Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The Ugly Truth



This is the room that has always been a challenge to me - the family room. It's pretty big, 35 ft by 15 ft wide. In my last big overhaul, I took over the kids' play area for my own "studio" area. Now that I'm down to three homeschooled kids, I'm taking over even more space! (insert evil laugh here)

Sunday afternoon, DH and Brendan took up the old carpeting in the fireplace side of the room to reveal the original linoleum that has always been on the other side of the room. Goodbye nasty, dirty carpet! Yesterday I put back up some of the shelves on the north side of the room and totally cleared off the bookcases on the south side and moved them down to the fireplace. DH can now begin to bring some of his books back inside the house.

Soon, the newly cleared south side wall will be full of shelves to organize more of DH's books and our homeschool collection, which will be pared down. Then there's that open closet. My plan is to empty it out and install new shelving that will adjust, keeping lots of my stash and stamping supplies in there.

This is going to take some time, but I'm hoping by the end of October to have it pretty much done. Then next summer I can take it all apart again, drywall the room, paint, install a new floor and great lighting - then put it all back together again - and it will be as perfect to me as this room can be.

13 comments:

Alison said...

Hi Von, its great to read all your latest news - hey we can only dream of having such big rooms in our houses in England - we have much less space that our US friends :-( Plenty of space for your stash then!! I will be sure to post a WIP photo when I start my Gail Bussi chart - everyone seems to like it so much. Stay happy! Ali xx

catandturtle said...

Cool! I love home renovations. Can't wait to see it finished. That is a huge room you have. The more walls to put stitching on right? Ann.

Margaret said...

Your family room renovations are looking good. When I see those lovely empty bookshelves next to the fireplace my hands itch to fill them with wonderful books.

Margaret

mainely stitching said...

You're a very ambitious woman, Von! But I'm so terribly envious of having such a large space to fix up. ;>

Anonymous said...

Call me when you have books you want to get rid of. :)

Singular Stitches said...

Wow! Please feel free to come to my home anytime... :o)

Terri said...

Gooooo Von! Is there something in the water? Everywhere I read, people are reorginazing their stashes! LOL

Dianne said...

You have a big room there! Wow, that will be awesome when you get it the way you want it. : ) Sending good organizational vibes your way.

Leah said...

You know you have a huge family room when it has a north side and a south side. ;) Good luck with your re-org.

Cathy B said...

Sounds like you are making good progress - hope you'll post more pictures when the project is finished!

We are working on our upstairs level, so I can relate to the mess that goes along with making improvements!

Anonymous said...

good luck!

we're changing rooms for the children, so it's a mess upstairs. it's time to change the house...

Sharon said...

That is a huge room! I can't blame you for putting it off-because as much as we women love to change things around the chaos can be tiring.

Rachael said...

I love the plans for your room. It seems to be going around blogdom to clean up throw away and renovate. I too, have been working at paring down our belongins. Our family room is about the same size as yours except that the cilings are slanted as it is under the roof. It is pretty unusual in Germany to have an etra room this big and I love it,but it does seem to have to be everything to everyone and fill up with "stuff".