Ending Radio Silence - Part 3

Let's make some room!

The girls room had these completely worthless things called "toys," so we got rid of those.

We eventually took Carolyn's bed out as well.

Seth's room (which is now Seth and Carolyn's room) didn't lose as much, but we put the bunk bed in the far corner and greatly reduced the clutter.


Our bedroom went through a massive de-cluttering effort. We removed Beth's craft table, my exercise bike, and our guitars.


We removed the food storage shelves from under the shelf in the kitchen, which was a simple but great improvement in appearance.


Rearranging the living room accentuated the "open floor plan". It doesn't fit our personality at all, but it looks fine for now.


All that just so we could put one small sign in the front yard.

Ending Radio Silence - Part 2

Home projects are a family affair around here. And we're... unconventional... OK, so I guess I'M the one who's unconventional with many of my management practices.

In this episode, wanted to get a good idea of what we needed to do to prep the house, so I grabbed a piece of chalk and the nearest piece of wall and started writing. The kids helped.

Chalk comes off most paints with just a sponge and a bit of water. Use the idea at your own risk.


I'm pretty tall, so all I typically need for painting is a small stool.



Beth's youngest brother David saw room for improvement on my idea, so he set up the scaffold. Lots of room for movement- much more efficient than my idea.



Beth's next-oldest brother Will could NOT be outdone by his little brother, so he showed us all how it was to be done!


And here's the finished product. This is the same corner in which I was standing on the stool.


P.S. Want a white board but don't want to spend the money to get a big enough one to use? Use dry erase markers on a window or a mirror. Done one the cheap. Yeah!

The Den Du Jour

My buddy Frank was telling me the other day about a newly-learned husband skill: Compromise.
He said, "Here's how it works. I want something one way and she wants it another way. We compromise and do it her way." I believe we can all read between the lines of that one, but just to be sure I asked him, "So, when you 'compromise' you really just end up doing what she wants? You're the one that's 'compromised'?" "Exactly," agreed Frank. Good man!

This rearrangement was a compromise, but not like the one described above. The piano isn't as convenient to access as the other way, but the Reading Station survived. And since I didn't want as much focus on the TV, my comfy chair got placed completely out of its view.

The Family Room

This den arrangement is already outdated, but I have a bit of a different perspective and thought I'd lay it out for my audience.

The Reading Station
You can tell that the babies have become interested in reading, because we dedicated an entire section of the den to that very activity. Space is limited but there's always room for a good book.



The Social Club
With the couch and the comfy arm chair facing each other, and the piano to the left, Family Home Evenings were wonderful. We could all interact nicely and the piano was (for once) convenient. And one of my favorite things was that the role of the TV was minimized, downplayed even.


Unfortunately, this arrangement didn't last long. Look for another post with the latest setup soon.

Hey, Rob - I rearranged while you were at work, so you have time to fix the toilet and sink when you get home!

I think there must be some kind of group for people who constantly rearrange their houses...if there were, I'd be in it. "Rearrangers Annonymous"

We're backtracking on the toddler beds - they do great getting into them at night (not so much for naptime), but they don't understand that they do not HAVE to get up at 6 am! So, until they learn that, we'll use a crib and a playpen - we got rid of that other crib - not enough room for that much stuff!

The original with cribs:

(Toddler beds replaced the cribs, with the one by the door way perpendicular to how the crib is now.)

How I changed it to squish in a bed, a crib, a playpen, and one toddler bed (for transitioning one twin at a time)! Seth and Carolyn transitioned at this age, and were super easy! (but then again, everything for them was super easy compared to twins...)
(The playpen's only temporary and the remaining crib will be replaced by a bed later...)

On to the den next (yes, in the same day - when I'm on a roll, I can't stop!)

I told the missionaries we rearrange about every three months. (They had been here about that long, and corrected me.) "You've changed it three times since I've been here!"  So, on August 14th I took this...

Another angle....

Then on September 26th I took this: (OBVIOUSLY, you can see why this did not work out - we constantly had to move the couch so we could see the tv, then put it back...)

