School starts the day after tomorrow here in Sunny (103℉) So-Cal (for LAUSD schools, anyway). Accordingly, we have been hard at work cleaning, pitching, sorting, organizing and generally preparing for the new year.
It's astounding to me how many great piles of paper five people can manage to accumulate. My girls are all avid writers, artists, musicians and readers. Our tiny little 3 bed/1 bath home looks like a landfill frequented by very messy, somewhat obsessive compulsive art collectors and musicians. I cannot believe how many pieces of paper my children consume over the course of a year. By consume, I mean "use up," not eat, of course.
Last year, we got off on the wrong foot. Maybe we can blame that on my foot! Okay, it was actually my knee that was the problem. In general. I'm not sure if the knee problem had anything to do with the gigantic papery mess problem, or if the two conditions coexist, but are not necessarily symbiotic in nature. Frankly, I am not going to waste a lot of time trying to figure it out, so the world may never know. What I do know is this: we had a great big, huge, overwhelming, disorganized, unmanageable mess, and I could not bear the thought of heading into another year of piles and piles of paperwork when I hadn't yet cleared out the previous year's piles.
Going through the mountains of paper turned out to be a treat, in some ways. First, there was the great satisfaction of tossing out all the old tests and homework, and discovering tons of available space for this year's influx. Then, there was the fun of sorting through and looking at all of the children's art, reading their stories. I keep that stuff. I probably keep more than I should, but I just can't let it go. It's like, if I do, a little piece of my daughters' childhood will be swept away to oblivion. What I am doing is setting aside the old work, filing and storing it, to make room for the new. That is going to make a huge difference. After just a couple of days, we have found the at we have so much space with which to work, that we really should be able to find room for everything and develop a workable system. For instance, by boxing up some of the old picture books and putting them out in the garage, we have cleared an entire shelf for the kids' textbooks.
The only caveat is that, now that we have all of this space, we need to figure out how to use it. That's not so much a caveat as it is exactly the result I was hoping for, but it does bear some thought and planning on our part. Shane and I batted around ideas about why the system we tried last year failed so miserably, and, ultimately, decided to change the way our home is arranged ~ change the way we use our space ~ to more accurately reflect the way we actually live.
That seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? What if I tell you that we turned our dining room into a library/sitting room, moved the kids' computer armoire to the front of the living room, took down two shelves, stacked the four cubbies the kids were using for their schoolwork in a single towering spire, and are in the process of deciding which books to store in the garage, and which to leave on the shelves? What if I tell you the cooking, craft, art and comic books all made the cut and will be staying in the house, while my teaching resources are neatly and safely stashed in a rubbermaid tub on an easily accessible shelf in the garage? What if I remind you that we didn't replace our dining room with another dining room elsewhere? That last part is weird, huh?
But, see...we don't have room for a dining room. I mean, what is a dining room, anyway? You're basically taking a huge amount of floor space for one big table and a bunch of chairs. The slap in the face, here, is that the dining table invariably becomes yet another place to pile stacks of paper, mail, half finished projects of one sort and another, mandolins, guitars, trumpets, bongos, guitar strings, ukeleles, coloured pencils, paints, canvasses, sketch books, yarn, clay and books... Book, books, books, books and more books! Pretty much anything other than dinner finds its way to our dinner table on a daily basis. Then, when it's time to eat, there's no room at the table. Shane is usually at work, I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get kids to one place and another while cooking, cleaning, preparing for my own work, balancing the books, etc., that I can't even think about eating. So the kids eat at the bar or the coffee table, and Shane and I eat later, when he gets home.
Of course, we do like to eat together as a family sometimes, and we didn't want to completely lose that option, so, a while back, we decided to invest in a pretty little wooden table with two good sized leaves that fold down, making it a cute little side table with drawers, most of the time, and a dining table large enough for the five of us (we can even squeeze in a guest or two, if we try). It seems to be a good compromise, suits our lifestyle, and gives us most of a room (or, at least, a substantial little end of a room) to work with. We have been using our new table for some time, now, and I have to say, we have been eating together as a family, but sort of around the living room ~ some at the bar, some at the coffee table ~ instead of around what used to be the dining room. We still visit, chat, laugh, share the ketchup... It's still a family meal together. The venue's just a little different.
After trying this plan for some weeks, we decided that it really does suit our family, and, by reclaiming that space which was once dominated by a large dinner table, we have gained so much. Today, Shane rearranged the furniture for me. I was going to say he helped me rearrange the furniture, but it was really much more like he just did it. He worked so hard. I helped empty shelves, and I am now in the process of reorganizing and shelving all of the books, but he moved all of the furniture, pretty much on his own (I helped a little, but I am not allowed to lift much). We put the computer armoir by the front window, with the cubbies right next to it. Then, we moved the large bookshelf from the hallway to the dining area, placing it against the wall to one side of the kitchen doorway and forming a sort of wrap around bookshelf with the other lagre bookshelf and a tall narrow shelf to span the corner between them. Next, we put the small bookshelf (the one that holds things like Nancy Drew, the Chronicles of Narnia, Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and the Harry Potter series) on the other side of the kitchen door. The purple armchair is in one corner, right next to my cute little yellow table, which is currently being used as a stand for my new record player. I think I will throw the floor cushions over by the small bookshelf.
Of course, there are books and other odds and ends strewn about the room and an unfinished project spread out over the half-open table but, when it is finished, we will have a cute, cozy little library/sitting room, with a table that can be opened when we want to have a more formal meal together. By the way, I am so excited about that project. It's also for our new room. We're all working on it together, and I just can't wait to share when it's done.
So it is settled. Perhaps it is a tad bohemian for some people's taste, but I like it. Our family has always been on the quirky side, and a cozy little place to read, draw, write or daydream is far more important to us than sitting around a dining table every night. I feel like the house is coming together in a way that works for us. We have our bar, our little library/sitting room/art & craft area, and lots of uncluttered space. Finally. We're in our fourth year here, I believe, and we're continuing to look at houses because we know this one is too small for our family. So, you know, it's a good thing we are starting to make some progress.
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