Bungalowin' Babystyle

So we've been cheating on the Little White Bungalow, we've looked at the Little Red Log Cabin, and the Medium Green Bungalow but none can hold a flame to our beloved LWB.  How could we even consider leaving the LWB? Unfortunately after three years and a lot of hard work we are butting up against a real deal breaker...a serious lack of storage and space.

Our bungalow was built as housing for mill workers, it had no bathroom and was originally heated by wood fired stoves.  The people that lived here back in the day probably had a Sunday outfit, one pair of shoes a few shirts and pants and if it was a woman maybe a dress or two. That translates into a need for one closet, maybe two. People just didn't own a lot of stuff back then, especially people working long hours for low pay in a cotton mill. So unfortunately for us that means our almost 1400 square foot bungalow has 2 real closets, and they're tiny.  Let me illustrate. This closet is mine, the previous owners did a brilliant job of maximizing storage in this tiny closet, 2 rows to hang clothes and top to bottom shelves in the back.  This frightening mess is D's closet.  I think the picture says it all, it's the bigger of the two but hopeless.  There is a third closet  in the LWB, it's in the blue bedroom, in reality it's only half a closet though, because the other half is shared with the bathroom on the other side of the wall.  There was absolutely no storage in our bathroom when we moved in and no space to create any, so, we just knocked a hole in the wall.  Hey, guess where we store all our linens?  Over the washer/dryer on the enclosed/backporch/pantry/laudry room, what's wrong with that you ask?  How'd you like pull out what you thought was a fresh, clean set of sheets for your bed.  You unfold them and start to put them on the bed when you notice little brown flecks of mouse poop everywhere and a giant brown stain in the middle of the sheet. What a pleasure to realize that a family of mice has been using your clean sheets as a nice warm nest all winter.  YUCK!!!

Lack of space has always been a challenge for us here but we were always able to stay on top of it with lots of trips to Goodwill and by frequently putting out lots of free stuff curbside for the legions of trash pickers in our neighborhood (us included, hello backporch door!).  That was until we had this happy little baby.  We have more baby s_i_ (not just the poopy kind) in our house than I know what to do with.  Honestly, I have been very conscious since the beginning about what we bought and what people gave us for the baby, and compared to some I'm sure we have a minimal amount of stuff....but holy smokes!  The plastic!  Toys, bottles, strollers, swings, etc!  What do you other old house people do with kid stuff?  And it's not just the space issues, have you ever tried baby proofing a house that has a piece of furniture with a sharp edge on every inch of wall space PLUS hardwood floors.  Can you say giant goose egg! And there's no room to crawl and play, our tiny living room looks like a day care center all of the time because there's no place to store the toys. This is what our living room used to look like, and here it is now. Don't you just love the layered rug look? 

Anyway, it's really not that bad, but some days it's really frustrating.  We can make it work now but as the babe gets bigger (and at the rate he's growing it won't be long) we'll need to think long and hard about where we're going to live.  It's so ironic that the minute you get your house just the way you always wanted it you find it's time to move.  All I know is that if we do sell the LWB someone is going to get a peach of a house with a lot of loving care put into her restoration!