Re-arrange vs. Re-Model

Last weekend my father & mother-in-love came to visit.  I love it when we get together, I'd say my mother-in-love and I are kindred spirits.  We enjoy staying up chatting, sharing ideas and drinking pounds of coffee.  While they were here I was telling her all about the re-moldeling ideas that Matt and I (well mostly I) are dreaming of.  Now I will say I have had some plans for this house for a long time (since we bought the place), but Matt did bring up the latest one himself.  Yay! Anyways, the plans we have won't happen for at least 8 years, but its fun planning and dreaming.

So I was expressing my big plans for the house to my mother-in-love and how excited I was for the addition of a mud room.  I explained how it would be nice to not have dirt and snow tracked through the house; at the time our shoe rack was at the front door which we use 1 out of 10 times, compared to the back door which we use 9 out of 10 times.

 Now, I will say I almost cleaned up just to take the photo of the before, but then I thought, why?  This really is the before.  If I was truly honest with myself, most of the time this is how it would look.  Recycling, coats and gloves all overflowing on the half wall.   So I included it so you could see what it truly would look like.  

As we were sitting at the dining room table, she looked at our kitchen towards the back door and thought for a moment.  Then she said, "what if you made a make-shift mud room in the space you have now?"  I said, I had thought about it, but didn't know where all the stuff that's there would go.  She said, "What if we could find homes for the other stuff?"  I thought for a moment and said yeah why not.  So we started brainstorming, looking at my cabients and seeing where I could make more space.  Then I said, I want to try this, and this is what I love about my mother-in-love, (remember it's already almost 9pm), she was game for helping me re-arrange right then and there!  Honestly, if she didn't I don't know when I would have done it.  I'd probably still be dreaming of one day when I have a mud room...

It was so helpful to have another set of hands and brain to help move things and think through what would work best.

In a couple years I plan to swap out the little kitchen set for some hooks for backpacks. 

While this make-shift mud room will keep me from dreading winters and all the winter gear piling up, I still have plans to add a mud room; however, that is years down the road when we have the funds. So until then, I am happy with my rearrangement and now I can dream without agonizing over when will we have a nice mud room.  I love our house, I loved it the moment we stepped in with the realtor to see if it was what we wanted, but there are always ways to improve.  Right now improving by adding on isn't in the budget and that's ok, so I find ways to make it work for the time being.

Recipe books that were in the white cabinet are now on top of the fridge, in a neat organized way. 

Good-bye plastic see-through bin for recycling, hello cute Trader Joe's bag.  No more overflowing recycling here! I also added a brown bag to keep our plastic bags in because we seem to have a hard time taking them downstairs right away.  

We found a new place for everything.  The cereal containers went on the peninsula.  The white cabinet relocated to the main bath and the table and chairs were moved to the play room.  

My mother in love also gave me a book about a year ago called The Nesting Place.  This is one thing that she talks about in her book.  Loving the home you are in now and not planning to love it when...fill in the blank.  Like I said I love our home, I loved it the moment I walked in, my husband can atest to that.  But, after a few years it's easy to notice what you don't have or ALL the things that need fixed and lose sight of what you have.  Adding my little nook mud room helped me to see the potential in my house again.  This book is a must read! It really helped put my house into perspective.  She has A LOT more tips on ways to love the home you're in.  If you haven't read it before check your local library for a copy!  Or buy a copy yourself (I like having my own to make notes in).  Now I will say if it's in your budget to remodel then by all means remodel.  Like I said, once we can I will be adding a mud room, but if you aren't able to spend the money find a compromise and this book is great at helping you do just that!

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