Gary’s parents have been visiting for the past week and Gary and Tom (his Dad) have been working some magic in our lovely but small cottage. We live in what is essentially a two bedroom 200-year-old cottage. Gary and I sleep in what was the office down stairs, the four girls sleep upstairs in one room and T sleeps in his own smaller room upstairs. We lack space of any kind really. We have no garage or roof space so have nowhere to store anything. However one peculiarity of our cottage is its large hallway. This hallway is thin leading from the kitchen but extends to a larger area to the back of the house. As we are a large family of seven it is vital we use every spare inch. It is this area we changed into a school room. However, since then the need for an extra bedroom has surpassed the need for a school room so we made the decision to change the school room to a bedroom for the little girls.
Gary had already closed off the narrow area with a new door way:
This left a good-sized space the other side:
The door at the back is our bedroom door.
The boys got to work, swiftly constructing the new wall. This wall would create a bedroom behind it, whilst keeping enough room an office and smaller hallway in front of it:
Then it was my turn to hang some curtains, cover mattresses and put on new duvet covers and pillow cases. We already had some really thick, warm, green velvet curtains which had belonged to Gary and I in the early days of our marriage. They had been passed on to T13 until we bought his star ones last week. The little girls had chosen (with some help and guidance) a woodland theme and these curtains were perfect! They need to be shortened which I shall do soon….
Gary and his little helper,B3, brought the girls’ bunk-beds down stairs and rebuilt them in their new room:
And here they are all made. We had spent some of the girls’ Christmas money on a light each above their head, so A6 can read without disturbing B3. Here Gary is putting them up:
And the final room:
The other side is not quite ready yet but I am hopeful that we will have it tidy with their toys organised by the weekend:
We had also sent off for a beautiful owl night-light, but it hadn’t arrived yet. Instead we used some led fairy lights wrapped around the bottom of the bunk. It looked warm, homely and the little ones could not wait to go to bed!
The room is very little, and we have to walk through it to get to ours, but for the two girls it was like we had handed them a palace, they were so happy.