Changing Spaces

We have big plans this week. We are starting to talk about getting rid of a bunch of bulky furniture to make room for less cluttered, cleaner living. We've already started down that road by taking dressers out of the kids rooms in favour of using our hall linen closet for their clothes. The baby's room seems to be a magnet for furniture, so we're going to tackle that room next. Just to give you a sense of what's in there:

1. A double mattress
2. A dresser
3. A couch (that folds out into a bed)
4. A coffee table (which has a glass top and has huge sentimental value)
5. 2 side tables (made in Italy and also huge sentimental value)
6. Glider rocker with pop up footrest
7. 2 Cribs (was a crib and a toddler bed, but baby girl is in her toddler bed now!)
8. Closet full of boxes (clothes, papers, toys)
9. Bag upon bag of clothes, toys, etc for donation
10. Newborn/infant baby gear (carseat, bumbo chair, rocking chair, you name it, we got it)

This is the smallest room in the house. How did we manage this? Everything is just piled in there willy nilly. Not so welcoming for baby boy. We've finally decided we've hit that point that we need to just clear everything we can out. What'll be staying: one crib, the glider rocker and one of the little side tables (Mama needs water while she feeds!). The coffee table and second side table will be finding a better home somewhere else in the house, but everything else will be finding a new home at the good will (except the mattress, we'll just give that away on Kijiji).

All this baby room clearing out has inspired us to check out the state of our livingroom. After seeing how well Lent has gone without TV, we want to take the TV out of our livingroom entirely. We'll probably set it up in the baby's room (which will become a TV room for the kids once baby boy moves into the boys room) and have a DVD player with it. Don't worry, I won't be putting on movies for baby boy at night or whatever, but it would reinforce that watching a movie is something special that we have to go to a different room to watch one. I refuse to use the TV as much as I have in the past when I have a newborn. I've been sick and exhausted for most of Lent, and yet I haven't had to turn to TV more than once. I realize with a newborn I'm going to be way more put out, but I've noticed of late that my kids actually prefer a dance party to zoning out in front of the TV (are these really my kids? haha). With that in mind we'll also be disassembling our somewhat massive TV stand that my lovely husband made for me a few years ago, and in its place setting up a proper play area. they already have a little table a friend made, so all we'll need is a proper bin for their toys (which, SHOCK, we already have upstairs taking up space).

The great thing is that we won't have to buy anything new to make this happen. To have a space we're happier to live in, all we'll have to do is rearrange a few essential pieces, and clear stuff out. Thank God for our van, because we'll be able to get pretty much all the extra stuff in just a few trips. Once all the extra stuff is gone, we'll be able to take a break in the middle to lay down some new flooring to ditch the nasty, stinky, puke-green shag carpet that is inhabiting that room. Anything else that we're not %100 sure we'll need again we're going to pack into watertight boxes and store in the attic because I am TIRED of all our closets being the dumping ground of stuff we can't get rid of but don't need for every day. I'm hoping that very little will need to be packed that way. I know some papers from University will make it up there, but I plan on being ruthless with as much as possible.

Wish us luck!