know we need to get rid of a few things. We have found for our family, less is truly more. It is also nice to change our furniture a bit. A new view can help our family perspective.

The hall closets were first, and I found a few things to donate. Those were fairly easy. Next came the kiddos' rooms. Their rooms are reasonably tidy. They do occasionally erupt, but typically it is easily remedied as everything has a spot. Lately Aine's room has not worked. It lacked a true space for her to play when she needed time by herself. We did a bit of brainstorming and talking about how she wanted her room. Then the two of us decided to rearrange her furniture. We dismantled her bed canopy and moved her bed to the wall. Just this subtle change opened up the room for her. We removed any unwanted toys and all the outgrown clothing. We then created a reading area as well as a new spot for her dolls. We moved her current wall hangings to accommodate the changes. This week we plan on creating some new pieces of art to hang on her bare walls.

Eamon and Benton's room was a bit easier. With the bunk bed and twin dressers, there are not a lot of options. Eamon said he preferred the current layout of his room. We did decide to tackle his dresser. He has been putting his clothes away for a few weeks. Usually this entails opening a drawer and dumping all clothing into said drawer. If this option is not available, he will dump his clothes onto the floor in a heap. We talked about a better solution. He figured out how he wanted his dresser organized, and we did it. While organizing the drawers, we removed all the old clothes. He is quite pleased. Benton also gave input on his drawers.

The only other challenge in the boys' room is figuring out a better LEGO storage solution. Eamon has a large bin under his bed, but he likes to keep a few on the dressers and bookshelf. These are the LEGOS he is currently using or waiting to use. Any ideas on a better way to store them as all the clutter on the dressers drives me a little crazy?

All this purging, organizing and rearranging spurred a lot of interesting discussions. I think Aine was a bit shocked when I told her that I never once wanted to be a maid when I was younger. She laughed when I told her I thought I would always have a maid not be one in my own home. We discussed how a family works together to keep order. She agreed that a clean house is a nice place to live. Eamon and I talked about the cost of cleaning. He did not like the idea of paying me to clean his room. He decided cleaning it with me was far preferable.

Next up this week our room and the main living areas. Perhaps Dave will come home and think he has stumbled into the wrong house. Or perhaps we will be better able to read, think and create in our freshened space.