It kind of feels like the whole house has been turned upside down.  In some places (cough, cough, laundry room) it looks like it, too.

Here’s the one room that isn’t a mess.

But only because Zannie came and helped yesterday.

I took pictures, printed them, and taped them to the back of her door, so when she goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning, she knows what her space should look like.  1 full day, and still immaculate!  Will miracles never cease.

Yes, she sits on a 5gallon bucket.

So, aside from that room, what do we have going on?  Let’s start with the small stuff.  Sorry for the lack of pictures.  I’m just too lazy to go take some, upload and then download.

The hall closet

near the bathroom is finally getting gutted.  It started with the games about a month ago (did I ever write that up?  I still can’t believe we had that many games)… and John made significant headway with the manly tools in there — but we ran out of time and so it got frozen in the “gets worse before it gets better” stage.  Love it.

I’ve also been streamlining, organizing, and vacuum-packing the

boys’ clothes.

You know, I actually can’t remember the last time I had everything out that should be out and everything stored that should be stored.  This has been a long time in coming, was a huge endeavor, and is almost done.  Almost, but not quite.  I’ve discovered that the best place for the clothes that don’t actually fit someone at the moment is… yep, that hall closet.  So all these bins wait for their new home, and my laundry room is a disaster because of it.

The used-to-be-play room,

“soon” to be sitting room is still waiting to be redone.  The rest of the house has adjusted, and aside from people smacking the backs of their heads on the bar when they sit down on the couch underneath it, life goes on… Ask me later how I like having couches in my kitchen.  Two parts great, one part crazy.

For the flooring question, so far we have strong votes in favor of:

- refinishing, staining dark.
- sanding & painting white.
- refinishing just the edges and laying carpet in the middle.  (Then you don’t need a rug to make your hard wood floor comfortable!  haha!)
- laminate, which we have officially vetoed.  Sorry, Kai.  Laminate, though much faster & easier, will look too perfect in this character-filled home.

Upstairs…

We moved our room to the spare room & the Doodle and the baby into what used to be our room.  This setup is much better.  I think eventually, though, we’ll move Eagle in there, too, and have all three boys together.  Or maybe stick the baby back in the room that D & E used to share.

Things haven’t quite finished moving around up there, though.  Our clothes (John’s and mine), for one, are in both rooms, and it’s driving me nuts that my kids won’t help.  That deserves it’s own post, though, and this one has gone on long enough.

Suffice it to say,

everything is topsy-turvy and I’m totally wondering now why I didn’t behave like a sensible homemaker and do one thing at a time.

Oops.

Live and learn.

The good news is, when it’s all done it’s going to be fabulous.  Really.  I’ve got a feeling it’s going to feel like it all lands into place at the same time, and when that last 5% gets picked up & cleaned up…. mm… John won’t know what hit ‘im.