Man and Wife Living Life: Functional Bungalow: Mission Accomplished

Our house was built in 1946. We made our house our own in 2007. I would be lying if I said we didn't have a love-hate relationship with home ownership. (Who doesn't in these days of the upside-down mortgage and recession?) Anyway, we have a LOT of headway to make on our home before Baby LB makes its appearance in January! This includes cleaning, decluttering, organizing, rearranging, and not to mention creating a nursery fit for a little king (or queen, depending on how nature prevails). Ay-yai-yai it gets overwhelming!
By chance, this weekend is the 2012?Woodward Dream Cruise in Metro Detroit, which is technically an all-day, but is in actuality a one-to-two-week, debacle of motors, gas guzzling, and annoying motorists and pedestrians clogging up every community I normally visit. I'm sure you can tell which camp, pro- or anti-, I belong to. (I do, however, support Ferndale's Green Cruise, which was last weekend. Go bikes, skates, feet, and other weird, non-motorized transportation!) ?Anyway, as our happy home is on the west side of Woodward Avenue, we'll be staying west this weekend. More aptly, we'll be staying HOME this weekend. ?This gives us nearly three full days to get a move on some of these projects.

Today I had the day off of work. Normally on Fridays, if I am not working, I dedicate this time to household work, running errands that have been left undone, and so forth. That's indeed what I did today. My main heartburn-inducing project, other than weeding my front garden and fully stocking and decorating a baby's room, was to turn our upstairs bungalow into a usable space that includes nothing less than a spare bedroom, craft space, storage space for massage accoutrement as well as office and craft supplies, a den, and a clean clothing storage area, as our closet is also located upstairs*. No small feat, eh? I thought, "If you don't want to do it, you might as well do it and get it over with." So I did.

Want to know what we normally look like during home improvement projects we don't want to do? Click here.
I took the storage cubes from what will be the baby's closet (formerly my massage supply storage) and moved them upstairs. I moved the rocking chair and ottoman downstairs, which was easy due to scooting and the fact that they are ultra-light. I moved the futon to the other side of the room. I dragged a light folding table upstairs, along with my grandmother's sewing stool that I refinished a couple years ago.?I brought all the stuff that I loosed from the closet and random nooks and crannies upstairs to store. I found every available "non-woven, collapsible storage cube" I could find in my house, as well as another set (albeit white instead of black) of wire storage cubes. And then I got to work...

The giant pillow was a gift from a friend for my pregnancy. It is fabulous. And no, none of the furniture matches up there. It's where all the discarded furniture goes until it dies! The dogs dig the extra space, though. (This was pre-curtain... Curtain panels will be hung properly on Saturday.)

Again, this doesn't look "sexy". It's not intended to be feng shui or anything. It's functional. There's a ton of floor space in the middle of the room. The card table is now home to my sewing machine. The sewing stool is aptly placed. All of our wire storage with massage, office, and craft supplies are to the left. I even fixed the ceiling fan lights. The only thing missing is a brown occasional chair from the "Man Cave" that is a little too heavy for me to lift on my own safely.

The only downside to the day is that I overdid the up-down-up-down, bending and going on the stairs and so forth. My back hurts, my abs hurt, my pelvic floor even hurts a little from the strenuous movement my body isn't used to any longer. (Fifteen-and-a-half weeks of all-day sickness tends to slow a gal down.) I'm pooped! But it feels great to be able to check at least 95% of this project off my Giant Pre-Baby To-Do List... and be done before Saturday.

Tomorrow we have other "good stuff" in store. We'll be trimming trees, detailing cars, and so forth. I will be buying industrial herbicide for my front garden (formerly looked like this: click here). We already took out the triangular half of the garden two years ago, but the weeds are nothing but rampant. There are no actual plants... The giant, sun-loving, man-hating weeds killed all the good stuff. So we're making a rock garden using river rocks and our metal farm implement bird sculpture, Chuck, as the centerpiece. I was going to add a homemade water garden to the area, but with West Nile Virus killing people, I think I'll skip the equivalent of a mosquito labor & delivery hospital. Maybe next year.? For now... REST!

*Note: This made more sense when our bedroom was also upstairs, but alas it is too hot in the summer to cool properly so we moved downstairs.?

BABY POOL: GUESS WHAT WE'RE HAVING AND WIN A PRIZE.

Photos ? Carrie.

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Source: http://www.manandwifelivinglife.com/2012/08/functional-bungalow-mission-accomplished.html

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