The Real World, Home Edition

Reality is sinking in. That's both good and bad.

On the bad side, it's sinking in how very much work we want to do before moving day (June 16) and how little time there is for such work in the average day, what with the chilluns and Epu's work and the drive between OP and here. I have also been reminded how very crappy it is to work with contractors*, and there will be plenty of that in the next month or so.

On the good side, we're starting to make serious plans about what we want in our house, and that is so, so exciting. It's the first time in our lives when we've had some degree of free reign in designing our home.

For Epu, geek that he is, that means wiring the crap out of the place. He's on his computer right now researching just how he's going to do that. According to Epu, the Internet is just teeming with geeks anxious to share their wiring expertise, so that should be fun.

For my part, this is what I want in my new home:

-- more organized. To this end, my wish list item is decking out the foyer with cubbies, hooks, shoe racks, etc. I may call in a closet system company to give an estimate on this, or we may end up doing it ourselves.

-- space efficient. Has to be. One thing we'll be doing is using the kitchen table space as play space for the girls, because there is already a dining room and we don't need two separate eating spaces.

-- safe for the kids. duh. That means getting a handyman in asap to install a gate to block off the alley. and the new windows. and a few other things I won't bore you with.

Another thing we're talking about is how best to use the living room. This year we experimented with keeping the television in our bedroom, reserving the living room for more peaceful endeavors -- reading, listening to music, visiting with guests and of course, playing with the kids. I did really like having that space TV-free, yet we found we didn't use the living room much. Another problem was that if you have guests and would like to watch television together, it's awkward to watch in the bedroom where there are no chairs, just a big old bed.

We're currently considering having our guest room double as a media room. It's small, but we measured and our hideabed couch would fit in there. In the past I wouldn't make my guests sleep on a hideabed if at all possible, but now they have these memory foam mattress toppers you can put on a hideabed that are supposed to make them actually comfortable. We have to do some more measuring, but we both like the idea of having a little tv den.

That would free up our living room for the things we do most. Epu could have his computer desk in there, which is where he spends most of his time, and then I wouldn't miss him so much when he uses it. We're going to need some major bookshelves, maybe built in. And, of course, we need room for toys and play space.

Tomorrow we spend the night at the new house, on air mattresses, so we can let in the asbestos people at 8 a.m. Thursday. Tomorrow night, major Menard's run. Yay!

* I had 3 window companies lined up to give estimates on Monday, and had hoped to make a decision this week and get the ball rolling on that. After all, we need windows to be done by moving day. Number of companies that actually showed up Monday: 1.