Working for us: how we make a small space work for a family of 6

When we decided on Catholic school for our kids our dream of living in a big house was put on hold indefinitely.  Honestly this was hard for me at first. I spend the most time at home and it is my job to make our space fun and comfortable to live in. But with the arrivial of number four we were starting to get super crowded and overrun with kids toys and "junk".  Once Cameron started school I was at such peace with our decision and have never looked back. This doesn't mean that some days I want to scream and run to the closet and hide, but I am happy so I wanted to start to make our house work for us.

My first project was to get the toys back to the kids rooms. We had previously had a "bonus space" (a tiny enclosed porch) that was the kids playroom/office. This resulted in toy constantly in the living room and the kids constantly in the living room. I will say I solved one problem....the toys, however for some reason it is a battle to get the kids to play in their rooms. 

Desk and toy shelf. Huge windows which I love because of the light. I would also recommend NOT having a glass desk with little ones around, that thing is LONG gone.

Yucky off white walls (always look dirty to me)

I must add rarely did it look like this. These are pictures I found on my phone when we were trying to sell our home.

I will go into this more when I talk about the kids spaces but it is important to note that my kiddos do not have a ton of toys. They have toys but I only keep things long term that they love and are durable. I have found that 1. they don't need too much. 2. We aren't home enough for them to play much anyway 3. If you live in 1500sqft it is easy to get overrun with toys.

Here is our new office space, which also hold some of Elijah's big toys. I cannot stand clutter but I remind myself that an exersaucer and swing are temporary and a sign of new life so I manage.

We desperately need to update these pictures but we "won" a photo shoot at an auction and it cost us $700, so they have to be on a wall somewhere FOREVER or my husband will never let it go!

This corner desk was going to be thrown out at Ryan's work so we got it!

Swing, Exersaucer and Bumbo for Elijah

I love working in a clean space and this space is easy to keep clean because everything at the desk has a place. I used a glaze on the walls and I am excited to try this again in other places of the house. The light that comes in from the huge bay windows allowed me to go dark with the walls. This space is so tiny and skinny measuring maybe 100 sqft. It is small but easily my favorite, this is where I blog, sew, edit and watch my kids play in the backyard. 

If we didn't have this bonus space I don't know what I would do! It was a major selling point for us when we just had one kid and now with four I am so happy that we have it.