Extra Space Solution

We have four kids and even though we're lucky, no blessed, enough to have a four bedroom house, it can still be hard to find a place for everything. Seriously, where does all this stuff come from???

Up until a few months ago, we lived with my in-laws (bless their precious patient hearts!) for 14 months. Our oldest three kids shared one bedroom and space was most certainly an issue.

All three of them had to share one closet and one three drawer chest. That really cramped my shopping style! (Not really. Not a lot of money was the culprit there!) Anyway, the closet in their room didn't even have a double rod so Mommy had to come up with something.


So I went to Walmart. Did you know they make rods that hang down from your existing rod so that you'll have two? I was so excited to find this contraption and it only cost $10. (It's sold in the section with laundry stuff, rubbermaid tubs, and closet organizing things.)I bought two of them and even though they had to overlap a little bit due to the width of the closet, it still worked great!

The second thing I had to figure out was drawer space. I remembered that I had some extra rubbermaid tubs in the attic and they were a perfect fit under their bed. We put pajamas, underwear, pants, and shorts in our custom "pull-out drawers".

When we moved into our current house we bought the girls a new set of bunk beds. The bottom bed is high enough that I'm able to stack the "drawers" two high! They are perfect for clothes and toys both! For the toys we put lids on and usually pull one or two out for the day. We leave lids off of the clothes boxes just for convenience.


All I'm saying is that if I could fit three kids in one room (quite neatly I might add!), you can find room for your stuff too!

To see what's working for other bloggers this week, go check out We Are THAT Family!

My Martha-ish Side Rethinks Things

I was raised to always, and I do mean always, make my bed. A clean house revolves around a made bed, right? This philosophy has always made sense to me and I'm a firm believer. Well, I was a firm believer. But like the title of this post says, my Martha-wanna-be-self is rethinking things.

I do love the way a made bed looks, no doubt about it. My day is much more productive and I'm generally in a better mood. And I used to think a made bed feels so much better to get into at night. And that's where the problem lies. I now think an already-slept-in bed is oh so much more comfortable to get in.

So do I:

• not ever make my bed again (unless company is coming!) and enjoy the comfy feel of falling into it at night?
• make my bed every morning as usual and then thrash about in the covers and with the pillows to simulate that slept in feel?
• go with a weekday/weekend thing where I make the bed Monday-Friday and on Saturday-Sunday go all sloth like?

I found a list of 10 reasons to make your bed on another blog. Not really anything I didn't already know though.

Here are some stats for you:

• 45% of people make their bed everyday
• 50% of people make their bed occasionally
• 5% of people never do

This is not a laziness thing for me, because seriously, you can make your bed in 2 minutes or less right? It's purely a comfort thing. But the experts seem to disagree with me. Those Zen and Feng Shui people say you will sleep much more restfully if you get into a neatly made bed.

I'm pretty certain that my neatness lovin' self will win out and the bed will continue to be made every day, but.......maybe I should sleep on it. ;)

What do you think?