Well, we did it. I have made my life as a stay-at-home mom much more manageable. Plus, I think that Meredith would agree she likes it as well. We have given her a playroom! This means we had to give up our nice guestroom in order to make this happen. We have debated for a while how to best use the space we have in the house. Our basement is unfinished, but still a nice basement and is not cold or damp by any means. It just doesn't have carpet or drywall, etc. We have considered finishing our basement (or putting a playroom down there) and while that is still up in the air (since we don't know how long we may be living here), we decided to move the guest bed downstairs and fix it up a bit so guests can stay down there. I'm sure it's not the most convenient option for them, but for the other 350+ days a year we don't have guests, it works amazing for me. It means, I now have a room on the main level (just off our living room and kitchen) that our kids can play in. I now have my living room back!!!! No more clutter (except in the playroom, that is)!! :) Plus, since I have a phobia of cooking with Meredith underfoot and her getting burned in the process, I can now have her go to her playroom with the baby gate up and cook in solitude. Yay!!
I'm so mad at myself for not getting any before pictures of the guest room, but it had a queen bed, two nightstands, two lamps, a table, and our computer desk in it. We are so grateful to our friends Nate and Theresa for coming over to help us move furniture. I have a nice excuse now that I'm 8 months pregnant to not lift :) The couch was a hassle to carry up from the basement, but it's nothing some spackling, paint, and a new door frame won't fix :/ Here are the after pictures:
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| Now Mommy and Baby will have a place to sit while Meredith plays with her toys. |
Now, if I can only figure out how on Earth we got so many toys in the short 20 months Meredith has been with us. Oh yeah, two Christmases, a birthday party, donations from family members, and ah....the fact that she is the only grandchild on both sides :)
