If You Give A Mom An Idea...

... and the labor to make it happen...

she'll work herself into exhaustion.

Right?

I had this plan that over the summer we would rearrange

how we use some of the rooms upstairs.

Prompted by certain boys growing up and aging out of homeschooling,

(the nerve of them!)

I've been going through lots of materials we're done with -

sorting and selling -

to open up some space for other things :D

Aaaaand I had my hopes set on using the school room for my craft room,

because it gets such wonderful light.

But that would happen... you know...

sometime over the summer.

Saturday I had the boys all here

and wanted them to help me move everything off our linoleum floor,

 and sweep/mop/scrub it preparatory for waxing.

None of that is really hard, except the whole

on-my-hands-and-knees part.

I don't love that.

But we (mostly I) got it done,

and we all had a well-earned break.

Because it was Saturday, right?

So while the boys had their break I wandered upstairs and thought I'd just start cleaning and sorting things from my office, to get ready for the big shift.

The thing about moving the rooms around is that I want a blank slate -

the room has to be EMPTY before I want to move new things in.

Also, much easier to clean, right?

And my office would be the logical room to empty first.

Later, you know, when we got around to actually doing the move.

So I started sorting, and moving a few things into my bedroom closet

to get them out of the way.

Well, it looked so good to have that side of the room tidied up,

that I started on the closet.

Well, yah, then I was getting some serious momentum.

The boys' friend was about to leave,

I was hanging the third load of laundry on the line,

and I grabbed Kerry and started to twist his arm.

Because the sticking point was these:

These fabulous IKEA storage units are too big to move.

Corners.  Our house has them.

The units must be emptied and disassembled to move.

UGH.

But I convinced him :D

Besides, we'd be moving beds,

and I already had all the sheets off to be washed.

And that makes sense, right?

Because we'd have to remake the beds anyway, right?

So Team Garrett went into action.

One end of the boys' room (above),

and the other end (below).

What is that verse in Proverbs?

Something like,

Where no oxen are,

the manger is clean,

but much increase comes

by the strength of the ox.

Something like that.

Well, some of my oxen surely mess up the manger.

*Ahem*

But they do work hard!

I snapped some pics before we started...

I love our school room!

Lots of happy memories :D

We emptied my office.

Desk and computer into the boys' bathroom, 

and everything else piled into my bedroom.

The boys disassembled the two bunk beds to be moved,

and Wyatt and Gunnar started reassembling them in my old office.

Meahwhile, Kerry and Tate were disassembling

and reassembling my IKEA monoliths.

And PS, Kerry,

where is your leg???

Last time I checked, you had two. 

At this point, well, I almost despaired.

This kind of chaos does not help my inner peace!

Meanwhile, I mentioned that we piled stuff in my bedroom?

Welcome to Hoarder Heaven.

That's what it looked like.

But we were starting to make headway :D

The boys' closet looks so much better with two thirds the stuff in it!

I gave Gunnar a solemn challenge to keep his corner neater than its previous occupant did.

Tate's corner looks good.

And Wyatt was busily nesting in his new room.

He hasn't had a room of his own for almost 18 years ;D

Found this "treasure" cleaning out the school room.

The boys made this when they dissected owl pellets.

I'm thinking there may be more than one animal represented there!

With Wyatt settled into his room,

we turned one end of Tate and Gunnar's (huge) bedroom

into a school "area".

I think it looks great :D

There's a desk at the other end of the room that Tate usually uses.

Gunnar will have lots of space, and everything we'll need

for the next two years of P/T homeschooling.

And he has a great view :D

My new room?

Still a work in progress!

Trying to sort/cull as I go.

Pics of that...

later.