As you are aware from my previous posts, our new “house” was an uninhabitable death trap. So we, when I say “we” I mean Jake, worked like a dog for 3 months getting everything ready for us to “move in”. At that time he was working his firefighter schedule, mowing 30+ lawns on his days off (so we could afford to renovate a house that was in need of THIS much work), AND trying to do all of the renovation and demo work himself. He was always working somewhere and was never home. Did I mention he is one of the hardest working men I have ever met! I’m not being all mushy… this is a true statement that anyone who knows him will strongly agree with. However, because of all the hours of work he had to put in, he was a stranger to us during this time. Inevitably, that left me pulling the weight with the kids at home while working full time myself. Not an easy time for us. We were both burning the candle at both ends.
The picture above is just about 1/3 of all that had to come out of the house just so we could begin work. Anyway, we wanted this challenging time of never seeing eachother to be over as soon as possible.
We decided that instead of us living in our house in the city until the country house was completely ready, we’d get one section “livable” so we could move in. Then we’d all just live in that section until the rest was ready and then move over the the finished part and renovate the part we’d been living in.
We would live in what would be (when renovations were complete) the dining room and the play room. This was one large room divided by a couple pillars and a two-stair step up. Jake and I moved our bed to the floor of the “dining room” along with a pack-n-play for Zander that was set up next to our bed. Then Hunter and Ryker shared one twin mattress on the floor of the “play room.” Two twin mattresses would have taken up WAY too much space and they were small enough it was not an issue. We also brought our loveseat, ottoman (which doubled as our dinner table) and TV, along with a couple of the boys’ favorite toys. This was all that would fit… The slideshow below shows what our “living quarters” looked like.
Nope, no floors, had rugs covering the plywood and old grout where we’d ripped up a bunch of old tile. We had a “slipper rule.” The boys had to wear their semi-hard soled slippers or shoes at all times when in the house. I know, looks/sounds terribly dangerous, but there were just rough, pointy spots where the unfinished floor showed through, no nails/screws/etc.
By the way, did I mention that we had a dog named Mia who also lived in this space with us… So 5 people and a dog in one room… for 4+ months. Sounds “fantastic” right! And it was getting cold outside, so the time they could spend outside was dwindling.
As you can see from the pictures, we had space, but not a lot of it. And no privacy whatsoever. I can’t say it was terrible. It was great for a while. I loved being so close to my kiddos. I think this time bonded us together in a special way. Now, having said that, I was MORE than ready to NOT have them in the same room with me 24/7 after a month of this one room living experience.
You can see, this one room was our bedroom/dining room/living room/play room. Where’s the bathroom you ask… The bathroom was another story entirely. Anyone who has boys knows that they love to pee outside. And… so if it was warm enough that day, still light out, and I was able to supervise, they just peed off the small back deck just outside the double doors that you see in the pictures above. They thought it was great!! Momma on the other hand, was not so thrilled. I do not like to pee ouside! Not my idea of fun! Before you get too worried, YES, we did have a bathroom! But… it was rather difficult to get to.
You see, we had to remove the old flooring (as in all of it, down to support beams) in the space by the bedrooms, which was where the bathroom was located. Jake had to run new plumbing throughout the entire house, so this was the perfect time to instal plumbing as it was easy to get under the house as there was NO FLOOR in this section! Now, the crawlspace under the house was sealed very well around the outside of the house so we did not have to worry too much about critters getting in… or so Jake told me. I did not believe him… For me, it was still pretty creepy. I mean you could see the dirt crawl space and it was just completely exposed to the inside of the house… I was always scared that when I used the bathroom in the middle of the night, that some sort of rabid raccoon or something was just going to pop up out of there and come running after me!
As I said, no floors, support beams only! We had to use wide wood planks laid across the beams to get down the hallway to the bathroom. To use the bathroom, we literally had to “walk the plank” into the bathroom. It was not a short section either. Probably 10 feet down the hallway and another 5 feet to the bathroom. Did I mention, at this time, the boys were 1, 4, & 7 years old. Seriously, this was an accident waiting to happen… The two older boys thought it was great! They pretended they were pirates or in the circus and a variety of other games with it. However, this terrified the protective Momma that I was. I mean can you imagine if they had slipped off the side of the board and down into the crawl space. Yea, yea, yea… it was only a 2 foota drop, but it was gross and dirty down there! And they could have hit their head or broken something… I watched and walked with them every time they had to use the restroom. Anyone who has ever had small children knows that this consumed most of my time at this point. Especially because it was now “fun” to go the bathroom. Every 5 seconds… One (or both) of the older boys: “Mom, I have to pee…” I’d ask if they were sure, and of course, they always had to go “really bad” and I don’t know about you, but I HATE cleaning up accidents in clothes. It quite possibly could be the grossest thing ever… So I took them, EVERY… SINGLE… TIME… As you can imagine, the baby, a 1-year-old, wanted to go too. I got away with carrying him the first few times, but then he wanted in on the “fun.” He wanted to walk by himself. I don’t know about your kids when they were 1, but mine did not like to be held, they wanted to “walk” on their own everywhere! A one-year-old on a plank with a 2-foot drop… not my idea of fun!
Soooo… we built a baby gate large enough to go across the doorway into the “unsafe” part of the house and that was where he stayed when the other boys and I went to the restroom. Of course, this did not go over well at all. He knew where we were going, and he wanted to go! Every single time anyone had to go to the bathroom, he cried and screamed at the top of his lungs standing at that gate. We had 4 MONTHS of this, though the floor was fixed, with subfloor installed, after the plumbing was complete, it was still not safe for a toddling 1-year-old. You better believe that as the screaming commenced every time he got left in behind that gate… I felt like actually “walking the plank” on a real pirate ship might be a more delightful experience than leaving him to go to the bathroom. You’d be amazed at how long I’d hold it just so I didn’t have to hear the screaming… I believe any mother would’ve done the same!
Stay tuned for the next part of our small quarters adventure. A bit more comical… “Shhh… you’ll wake them up!” Trust me, this is one you won’t want to miss!
Stilettos & Muck Boots 
Ok, this was worse then I was lead to believe. Lol!!
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