I mentioned that last week that we were painting our living room a new color. It was time for a change and some of you have asked about it. It is a neutral color of beige with white trim and is the same color as our bedroom which we painted a year and a half ago. The colors go very nicely with the natural wood of the house and with the couches, which are the only color and pattern in the room at this point. I like it very much.
A fresh coat of paint and recently refinished floors makes the room very nice to be in. The only thing left is to organize the entertainment center which I must have conveniently left out. It is located across the room from the couch. New windows arrive in February for the living room and my bedroom. These are the last five windows to arrive and will give the house a complete set finally. I am learning patience.
“Our little house is sweet and small but in our hearts there’s room for all”
Many people wonder how we live in such a small house. It is 1200 square feet (just 5 rooms) in a 1 1/2 story Williamsburg Cape. The square footage is probably less because of all of the “cut-outs” in the rooms upstairs so I believe it is even smaller than that. I made this cross stitch for my sister-in-law, Stacey, a few years back (2001???) when she and my brother were in a tiny apartment in Concord, New Hampshire going to law school with two kids. I loved this sampler so much I made one for myself in 2007-08 and had it framed last year in 2009 for my birthday present. It has become my motto or kind of my philosophy, I guess. I grew up knowing that “there was always room for one more” and “the more, the merrier”. This sampler seems fitting. Because of the housing crisis, we have been “stuck” in this house much longer than planned but I don’t believe that a house should define a family. While we never dreamed we’d have 5 kids living in this house, we did plan on having the family we have. We moved here in 1996 just as we were expecting our first child and celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary here. We thought this was a good “starter home” for us and we planned to stay 6 or 7 years. We are now going on 14 years here and have had to come up with some creative space saving ideas on occasion. And I will add that I think it is a much nicer home than it was when we bought it. Also, never underestimate the importance of vertical space!
Some of you have never been to my house. Some of you have not been here for a very long time. So I thought I would give you a tour and you can see how things have changed if it’s been a while since you were on Cincinnati’s West side.
This is the Master Bedroom on the opposite side of the house from the living room on the first floor. It is a fairly large room and does not receive morning sun, not that it matters much since I have several human alarm clocks in the house nowadays. There is living space beyond the bed. The mirror with dresser is strategically placed to reflect the window light which makes the room appear larger than it really is. During the day the room seems to have 3 windows. Also, it “hides” the imperfect wall which Rick put up when we moved in. This used to be a dining room and we took the walk through to the front door out which gave us a place to hang coat hooks by the front door since we have no front hall closet. Originally this was the only bedroom in the house where the entire family slept before they had money to finish the upstairs. In 1942 the upstairs was finished off and they moved to two separate bedrooms upstairs. In that time, the price of houses in the neighborhood doubled, selling for $4,000.00 instead of $2,000.00 just 2 years earlier.
This is my sunny eat-in kitchen, particularly with it’s new vinyl windows which are so easy to clean. For us to fit around the table, we pull the table away from the wall. A bench hides under the table giving more seating and we open the butterfly leaf as we turn the table sideways to have room to sit in the prep. area. This also serves as a “homework hotspot”. Under the bench we store large decorative containers of pet food. You may find 25 pound barrels of flour there as well so I don’t have to go down to the basement as often to refill for baking bread, but for the moment I am making do with the smaller container I keep over by my preserves on the built in shelves. To sit the whole family down, we do have to file in and if you have to leave (common for small potty training children), let’s just say that “table diving” is a sport around here. Our cats eat over in this area on the other side of the cupboards instead of by the back door, now that Samantha is no longer with us. They eat at opposite times from us for obvious reasons.
