Well, the almost 3 year wait is over for the living room. At the end of last year we finally painted the room and in January an epic trip to Ikea took place so we could solve the storage problem in the room.

This picture is a small example of what the room looked like for the past few years:

Looking past the cute kids in snow clothes, you will see a portion of the 30 plastic bins we had stacked in the living room. 27 of those bins held books. The other three were Wii games and DVDs. And it was our intention from the very beginning to create a wall of bookshelves similar to the one we had in our old home. And since those shelves were built by my incredibly talented husband, we realized the time it would take for him to do a similar project would probably keep the books hidden in their bins for another year.

Enter Ikea and their Billy bookcase system. After seeing a few pinterest ideas featuring Billy and measuring our space several times, we decided the bookcases would work for our needs. D and I booked a date with Ikea (no kids, just us and the Swedish sensibility of flat packed storage solutions) and we came home with this:

A week later and Damon had managed to install all the bookcases (7 total) and a few days later the books were freed from their plastic bins, giving the space a more “living” vibe than a “storage” one. There are still a few things to do, like dressing the bookcases (knick knacks! dust catchers!) and purchasing the height extenders that were out of stock, but here is the result as captured last evening:

Eventually the keyboard will be replaced by an actual piano.

The kids’ games were in the schoolroom making a huge mess. This will be so much better. I hope.

Finally a hidden home for Wii games and DVDs.

We did have a buffet here, but it has since moved to the kitchen because it was a tad too deep. These bookshelves will have glass doors all across, once we get to an Ikea that has them in stock.

It really does my psyche a bit of good to be able to tell the kids to put something away in an actual home for a thing. Piano books go on the bottom shelf to the left of the keyboard. Nunchuks go in the green bucket in the left cabinet with the Wii games!

My goal in making this house a home is to have a place for everything and everything in its place. And in my goal quest I would say Level Living Room has been unlocked.

Yes, this is a picture of my boys putting out the trash. But what the pixels don’t show is just how eager the little one is to be like his big brother. When Fuller (now 8) was 3 he never would have heaved a bag of garbage into the can. But Tebow (now 3, going on 8) has something Fuller didn’t have- a big brother. And it makes such a difference.

It’s kind of a yearly thing for me now, the making of the gingerbread and photographing the swirls. Much more lovely than the sugar cookie dough. And if you want the gingerbread recipe, which I will swear by as the best gingerbread cookie and/ or house dough, then you are welcome to it!