And this is today's arrangement (October 6th). 

Two notes:

1. I say "Today's" arrangement, b/c who knows if I'll change it tomorrow! and 

2. Did you notice that I DID change once a month, and the dates are getting closer!? 

(maybe I do need therapy...haha...actually, this is therapeutic for me! It has saved me the trouble of packing up and moving to a new house every time this house feels cramped. I just rearrange and it's like I've got a whole new living room...nice, huh?) You should try it. Actually, invite me over - Can I help?? :)

I'm 'bout dead - part 1

Why am I nearing my demise, you ask? I didn't say that- what I said was "I'm 'bout dead." Around here that means I'm worn out, exhausted, dragging myself around, and usually pretty stinky to boot.

Last weekend I built a set of shelves (and a prototype), learned how to use a new tool (hence the prototype), backed up the computer (files and pictures), installed kitchen cabinet locks and generally worked on my honey-do list.
During the week we painted the shelves, rearranged our bedroom, and had various church meetings to occupy our time.
This weekend we built and painted another set of shelves, I cut the grass and weeded, we rearranged the kids' rooms, and I helped with other general yard work and honey-do list activities.

After all that mess, I'm ready to get back to work and sit on my butt for a few hours. Ha ha ha!

Another thing that amazes me is that no matter how hard I work on that blasted honey-do list, it just gets longer. If new tools help me to finish project more efficiently, Beth must have some new pen technology or something because she stays ahead of me with that list. Guys out there, does it ever end? Will I ever get ahead and be able to sit and watch a little Kung Fu or Star Wars on a Saturday afternoon? I doubt it.

I'm 'bout dead - part 2

First, let's rewind.
A while ago Beth came up with a simple design for some shelves- 4' wide by 4' tall and 16" deep with 3 shelves- about as vanilla as shelves can get. If you want a copy of the plans, just ask- prices are listed below.
Plywood is about $35 for a 1/2" thick 4'x8' sheet and we needed one sheet per set of shelves, so that's $70. 1/2" molding costs about $4 per 8' strip and we needed 48' for a total of $24. After tax, each set of shelves cost about $60. A little steep, but think about what you can get for $60 at your local *mart. It'll be made of fiberboard and laminate, or it'll be made of real wood but be tiny- either way, it'll have cheap hardware. Click here, here, and here for examples.

Armed with my nail gun, I made a mock-up of the shelves in about 3 minutes. I love air tools!


The first set took me about 6 hours- 3 to build, 3 to finish (sand, putty, paint, etc). The second set took about 4 hours.


And here they are- finished.
Seth's:


The girls':

I'm 'bout dead - part 3

Yellow room activity wall, before and after:


Yellow room bed corner, before and after:


Green room activity space, before and after


Green room bed space, before and after:

Seeing it coming a mile away

I was working on a blog post (soon to come) when I got up from the computer and came back. This is what I saw:



Now, in case you didn't notice, I'm a big guy. When I sit in that chair, the back of it just about reaches the arm of the couch.
So I stood there looking at it and then my eyes wandered to the rest of the room and I started thinking about how I could position the couch to avoid the situation pictured above.
Beth looked at me and saw the gears grinding and said "Rob, you'd better go get the camera and take a picture, because I'm sensing a 'before'." Ha!
True to the name of the blog, we have rearranged just about the entire house. Check for more posts soon. If we move the couch, you'll know it.

Update: I fixed Beth's quote. Thanks for letting me know, darling. I tend to make stuff up!

I'm 'bout dead - part 4

Rearranging and reorganizing is contagious for us around here. If one room is affected, it'll probably spread through most of the house before it's run its course. About the only room that doesn't get hit much is the kitchen- and that's only because there's not too much we can change about that room.

So when we began rearranging the kids' rooms, it wasn't too surprising that our room got hit as well. In fact, its infection only lasted a matter of hours. Beth and I made a few general plans before she went grocery shopping on Thursday night and by the time she got home I had finished. So here's the classic "before" shot (I know, it's way out of date- we didn't even have the bed frame then, but it'll have to do):


And here's the after shot:


Beth was pretty happy because I was able to vacuum every square foot of our room. I just had to do it in 2'x5' strips.