The archways and built-ins are what sold me on this house. While I LOVE my flat top oven/range, notice the lack of dishwasher and just a single sink. As a teenager I swore that I would have a pre-marital agreement that there would always be a dishwasher in the house or the deal was off. I should have stuck to my guns on that one but “love” won out instead! This cabinetry was custom built for this house back in 1940 and is one piece! It doesn’t come out in sections and in fact, when we put in the stainless steel sink, we could not get a double sink to fit, big or small, so we use a rubbermaid bin to rinse dishes up on the countertop. So unless we are putting in a whole new kitchen, this is it! I prepare 147 plates of food in this kitchen each week or 588 meals per month (minus a couple trips to McDonalds). That equals a lot of dishes, my friend! Our refrigerator used to sit on the other side of the oven but we could not all get around the table anymore so we put it over by the back door and it works except when the sewer auger needs to go downstairs or the appliances in the basement need to go in or out. Then the fridge gets parked back in the archway and you have to squeeze through to get to the bathroom…not good during pregnancy.
This is a sample of my artwork around all of the arches and windows in my kitchen. It is a mix of sponge, toll and freehand painting. There are four arches/windows in my kitchen painted this way and it took me about 30 minutes to do one day when the children were napping. Therapeutic!Lilacs and Roses are my favorites though I do like about any flower. The walls are not freshly painted here but are freshly washed. One project seems to bring on another.
This is my one and only bathroom and I am at one side of it taking the picture of the other side. It is small! Yet frequently there are 4 or more people in here at once. We treat the shower like a separate room if you are in it. The mirror also has detailed painting as do the lamps on either side of the mirror which you can’t see too well here. We have more toothbrushes than the holder can hold now so I found a smiley face toothbrush that stands up with suction cup feet for the seventh brush. It works! We went “green” 6 years ago at Haley’s request by re-using yogurt cups instead of using Dixie cups for water. We use about 15 per day which I figure add to a savings of nearly 32,760 paper cups over the years. How many trees is that?
This cabinet is also a paint job I did. It somewhat mirrors my Mom’s china cabinet I did for her but hers is pink.
Towels!!! We have a double towel rack hanging WAY UP THERE that holds four towels and they do dry as long as the heat or central air are on. Two more towels hang on the bathroom door and one towel hangs in the shower. I should add that the door doesn’t open all of the way because of this. 
There is an arch in the bathroom as well and the painting was done with a sponge meant to mirror the blue and white tile in the lower half of the room. I painted this quite a while ago now. It is a good bathroom paint…important for a bath with no fan or vent. At the time I re-did our bathroom I had a $30 spending limit! I found a cheap set of single sheets at Wal-Mart that I wouldn’t want to sleep on necessarily but were the right colors. The shower curtain is part of the flat sheet with button holes sewn at the top, hemmed at the bottom. The valence is the rest of the flat sheet sewn into a balloon. The shade is a remnant of blue and white checked curtains from my Mom’s sitting room which I made for her and the ties are made out of sheet scraps. There was not enough money to replace the broken blind and to be honest, I hate cleaning blinds…lots easier to throw this one in the washing machine. The lower curtain is made from a pillow case cut in half and hemmed. The sheets were purchased with money left over after the paint was bought. I’m thankful that the project turned out well enough for me to be happy with it all these years. And I’m grateful that money is no longer THAT tight.
I have startled more than one person sitting in our living room as they think I am “coming out of the closet” so to speak. These stairs sit behind a door just opposite of our front door in a 4x4 hallway so naturally people expect a closet. We ripped out the last bit of carpet in our house last summer after “the exterminator event” just to be safe. We’d been talking about it for a long time anyway but hesitated because the stairs would be so much noisier. The staircase could really use refinishing but certainly looks better without the ugly carpeting. You can see that a runner used to be in place at one time. We may refinish the stairs and the boys room this summer. We’ll have to see. It is not a project for the school year and displaces bedrooms for 5 people for the better part of a week while it MUST be just the right weather. At the top of the stairs is a small door in which you may duck to get into the attic along the back side of the house. I LOVE my hardwood and pine floors. I LOVE my glass doorknobs!
This is Kaitlyn’s bed; a trundle so there is actually room to sleep 6 upstairs! For now there is no mattress in it and is used for storing sheets and blankets. Kaitlyn has her own chandelier she can turn on and off from bed.
