Tour, down the stairs

We have a great basement, and in fact, it's what sold us on the house. 

We recently moved B out to the outerbasement rooms, by her request. 

It's a little quieter, there aren't rooms above, just an outside deck, and the walls are thick concrete, so not a lot coming through them either. There aren't people walking through to get their laundry from the laundry room either. She's very happy!

Unfortunately she still has our little TV, as this used to be the TV room. She still has the XBOX as well. 

 Bre's exroom is now the TV/game room. Without a TV, I guess it's the game room from now on!

My sewing desk is to the right, fortunately you can't see the piles of fabric behind it lol!

 The other side of the game rom. You can see the laundry system of blue crates, and we're starting to spread out on the shelves that used to house B's stuffed animals.

Our plan is to get another TV for video games and also some more seating. 

But for now it's nice to be empty.

 The rest of the girls share this big ol' room.

There are actually five beds in this room, bunkbeds and a single in the back, then Ava's bed with a rollaway underneath.

 Their clothes closet, very organized

 And the doll closet, although there are shelves above that hold their scouts and craft projects

The other side of the girls room, Behind E's dresser is Ava's half, a bathroom door, and all her stuff

Learning room: the toddler side part 1

 The Learning room: the toddler side part 2

The Learning room: big kids side

Tour, top floor

Just my room, nothing special but it IS my sanctuary!

When we moved in, i painted it purpleypurple, but we just repainted in time for Lia to be born. 

Bookshelf has what few books I have left after donating most to an organization that helps teens in the foster system.

 Lia-bee's bed and our TV cabinet. Which no longer has any instrument of technology.

 My own personal bathroom, which I dont share with anyone unless it's a dire emergency. Sometimes tempted to place DH in that 'not-sharing' category, but alas. I guess you can almost see the shelves with my turtles

Tour, the first floor

Since it's been a while,  and we've kind of moved things, I thought I'd do a grand tour.
You kind of know what it'll be like, when you walk in and see this:

See the yellow and red painting? Rachel's work

More of our entry way...you'll be able to tell what kind of organizers we are. See the paintings on the wall? The girls and I all worked together on that collection

Boys bathroom. It's supposed to be fancied up for guests too, but that really just never happens.

You see that oldest DS just got back from camp.

First boys room, for Josh and Sam. Josh's desks with all the older books, the TV stand will all of Sam's

Desk close up. You can see how many tools he needs to stay on top of things. um, ignore the two computers. I was pointing at the schedule, the white board, the calendars. 

Lots of room for friends

The younger boys' room...Nate on bottom and Dan on top.

Just for funsies, Lia's P&P for changing diapers. No one plays in here anyway.

East wall

south wall

west wall

on the north wall, it's all kitchen

on the west wall, a door leads to...duhduhduh! Certain Death....err, our garage

See how i resisted the urge to clean up? This is all Gray all the time...

Through the rabbit hole....continued tour~!

Tuesday Tour

Tuesday tour today is our garage (mostly because dh cleaned it out and it's passable again)

The front, two car garage (that's what they call it, but never once have we parked in there)

You can kinda see our bikes, lined up

east wall, three gorilla shelves.

The first is camping stuff: sleeping bags on top, second is a box of cooking gear with tarps, next is cots and chairs and my hiking pack for Nathan, Next is tents, and last is tents. Next set of shelves has all cooking stuff, crockpots and electric skillets. Bottom and topmost shelves, though, have memorabilia. Last set of shelves has storage on top, paper items like plates, bags, toiletries, then food, food and food. It's empty because tomorrow is big shopping day.

Next to the door you can see baby gear.

South wall, door, recycling, dorm fridge with beers and sunday toppings. The gorilla shelf has more groceries, canned goods although the bottom has potatoes in the green box and onions in the gray bin. 

The cabinet on the wall has rice, flour, pasta and beans. Deep freeze, then the last door has storage for holiday items.

West wall, housewares. You can see our kitchen shelves on top, in various stages of painting, stripping and sanding. An entire shelf of assorted paints, next shelf is more paint and painting tools. Third shelf has replacement tiles and our household cleaners. Next shelf has gardening items, and the bottom has an AC unit as well as space heaters.

