More Pics of our Current Habitat

First of all, I want to make sure that you pay particular attention to the details of these photos.  I worked very hard to make the space looked "lived in" like they do in furtniture stores with snacks, drinks, and sometimes even spilled/messy items.  I borrowed ideas from these professionals before I began this photo shoot.  (Note: This could also be translated to mean, I did not take time to clean any of the rooms before I took the pictures, so please don't look too closely.)

Living Room

Office/Craft Room

Dining Room

(There is also a kitchen and family room on the main level of the house but I seem to have gotten sidetracked before I took those pictures.  They will have to wait for another day.)

The stairs that have given the children what they always dreamed of ... a "story house". 

Ironically, we have only had one house without stairs (the one we just left in Oklahoma).  In this boring photo, you might note the empty nook.  We don't have any Mary statues (or statues of any other saints for that matter) which I am sure that this nook was intended to hold.  Instead, you will sometimes find a stuffed animal sitting in or even one of my kids.

Boys' room (View from the Door)

 

 

Boys' room (Inside View; Robbie's bed)

Girls' Room (Inside View; Alexa's bed)

Girls' Room (View from the Door)

Play Room

For anyone who hadn't been to our Oklahoma house, this is quite a big change in space.  Our home there was about ten years old, very open floor plan with high ceilings.  The kids shared two rooms; one with two sets of bunk beds where they all slept and one room with all the toys where they played.

The house here was built in 1941 (I think); it has about 200 more sq ft, but each area is its own separate room with standard ceilings.  The kids have enjoyed having separate rooms, it seems.  The boys' room is significantly larger than the girls, so they have most of the "boy" toys in with them.  The girls' room really just holds their furniture, so the current play room has mostly "girl" toys. I don't really like the separation of toys because they all play with pretty much everything and I want them to continue to do that without feeling like they are playing with a "boy" or "girl" toy or having to bother someone in their room to get what they want.  Both girls have expressed an interest in having their own room, so I guess we will have some discussions soon on whether to scrap the playroom idea and split them and the toys into separate rooms.

More on that and the yet-to-be-photographed rooms another day!

Something exciting to note in these pictures of the kids' rooms (exciting for me, at least) is that you can see four, yes FOUR, dressers/chest of drawers!  Until this time last week, all the kids shared two dressers; and just a year prior to now, we only had one dresser that they shared.  Don't ask me why, it's just the way it turned out.  But, now they each get their own dresser, and it is such a happy time!

The master bedroom and only full bath are also upstairs.  The kids' library (which consists of two bookshelves) is in the hallway upstairs which seems to be working out okay as it makes it convenient for selecting and returning books for bedtime.