Room flip = play room

When a baby comes along, your perspective changes. On everything. And when I say everything, that includes even big purchases you made in life that you were confident would be perfect for a baby at the time. I'm talking about our house. Yep, pre-Charlie I loved our house. It went from an outdated, old house to an updated, clean, modern home. A home that we made our own ad we literally remade every room in it. I loved that we became a family of 2 in it when we got married and then became a family of 3 when Mr Charlie came!!

So why the change of heart as I'm telling you just how much I love it??? Well it mainly has to do with the overall layout..it's a side by side split. Which means we have lots if space, which is great, but where we were always playing with Charlie was in the downstairs family room. That means when mama is in the kitchen (for some reason I'm there more times than not), I am not within view if my sweet baby. Therefore, everything I need to get done in the kitchen (making dinner, lunch, cleaning dishes, washing pump parts, etc.) goes on the back burner bc I want to at least be able to see him playing. I dream of lots of house updates in a future home, but I was literally upset about the layout and spent hours on my zillow app looking a houses with open floor plans. Only in my dreams right?! That's right because I've made it clear to Jimmy: no 2nd baby or no moving until I'm done with my masters (Spring 2014). So dreams of a new house cannot become a reality for now.

I pretty much sat at lunch complaining about this to my fabulous and very creative/DIY friend over lunch one day. She's got such a great perspective on things and is thrifty like me and presented me the perfect solution. She challenged me to be creative with the spaces we have. She asked me why does the room designated as the dining room HAVE to stay a dining room? Couldn't we just move that into half of the living room (that's a WAY underutilized room anyway) and use the dining room as a makeshift playroom?! Um- yes, we absolutely could. Might be a bit odd when people come over but for us, the functionality would completely outweigh anything.

Jen- you're brilliant. I love that you present me with feasible and creative solutions to problems I present to you, you rock.

I went home that Monday night and told Jimmy about the idea. He was interested but did roll his eyes a bit because I seem to always want to change something. With no time that week because I had class or was studying- Jimmy was awesome and surprised me by moving what he could that Wednesday night I was at class. I was SO excited when I walked in the door!!!! Best surprise ever!! Then my parents and cousin came over that Friday and helped Jimmy move the heavy china cabinet.

And well, with a few changes, few additions (bought a play mat, installed a new light fixture and acquired a free rug from my mom) measuring a couple times , it was complete. And after a week and a half of living with it- I think we all love it!! We even had a play date upstairs and Rowen and Bo loved it too!!!!

So this my friends, is how you make an old house work when you don't like it anymore. Be creative, talk to awesome people and just do it.

And be thankful that Christmas Eve 2010 you decided to knock down the wall between your kitchen and dining room. Because that wouldn't have happened with a baby around....

New "play room"/ old dining room

View of the new half living room/office from the play room

Dining room & living room all in one.  Now that's utilizing space

View from the other side - with the china cabinet

DInner parties involve the TV - horrible I know.

View from the front hallway (kinda weird, right?)

Masks and wine cabinet are still around!

Looking into the play area from the family room

So....what do you think?  Kinda weird or just really freaking useful??  I have to say now that it has been like this for a week or so....I couldn't love it more.  We use the upstairs a lot more and are taking advantage of a room that we never used that much before in our house (upstairs living room).  Wahoo!  And that means mama is happy and we don't have to move.  Even better.

And you know who else likes it??

This kid!  He loves the play mat and that all his toys are right there!  It's so nice in the morning when we are finishing up breakfast and packing up all our bags and lunches, etc to just plop him on the play mat.  He loves it.  He's a rolling machine these days and even rolled 3 times and even up knocking his head on the hardwood floor.  Crazy man!

Overall - we love it and it works great for our family!!!  Which is the most important!