The other two shelves are all tools and such for dh. 

I won't be so bold as to say I know what any of them are.

Tuesday Tour

Girls room today. Living proof that we bought a really big house, because there are three girls in this room, with LOTS of space.

First shot, from the doorway. You can see Avari's princess bed (free from a friend), Emily and Rachel put up the bed curtain that Grandma gave them, to separate the space a little. They also have their bookshelf (freecycle) sideways to block the area. Most of our books are together in the learning room, but each kid has their own shelves for special books. That rocking chair we've had since Breanna was born. It's really special to me, because all of our behbehs have been rocked in it.

Wall one of Ava's space, the whole room used to be that bright blue, but when I was pg with Ava, I decided I needed LOTS of pink, we bought a five gallon bucket of this pink stuff. I couldn't bear to get rid of our rainbow though.

My dad made the bookshelf for her, and the computer desk was a yard sale find, $5 woot!

Avari's second wall, homemade felt board with Hungry Caterpillar set, a 'dresser' of sorts. We got that idea from my friend Julie. It's easy because the drawers are small enough for her to dig through, and deep enough that she can put stuff in easily. The dolls on top are from Land of Milk and Honey, a really sweet book series. Lastly, her wooden dollhouse, I got on clearance at a closing toy store in Tulsa. 90% off!

Into the big girls area, Emily took this shot for me. 

More shelves from my dad. They're supposed to be like these from Pottery Barn, but dad didn't want to divide them up, so three big shelves. I think they cost about $40 each to make for wood and paint. Their stuffies live there.

The dressers, yard sale finds from Ikea, $5 because the runners needed replaced. For both. (!)

Bunk beds, we bought these when Bre turned one. They are sturdy, and flexible, gone through all the kids so far. The girls want to paint them white, but honestly I'm worried I'll mess it up and they won't look nice. So they'll stay a brown wood. You'll note that there are three beds, one stays dressed for sleepovers. lol!

First of two closets. We had the clothes and shoes divided by girls, but they wanted to put all the clothes into one closet.

So they have a whole closet for their dolls! LOL, some of these are American Girl, although there are some craft store dolls, as well as Groovy Girls. It's so funny, just two years ago they didn't like GG at all, then suddenly they were desperate to have them. So now they have a tent, sleeping bags, and furniture for these soft dolls. They have a 'house' set up for AG, with a dining table, a kitchen and bed. They appropriated the bell tower from the Christmas Parade, to make an apartment for the girls to sleep in. That just hasn't happened yet.

Tuesday Tour

So far we've toured the places to play, so i thought we'd continue the trend! Especially since we're having such a lovely day, we'll tour the back yard. We're really lucky, in that the house we bought has a double lot, although, we also pay taxes on a double lot. LOL!

From the deck (that we need to replace)

The basketball court and the view of the park

Where you see the plastic climbing toy, we plan on installing a flagstone patio

You can also see the treehouse tree, although the house is long gone

Our trampoline (which yes, needs to have an adult retether the net)

Behind it is our lil tiny swingset. We used to have a bigger one but it died.

The slide from our old swingset, it goes down from the retaining wall to the next level

Across the ditch is our garden, although it's pretty much grass now. 

The forest, with drainage. 

We've lost about 2/3rd of our trees to ice as well as thinning. It's healthier for the rest of the trees that way, promise. 

A shot of the west side of our yard, retaining wall, neighbors fence.

You can see our broken deck, and the blue tarps covering our wood pile.

The retaining wall is filled with sand, which keeps the creek from overflowing into our basement.

It also provides the best sandbox one could imagine. 

Woohoo! Firewood!

Our quiet spot. Usually filled with shade loving plants, and children dressed as fairies,

it's a place where I go to regenerate my spirit. We carved it out of the yard

as a memorial for children who have moved on...Abigail and Matthew's remains are here.

Shot of the house, from the basketball court

Shot of the park, from same basketball court

The forest. Backed by the retaining wall, it has been filled with huge tree trunks since we moved in. 

The last of them were chopped into mulch, and then our neighbors tree fell. So we kept three four foot chunks of it for fun. Now that the shed has been smashed, we're considering putting another mini patio down there, with a firepit, for the teens to hang out at.