rearranging...again

i love to rearrange my furniture. when i get the hankering for a new couch, or i want a new bookshelf, or a new piece of art, and we don't have the funds to rush right out and appease my desires, i rearrange. it makes me feel like i have a new house for a while. it also forces me to clean behind things (like my friend amy just did recently).

my track record with rearranging in the house we have lived in for about a year now is pretty scary if i stop to think about it much. we live in a 1920s bungalow--it is a VERY cool house, but it has all these rooms, and they all seem to have at least 2 doors or doorways. because of the way it's set up, though, it makes me feel unsettled at times regarding not only how the furniture is set up but also related to who is sleeping in what room. so, in the year we have lived here, we started out with our 2 oldest sharing the middle room (which is the biggest room in the house); then we separated them and put aedan in the very back, very tiny room and gillian in the front, and we took the middle room. then we moved aedan to the front to share with gillian (which is the current arrangement) and i turned the back, tiny room into a playroom.

until yesterday, that was the current setup. however, i noticed the kids didn't really like to be in the playroom alone, and when they did go in there they would just grab toys to pull out into the living room or into their bedroom.

so the reasons for my rearranging yesterday were twofold: the older 2 weren't really getting use out of the playroom as it was set up, and we recently moved rhys to his crib, which we had set up in one corner of our office. i called rhys's area the "nursery nook," because that's exactly what it was: the area was exactly as wide as his crib, and there was room for nothing else in there. it was cozy, and i love cozy spaces. but remember i just posted about hating to walk the 5 feet across our dining room in the middle of the night to feed him?

so yesterday i talked rick (thanks honey!) into moving rhys into the playroom and making it his nursery. then we put most of the toys in the kids' closet and turned the "nursery nook" into a play area, which we can also use as a "guest nook" when we have visitors. does anyone else with kids love the simplicity of a nursery versus a "kid room"? i love a room with just a crib, dresser, and rocking chair. no mess, no clutter. ahhh.

forgive this boring post; it's hard to describe (and i don't have everything neat as a pin so i'm only willing to post pics of the nursery right now). i guess you'll just have to come visit and see it in person!

in preparation

we are hosting friends ryan & holly sharp (and their son, paxton) on saturday night for a house concert. we live in a smaller house than we did the last time we had them play here, so this time we are going to listen to the music out in the backyard.

our back deck is huge, but it doesn't have a covering or roof. so i've been experimenting with sewing sheets together that i bought at various thrift stores around tampa last week. i honestly thought that it would look like crap, but to my complete surprise, when i hung them yesterday to see what they would look like, they look awesome! i just have to redo one set because they aren't the right sizes. check out what it looks like, and i'll post lots more pictures after the party.