These bunk beds fit under the slant of the roof. Lindsay has to be careful not to sit up strait in half of her bed. It does lend for listening to the pitter patter of rain on the roof top. Haley sleeps on the bottom bunk since her head injury 5 1/2 years ago. All three girls share this pink bedroom. Haley and Lindsay share the dresser, also painted by me, which sits behind the door to their room. It is the dresser I had growing up which I inherited from my Mom and it is now officially considered an antique (over 50 years).
Tristan and Kaitlyn share a dresser, under the side window. Sorry the picture is a bit dark in spite of the sunny day. Each has one side to themselves. The blue room does not have room for the dresser AND a crib. So Tristan tries to get his clothes out of the room ahead of time so he doesn’t have to disturb the girls. Hey! It builds character.
This is a look across the hallway from the girls room into the boys room. Although there is no door I love the shape of the entry which fits under the roof line and next to the chimney. The crib used to be placed where Tristan’s bed is so the hall light wouldn’t disturb baby but not a lot bothers Nathan sleeping anyway.
This is where Tristan sleeps, across the room from Nathan. There is enough room between the foot of his bed and the side of the crib to fit a small bookcase and a rocking chair in front of that. The dormer houses a child’s table and chairs as well as some of Tristan’s toys.
The changing table and small bookshelf papered to match the room fit between the closet and the chimney. Baskets hold Nathan’s belongings and cut down on the “cluttered” look. There is a lot in a small space.
Three kids share this closet and…………….Three kids share this closet
under the eaves. How many kids do I have??? Technically there are 2 1/2 kids to each closet. There are 3 closets in my entire house. We make this work with each child having a section to hang and each child having a bin for personal toys and a set of 3 drawers for desk items, shoes, bags and “treasures”. It looks worse than it really is in these pictures. Rick re-did the interior of these closets to make them workable for 5 children. I am NOT going to show you a picture of my closet, however.
This is my deck, right off the kitchen and doubles our “living” space in the nice weather with a nice cushioned patio set. The kids LOVE their swing set. A large swing for grown ups is on the other side of the yard in nice weather. Most trees are gone now since the hurricane swept through in Sept. ‘08 but we still have our Oak for shade in the back yard.
This serves as my pantry/food storage down in the basement. My father-in-law helped us build these shelves in 1998 and we think they are great. It is especially good as they keep things up in a wet basement and as the kitchen cupboard space is insufficient for a family this size. Running down to the basement while cooking is daily practice and good exercise I suppose.
Down in the basement across from the food storage shelves and chest freezer are another set of shelving which house pots and pans and appliances that are not used on a daily basis as well as kids toys and games. They are all organized and labeled according to theme and rotate in and out of service on various months. Each type of learning method and basic content is represented each month through a variety of activities and manipulatives. This is where and how they are stored. I should buy stock in Rubbermaid and Sterilite.
Most women in the world do not have a washer or dryer. While I do not know any of these women I think about them and am grateful for these machines. I own the canyon capacity washer and dryer HE which can take care of a tremendous amount of laundry at once and have really cut down my water bill to lower than when we were just a family of 5 and using a regular washer. I probably do about 10 loads a week but Sunday is my day off.
When we repainted the basement I thought it would be fun to paint hand prints over the utility tub next to the washer. I have to have a little fun with our last name every now and again. I think a few hands are missing here.
I love my glass block windows in the basement. They let in so much light but give total privacy and lots of security. This window sits at the far back on the side of my house and someone did try to break in two years ago. The glass did crack from the heavy blows it received in three spots but it would take someone all day to actually get in through this route. That is what the officer told me, anyway. We now keep computer screens off at night down there since light is something that does show through the glass.
Now you have had a tour of my whole house, and it was clean!!! (for the most part) There are no guarantees on that if you decide to drop by, however. And if you are struggling with space issues in your own home, maybe you can use some of my ideas. Space is a science…remember that! And know that it can be conquered.
