Our Home is a Work in Progress

Fast-forward to now: We still love our home and feel completely blessed to be here – truly, it is the perfect home for our family at this point, and as a bonus we love our neighborhood and the local school system. At the same time, we are already starting to feel like we are outgrowing this space! There are several factors at play here: We have a growing boy who likes to have his also-growing-boy friends over to play, but we can never seem to find the right space for them to be while they’re over here. We have a feisty toddler who has just decided that she will no longer be confined to her crib, so we are working on some new sleeping arrangements 🙂 We have a new baby on the way that will eventually need a place to sleep, but we’re still working out the logistics of room-sharing and saving our guest room/office vs. separate bedrooms and losing that extra room. Also, we are realizing that we need to purchase some new furniture to make our home more functional, but we have been going back and forth for months on what to get and where to put it.

The questions are less about square footage and more about layout: Could we pull off putting our desk and computer in the playroom, which is already starting to feel full? Should we purchase some new furniture that will provide more functional storage for the children’s toys, and if so, how should we arrange it? If the new baby is a girl, would we put her in the same room as our big boy? If so, for how long would that arrangement work? (Our toddler daughter would not be a suitable candidate for sharing a room at this point 🙂 )

I imagine that every family goes through similar growing pains, and that these will be issues that our family will deal with on an ongoing basis as our family continues to grow. The funny thing is that my husband and I are both such analytical thinkers that we are trying to plan out every last detail before we act, which leaves us with lots of planning but not much decisive action! We are also trying to spend our money wisely, which involves a lot of talking, thinking, searching, and waiting 🙂 At some point, we’ll probably need to just move things around, try them out for a little while, and rearrange if necessary.

How have you and your spouse made decisions about your home? Do you have any great advice to share with all of us? Any helpful books or websites? Have you made any mistakes that you’ve learned from and would like to share with us?

A blessed Feast of the Epiphany to all of you and your families! It’s hard to believe that we’re already a few days into January of 2010!