It's Getting There

It was our hope to sell our house, move, and be in a new home before Maddie arrived. Though we've had slow but continual traffic through the house, we have not had any offers, so we made the decision to take the house off the market for now and make it work for us, a soon to be family of four.

We love this house, so we aren't disappointed to have to stay. It's just that we weren't thinking "family" when we moved in seven years ago. The main issue with the house is that we have two bedrooms upstairs (on the main level) and two bedrooms downstairs. It would be our wish to be in a traditional two story with all bedrooms on the same floor, but that's not what we've got, so we have to make a go of it here.

Currently, we have a very large master suite and dressing room (which was originally two full bedrooms) and Isabel's smaller bedroom on the main floor. Downstairs, one bedroom has been converted into our office, and we've been using the other as our tv/amusement room. Since we did not want to remove all the built-ins from the office, that left the large tv room to be converted into a child's bedroom. It's a huge room (17.5' x 17.5') and has an attached bath, so it will actually work quite nicely especially when we are able to house both girls in there (which is our goal once Maddie gets settled in and Isabel graduates from her crib).

So last week, we cleared out the whole room and had it and the adjoining bath painted pink. This weekend, we began loading in the kid stuff. It's close to being complete except for an egress window which will be installed the week after next. We are also waiting for a second twin bed to be delivered. That will be arriving the week of April 7. Oh, and I have to have a chair reupholstered in a different fabric to fit the new decor. Isabel's bedding is the same style as Maddie's except it's in green. The egress window, currently just a small window, will be above the bedstand in between the two beds. It will bring in lots more light and provide an emergency way out if ever (God forbid) necessary.

At first I was shocked by the pink, but after we started getting some furniture in the room, it really began to grow on me. I don't have everything up on the walls yet either, except for one big picture, so the wall art will break things up a bit, too. The only real glitch in the room is that it contains a stone fireplace. That is not an ideal feature for a little kids' room, but it will be nice once they're older. For now, we'll turn off the gas and probably pad the edges of the hearth so no one bonks their head.

Here is a sneak peek at Maddie's new and Isabel's eventual digs: