Around the House {PHFR}

There I was, going through the house taking pictures of the projects I'd really like us to get done/hire out this winter...

Molding on the stairs and baby gate installation, for one. Peter keeps stealth-crawling up the stairs when nobody's watching him, and the pop-up tent we were using to block it off didn't fit once we got John Paul's new desk (which Andrew and his dad both used when they were boys - how sweet is that?).

And the upstairs landing - it's kind of huge, but we have NO linen closet/coat closet/any closet that fits a reasonable amount of storage - I'd love to have a built-in put in on that right side, cupboards on the bottom for linens, bookshelves up to the ceiling on top because duh, books. All the books.

Like the picture on the right! And the left would be perfect, on a slightly smaller scale, for our mud room.

Then, however... The mudroom rocketed to the top of the list. Because... Well, I'll just copy straight from instagram:

I was going through the house taking pictures of the projects that are highest on our priority list right now, when my mom noticed that the mud room was flooding. She ran to shut off the washing machine and the water kept coming. So she shut off the water completely, and a certain 6-year-old mentioned that maybe we should check the hose outside and make sure it wasn't on. Well. It WAS on. And jammed into the dryer vent. Because apparently he was going to use it to melt the snow, and when no water came out that was his solution. So we've ripped out a whole bunch of linoleum, cleaned out the room, and it's rocketed to the top of the priority list. On the plus side, Peter was actually napping on his own for the first time in ages, and we didn't have to call a plumber or appliance repairman. 6-year-olds. If I ever get any gray hairs, he's the one who'll give them to me.

A photo posted by Rosie Hill (@rosiehill425) on Jan 13, 2016 at 12:24pm PST

So the issues that were covered by (now soaked and drying) rugs are now in plain sight and we can't ignore it any longer... Particularly after we removed the dryer exhaust and more water gushed out. I'm hopeful that the dryer will still function?

And we should probably paint those corners of the room that never got painted whenever the room was *last* painted who knows how many years ago...

Plus there's the matter of coat hooks and shoe cubbies and all that. It's going to be really wonderful when it's all done, it's just not exactly a project that we can take at a nice leisurely pace anymore!

So off we go for a "date" this evening to look at flooring at Lowe's! Facebook recommendations seem to be for tile, vinyl, or linoleum (did you KNOW that linoleum is a natural material??? I had no clue!) - we *do* have a whole lot of that stone tile you can see in the kitchen left, but it tears up socks and slippers, is impossible to clean, is uneven, and also incredibly cold and hard...

Just ignore the fact that I'm taking this picture from indoors - it's cold, I was holding a baby who wasn't wearing pants, and whatever ;) But you can see the little tiny fruit trees in the center left of the picture (some of them, anyway), and that dirt pile-ish thing right under them is the beginning of where the garden will be, but the plan is for it to be HUGE and fenced, so we'll see if we can make that happen this year... It may have to be a small-scale garden this summer, and we'll expand it later. Who knows! 

There's a lot to do. It'll never end. That's fine, though - we knew what we were getting into! I'm just going to go with this whole thing as *potentially* pretty in the future, happy eventually, funny right now because if I can't laugh at a flooded mud room, what *can* I laugh at, and real because duh. So real. 

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter!

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