Part 2: "Operation House: Overhaul"

As some of you may know, our house is small. I've seen apartments bigger than our house. We have one bedroom, a room just big enough for washer and dryer, and a storage room that technically can't be called a bedroom but we put Hailey back there anyway because that is the only space to put her. To give you a better idea of the smallness of our home, we have one inside door. And that is the bathroom.

Over the years, we have definitely filled our space. We had a baby, and with baby comes junk. We've been married here for 4 years, and with that time, comes junk. And sometimes it's not even junk - sometimes it's stuff you actually do need.

Many, many times, we have come upon opportunities to move. Once was to another home outside our ward, but we felt it was not time to leave our ward yet. We still don't think it is time to leave our ward yet. So we looked at another home for rent in our ward.

And I LOVED it and I so so badly wanted to move into it. It was just around the corner from our house, it was in the ward, it had THREE actual, real, legit, not-closet-sized bedrooms! Rooms that fit beds! And other stuff! There was space, and lots of it, and it was TOTALLY, easily within our price range.

So why didn't we take it?

I think this time, the Lord gave us a choice. He didn't say we had to do one way or the other. This time, it was up to us if we wanted to move or not.

So after weighing the options, even though we could afford the house, we wouldn't be able to start paying off our debts. Was it worth the extra space, or could we make do for just one more year where we are to save the money and get out of debt??

We made our decision. We decided not to move. We decided it was worth more to us to save our money, and pay the debts. And I told Scott that if we stayed, he'd have to majorly help me overhaul our house to make it work for 2 kids. So we're staying, and we are commencing "Operation House: Overhaul" to be completed before the baby comes in June/July!

The first step was to buy shelves and set them up in the laundry room. We will move our food storage off the built in shelves in the storage room and onto the plastic shelves, creating a TON of space to move things off the floor and onto the shelves. This will then allow us to set up a toddler bed in the storage room, with the crib. Oh, it's been done before. Trust me. The people here before us, when we looked through the house, they had it like that. So yes, it is possible.

I also plan to completely de-junk the storage room and get rid of everything we don't absolutely need at the house. Thank goodness for helpful parents who have offered up their storage rooms for things we don't need to store here.

Once the storage room is done, I will start in the kitchen and work my way through the house. I will empty out and re-organize each cupboard and cabinet, making sure the things inside are only what we need and get rid of or pack up what we don't ever use. After 4 years of living here, I can tell you there are quite a few things I haven't ever touched that I unpacked after the honeymoon.

I'm debating on moving furniture around, only to give the place a feeling of change, but that isn't a necessity. My goal is to basically go about as if we were moving, but re-moving into our home again. We are going to make our home brand new and start over. We can make the space work. I know we can, and I know others have, too.

My poor landlady, I don't think she expected us to stay this long, especially into 2 kids!

But we feel good about our decision, and while sometimes I'll pass that other house and dream of days when we could have had a bigger space, I know we can make do with what we have here. I love this stage in our lives. And hopefully, so soon, Scott will get his commercial license this summer, and we will be on our way looking for jobs.

And of course, things never go according to plan, but we feel good that we at least have a plan, and we feel the Lord approves, and that's good, and we just kind of go from there!

Also, here is a picture of Phase 1: The Gateway. This shelf alone represents so much more that we can do now in our storage room.

Happy Sunday!