Small changes around the house

Lately we've been doing small things around the house. Tweaking things here and there to accommodate our needs a little better. First we surrendered most of our den to the girls' toys. We have two bookshelves in there still, blocked off by a wall of pack'n'plays and a toy box. It keeps the toys contained to one area a bit better. Then we moved our glider rocker and the unsteady bookshelf that has doubled as a shelf for bottles for several months. The recliner replaced it and Steve put a shelf on the wall so we have someplace to put bottles and coffee cups a bit farther from the reach of little girls. Then we moved that rickety bookshelf over to the edge of the den for the girls books. Steve secured it to the side of the entertainment center with an L bracket so Amelia can't pull it over again and all their books and a few toys fit on it. Good thing too, because they've collected too many books to fit into the bins under the toybox any longer.

The newest and biggest change was a hutch for the dining room. It has doors with shelves inside on the bottom, a pull-out tray for a laptop, and open shelves on top. This is mainly for my stuff that I don't want the girls to get into, since Steve has the desk in the spare bedroom. Up until now, my books, magazines, etc. have found a home on our dining room table. The problem is that Ella can still reach them and Amelia can too if they're near the edge. So some of my books have been colored in, picture frames have been broken, and other things of that sort. Not to mention that I had to collect and move all of it any time we had anyone extra over for dinner, only to move it back after dinner. Basically I got tired of moving it around and rescuing it from little hands. So we bought the hutch. Steve put it together last night, I organized my things into after my internship, and I love it. There's room for pictures that had been stacked and hiding in the bedroom until now and little breakable knick knacks that I didn't have a place to display out of reach. My things are finally organized and have a place.

I situated a few pictures on it earlier and then went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. While I poured a cup of coffee from my new-Christmas-gift coffee maker, I glanced around and saw our new banana tree. It's supposed to help bananas stay fresher a little longer. It was $4 and I figured it was a sound investment since we've gone through a bunch of bananas a week for probably six months now. But it was odd, seeing that and thinking of our new hutch somehow made this house seem more like our home. We're putting more and more of our own touches on the house and bit by bit it feels more like our home and not just our house. I think that's the best change of all.