Back in October, I ran out of patience with this.
It was the ever growing ever changing mound of shoes that had developed a life of its own inside my back door. With two messy adults and a slew of foster kids who come and go, the pile had existed by the back door and grown steadily for the last 6 years. The back door is the primary entrance to the house, so every guest and every case worker who came in was greeted by its sordid dimensions and sometimes, when Kiddo is here, a faint funk wafting off it.
One afternoon I got so sick of looking at it I decided to do something about it. And got this off Amazon:
Something about that experience started percolating in my subconscious mind, and a few months later I was ready to extend the home improvement project… to the whole room. Much to my husband’s dismay.
We have a living room in our house but adults never sit in it voluntarily, unless they’ve been dragged in by a kid and forced to watch something animated on the TV. It’s affectionately been dubbed “The Play Room” and looks something like this:
There’s a trampoline in the middle of the room, and an ancient futon for a couch. There’s a play kitchen and a storage rack and bins stuffed full of toys. The artwork in there is lovely, but overall it’s been claimed by the small humans who share our home with us. Entering it endangers the soles of your feet (tiny plastic dinosaurs and legos and suction cup arrows and wooden blocks often litter the floor). And sitting on the futon or chair means getting dragged into a game of “eat what I make you in the kitchen” or “Mommy, watch how high I jump on the trampoline!”
I used to sit in the back room, where we had an oversized rocker recliner that I had claimed as my own. But the whole room was just a space for collecting crap: recycling waiting to go outside, boxes waiting to be broken down, mail, shopping bags, coats, toys. It was insane.
Most of the room was taken up by a mammoth roll top desk that had been gifted to me years ago. It was a gorgeous piece, but was too big for our little Victorian era rooms. Whatever room it was in was dominated by it. And worse, no one ever sat at it and used it. It was just a collecting spot for old mail and random odds and ends. You could never see the top of it. It was perpetually ridiculously messy.
I loved the thing because it really was gorgeous, but decided to part with it for the sake of the room as a whole. So I posted it on Facebook Marketplace where it sold in a heartbeat. I should have asked for more for it!
So then I started surfing furniture store sales and Amazon and Jo Ann Fabrics and a few other random stores. I found new curtains, new loveseat and chair, and a new shelving unit to hold the few items we needed to keep from the desk. We got my Mom’s old coffee table out of the attic (we’d put it away to protect it from kids 6 years ago). And I went to town sorting, organizing, trashing, and donating. I listed a bunch of stuff on our local “Buy Nothing” site, and donated an entire car load of stuff we don’t need, don’t use, and don’t want.
Seth assembled the new shelving unit and tinkered with it to install lighting in the display cabinet portion of it. Now I have my favorite items in a dust free lit space so they can be seen, and yet keep small fingers off them.
Our gorgeous antique rug is now the showpiece of the room. I’m so happy to be able to appreciate it now.
The result? We have a WHOLE ADULT SITTING ROOM IN OUR HOUSE. Woohoo! It’s so nice to have room for company as I sit in the room, and so nice to have less junk in it. It’s not just an entryway we pass through and dump stuff in, it’s a room now!
Up next? Oh lordie. I’m starting multiple hares at once.
I’ve accumulated cabinet paint for the kitchen, and new drawer pulls, so that’s on the agenda.
I’ve ordered a new couch for the play room – one with style and pizazz and a little playfulness. The futon is roughly 20 years old and long past its prime. Plus it seems like 40-somethings shouldn’t still be sitting on futons for couches. Ha! It should be pretty durable too. But it’s on back order and won’t be here for several months. That couch is the single pricey item I’ve bought. I recently recovered the cushion on the aging cedar chest we have in there that holds our games collection. And I recovered the window seat cushion. Both of the recoverings were done with remnants from Jo Ann Fabrics to save some cash. I ordered blinds for the windows, too. I wanted Roman shades but holy they’re expensive! So I went with much more affordable cellular shades.
The bedroom, though, is really next on my agenda. Why might one ask? Because it needs to be an oasis away from the chaos of kids. We love our children to pieces, but being parents is stressful, let alone being foster parents. So our bedroom will have a chill grownup vibe I can’t wait to give life to. I gave myself a tight $350 budget for the entire bedroom remodel and I think I can do it. So watch for a future post on that room!
sprinklesonachaoscupcake.com 