Labor... Weekend

It's Labor Day but it's been a full weekend of labor here!

A few weeks ago, my good friend showed me her Habitat for Humanity Re-Store find: a home office cabinet! She can put her computer in there and SHUT AND LOCK THE DOORS, keeping away from little fingers!

Envy, I tell you, envy! I had been looking and looking for ideas to clean up my home office, which was in the master bedroom. I couldn't find anything I liked, and could afford, in real life or on Pinterest. And she had it! Because K is a thrift store guru, I asked her to keep her eyes open for one for me.

Thursday, she called me and told me about a cabinet very similar to hers in a thrift store. I wanted to drop everything and run to it (screaming, "MIIIIINNNNNEEE!") but I couldn't. However, the next morning, I joined her at the store, looked at it, declared, "MINE!" and put 50 per cent down on it.

(And bought 3 books and an awesome flannel sheets with penguins on it that will be turned into Christmas jammie pants for the little boys. I digress.)

Adam wasn't too sure about this, because it involved lugging it home in the back of the van. My sister said, via text, that it was awesome and should totally be MIIINNNNEEE and that my friend rocked. I thus proposed a plan to my husband that involved the following:

Moving the large bookshelf in the playroom to Joseph's room;

Giving Joseph's old bookshelf to Cole;

Move the recliner in the boys' room to the living room;

Moving my home office out of the bedroom and into the playroom, thus creating a "love nest" in our room instead of a dumping ground (nothing says "romantic" like a hot wheel track in your bed and piles of papers two feet away;

moving my old desk to the playroom and moving the kids' computer OUT of the kitchen.

He agreed.

To all of it.

And you don't believe in miracles?! This is one, people!

Saturday afternoon, Adam emptied the van and brought home the home office unit. Our neighbor saw us struggling with it (the thing is a beast) and helped him get it inside. Thanks to my genius idea, he didn't have to haul it upstairs, just two feet inside to the playroom.

(We won't talk about what it took to get the bookshelf into Joe's room. Let's just say that's another post.)

I spent all Saturday and a good part of Sunday dusting, lugging stuff from the master bedroom to the playroom, organizing, dusting some more, making sure cords got put in the right spot, and purging. I realized I would make a bad DIY blogger because I just can't stop to take pictures of the mess and work in progress; I have to get it done now!

My mantra was and is: It has to get worse before it gets better.

We are 90 per cent done now. I have a few more boxes to go through and purdge. I have some pictures to hang on the walls in new spots... and an awesome Catholic saint ABC poster I want to order. The kids have a new homework and computer station that is in a spot I can monitor but not in the middle of the kitchen, where I will trip over them. I can now work AND be with the kids as the play! We have more sitting space in the living room!

The house is beginning to look great and I have some ideas for the empty spot in our bedroom where the desk used to be. (Cute bench? Adorable armchairs?) The only downside? Between the home office unit and the new dining room furniture, Adam has banned me from thrift stores for the time being.

Boo.

But he hasn't banned my friends from looking for me and for cute items for the empty space in the bedroom....