Entryway Closet Makeover!!!

I am so excited about this make over I can hardly stand it! 

I have been day dreaming about a solution to our closet mess for quite a while now. 

Not everyone has a garage or a large mud room. So many of us have these little hallway closets that we barely fit in.  We have lived in three houses with all five of our kids and I have tried several ideas. We have had a big shoe bin outside the closet, in the entry way. We have had individual baskets for each of us on the bottom of the shoe closet. All of which resulted in big piles of shoes messed up on the floor. 

The kids would dig through their shoe baskets and it would end up mixed up, messed up and spread all around our entry way. Every day we did this...then I would throw everything back in just so I could barely close the door. Oh and the next pair of shoes I needed, they were of course, on the bottom of the pile. :) 

Here is the BEFORE picture. I am sorry to say I should have taken a better picture. I was so excited to get started on my project and I wish you could have seen it at its worst.

Home Sweet Home Part 3

I have to conclude that we found a house. Not the one I mentioned before but a house provided by the Lord none the less. We almost dismissed it because of the pictures online. It made it look smaller inside.

Last weekend we had two open houses to look at, one that I loved and one that my husband loved. We thought for sure we would pick one of these homes to put an offer on. As we pulled up to the first house we saw that nobody was there even though it was just minutes after they were supposed to open. I have a bad habit of being early but still, I expected them to be on time. Sadly they weren't and on the way we saw a sign for another open house so we decided to turn around and go check it out.

As soon as we pulled in front of the house I realized this was the one my agent sent me the pics to. Well, either way, it doesn't hurt to look. I ran inside while my husband sat in the car with the kids. This was our routine. With 5 kids little kids, house hunting can get a little crazy with having to find babysitters. So we would take turns going through the house.

Home Sweet Home Part 2

We got a second email asking if we were interested in the lot near by that we had an offer on before. The realtor was asking our realtor if we want to move forward, letting us know they were going to be picking out cabinets and colors soon and we might want to have input on it if we were going to make an offer. Wow, that would normally be such a temptation for me. To have a house that is brand new and I got to pick the details out is really an appealing offer. Why am I not running for it? Both my husband and I love the floor plan and the location. There is nothing wrong with the idea of moving there.

It must be leading from the Lord that we are not eager to take them up on their offer. We have our eye on a bank owned home. It needs new carpet through out almost the whole house and new paint inside and out. Why would we be drawn to this house? The bones and the space is everything we have prayed for. It has 3700 sq ft and an open floor plan and the bedroom space we need for our kids. Even our own realtor was surprised we wanted it over the other house after walking through.

Home Sweet Home Part 1

Last night my husband and I were laying in bed reflecting back on how we got to this point. Our house has a buyer and we will most likely move at the end of this month. We are planning to rent so we can search for the perfect house that fits our large family. We don't want to outgrow another house.

It all started with a post card we got in the mail about 6 months ago.  It doesn't happen often but we noticed a post card in our junk mail advertising a house for sale nearby. It was more than we thought we could afford but we fell in love with the pictures and just had to look inside. So we contacted our realtor and walked through. Oh and it was amazing. We knew we weren't ready to buy yet but started talking about our plan for the near future.   Eventually this house sold. But looking back on things this house got the process started for us.

Over the next few months we looked around at houses and started praying and talking about what we need to look for. We have kids with specific needs which will require a specific house.