In case you're curious, here's how it went.
I pulled the dresser from the wall by the door over to the wall by the bathroom and set up the TV table in its place. I stood my exercise bike on end and leaned it against the dresser. Then I removed the mattress from the bed and leaned it against the dresser as well. Next I pulled the bed boxes out from under the bed and stacked them in the doorway. I scooted the bed forward until it was right up against the TV (by the door), leaving nearly the entire back wall empty. I vacuumed the back wall and transferred Beth's sewing table to it. That cleared up the right-hand wall by the window. I vacuumed that wall and then maneuvered the bed into place on it, which required some pretty impressive use of physics to get the mattress to balance vertically on one corner without tipping. Then I put the mattress back in the bed and vacuumed under where it had been. I replaced the bed boxes (under the bed, of course) and vacuumed where they had been. I shifted the dresser so it was flat against the back wall next to the sewing table and vacuumed where it had been. I put the exercise bike beside the dresser along the wall near the bathroom and vacuumed all remaining open floorspace. I then rewired (corded) the electronics on the TV stand so that everything was organized neatly. As Kaitlyn would say: Tada!

The Den

This is one of the longest-lasting arrangements of our den. It's ironic that I started this blog- intended to highlight our rearrangement exploits soon after we chose this one. Anyway, we liked how open the room felt. Sure, having the TV in front of the window was a little weird, but all in all it matched our room well.
So the problem we needed to solve by changing things around is that Kaitlyn and Natalie have become more mobile recently by learning to walk. Kaitlyn is quite accident-prone in this adventure- she bumped her head on the cedar chest quite hard the other night.


I came home from work the next afternoon to find the room arranged like this (the chest is against the wall to the left of the couch):

Sweet dreams for sure!

First a funny story, and then the point of the post.

A few days before we were married, Beth moved into what would become our apartment. We bought a set of Queen-sized mattresses, which came with a free frame, and set them up in the bedroom with the beautiful quilt my grandmother made for our wedding. Beth's roommate Beth Shurtleff (Novak at the time) was still staying in the apartment until the wedding on Saturday. She was so excited about the new bed that she ran across the room, vaulted into the air, and soared squealing with joy onto our bed. That little stunt was accompanied by the sound of wood cracking. That's right- before Beth and I were ever able to share that bed, Beth S. broke the framing of the foundation (box spring, but without springs). We replaced that a few years later- around the time we moved into this house.

Now the point of the post: After 6 years and 2 months of sleeping on mattresses supported by a free metal frame (we did have a headboard for a while but that's another funny story in itself), we finally bought a bed. Here's a "before" picture:

And here's an "after" picture:

Room for living

Here's the latest arrangement of our living room. We must like it, because we haven't changed it in weeks.

Things to note:

• Blanket Chest we got from an antique place across town


• Wireless network - the modem is on top of the piano but the computer is back-to-back with the kitchen

Bathroom Painting

In our constant effort to improve the house, we decided to paint the bathrooms. Thankfully, all I really had to do was show up and paint. Beth chose the colors, researched paint prices, and basically arranged everything (as usual- I've been worthless around the house lately). The shade of yellow she picked matches both the rubber ducky curtain and the curtain in our bathroom. A big round of applause to Beth!

Here's the "before" for the front bathroom (also a lovely picture of Carolyn):

Here's the "after":

Here's the "before" for the master bathroom:

Here's the "after":

First post!

One of the several purposes of this blog will to edutain the family on the constantly-changing furniture arragement of our home. You see, we'll think we have a perfect arrangement and be satisfied with it for a couple of months and then, on a whim, we'll change it. Our close friends and family aren't even surprised anymore when they arrive and see our house completely rearranged from how it was before- even if that was just last week.
That's why the name of this blog is "Where's the couch?". And truly, in a house of 4 children under the age of 6, the only thing constant here is change.