Hello Friends! Sorry for my absence last week, between making room for my treasures from Tour de Junk 2016, and everyday mom responsibilities, I wasn’t able to squeeze in the time to write.

We have been living in our home 6 years now, and I wanted to share how we live in a construction zone, just in case any of you are crazy enough to do it.

You can read a little bit about how we started here and here.  After renting a house for the first 5 years of our marriage, we had reached a point where the kids were getting bigger and the neighborhood we were in wasn’t the greatest place to let them run around and play.  My Husband devised a plan to get us in the house sooner, even though it was far from done.  We opted to finish our two car garage and the nearest bedrooms and bathroom and close off the rest of the house until we could complete it.  Kind of like living in your basement, while you remodel the upstairs.

We started with purchasing used cabinets and remaking them to fit a kitchen in one corner of our garage.

Here it is today, I am a huge fan of open shelving and this was the perfect opportunity to experiment before we built my final kitchen.  No dishwasher and not a lot of counter-space, but it has been a part of some very memorable moments in our family.

Stephen got his first haircut here.

And multiple meals enjoyed.

Here was our living room, we planned the garage like it was any other living space.  We separated it into areas; a kitchen, a living room, an office, and a small area for the kid’s books and toys.

I hung curtains to hide the hot water tank and the electrical box.

Stephen took his first steps in this living room.

Stories were shared.

And homework assignments completed.

And a good amount of childhood silliness.

At the time we moved in, we had our master bedroom, one bathroom and one other bedroom move in ready along with my laundry room and pantry.

We put all three kids in the second finished bedroom, Stephen wasn’t born yet.

I tried to maximize the space as much as possible which made it hard to decorate it the way I would have liked, but the kids were happy and we were no longer living in an unsafe neighborhood.  I think that is a pretty good trade.

Trying to cram three children’s clothes and toys into one closet was extremely difficult at times, but we made the most of it.

Once we found out that I was expecting our fourth child, we knew we had to get creative because there was no way we could fit another bed and dresser in the room with the other three children.  We opted not to finish our master bathroom, but add a piece of carpet and move him in there.

He didn’t seem to mind one bit.

I hung curtains in front of the unfinished shower and used that for storage and yes, that is a toilet tucked back in the corner.  Do you know how hard it is for a family of 6 to only have one toilet?!?!

The great room acted as a garage would, it was just a concrete slab surrounded by walls of studs and materials.

At one point my husband hung swings off of the loft for the kids to use and they rode bikes inside when the weather was bad.

As the building of our house progressed, the great room was more like a workroom/manufacturing plant than an actual living space, which was necessary because we were living in our garage.  This is when we were milling our floors.

We are in a continual state of rotation.  When we are about to start on a room, all the tools and materials get rotated to another space.  This is the future family room.

The tool and material pile gets smaller and smaller as we finish more projects.

This is how our garage looks now.

Since we moved the kids upstairs, our living room is in their old bedroom.  This will free up space in the garage for the tools.

I had to show you how nice my trash day find looks in here, not bad for being face down in the mud.

Our master bathroom is now a makeshift toy room.  Someday, I will get to take a long hot bath in my claw-foot tub in here.  Maybe 2017?

Our bedroom is at the end of the hallway and has been one of the few rooms that hasn’t changed much, thank goodness!

The family room is almost done.  Trim needs to be installed and the metal shelving we had fabricated is ready to be hung.  I have some furniture pieces that need painted, but once that is done, we will bring the living room furniture up here.  I will move the office into the extra room, which will just leave the kitchen left in the garage.  We can then move the tools and materials, and begin to finish the rest of the great room.

That, my friends, is how we lived in a house during construction.  It is like playing a game of musical rooms! 

Sometimes it is hard to feel completely settled because so much of our home has been moved and rearranged and stored until future use.  I think that is one of the reasons why I am so anxious to finish up, to finally cook in my kitchen, to park the car in the garage, and to put things in places where they belong instead of up in my attic collecting dust. 

I do realize, however, that those are just material things and real living doesn’t mean everything has to be perfect and done, but the moments you share and memories you create with the ones you love is what it is all about, right!?!

Thanks for sticking around to share some family memories, until next week!