The obvious part was that another of our 4 bedrooms needs to become the little girl's room. Aside from our master bedroom and Kole's room was a spare bedroom and was what being considered my 'office', and part man-cave. We quickly determined that the spare bedroom was worth hanging on to. My 'office' consisted of a computer and printer, which occupied one wall, then two walls of sports memorabilia and memories and a TV, then another w
all with a full sofa. It was quickly deemed that the 'office' was the easiest to sacrifice among the two rooms.Phase I
So the office needed to be cleared out. We could move the computer into our fairly spacious master bedroom easy enough. Martha Stewart wouldn't be impressed, but we're getting down to practicality now and not worrying about the cover of Better Homes & Gardens. Still, that left two entertainment centers holding books, a TV and memorabilia. Those were sold at a neighbor's garage sale for a total of $40. We also had a wrought iron wine rack in our dining room nook that we figured needed to go. Long ago we cleared out the hanging wine glasses, and Kole was still prone to grabbing wine bottles. With another new crawler coming, and nowhere else to put it, it was sold on Craig's List for $30. So now that left the office sofa - Kathy's long-time sofa from her bachelorette days. That was moved today to Grandma's house. There. The big items are out of Bedroom 4.
Phase II
There were still Kole toys as far as the eye could see. Toys which we now know we would rather hang on to than sell or give/throw away. Still no room. No more bedroom closets and the attic is full. So, we needed more space and made it happen with an outdoor shed. An 8'x10' (and 8' high) box in the middle of our shrinking back yard. I could essentially mov
e our garage contents there - lawn equipment, tools, etc. I already had good shelves in the garage, but they were full. Three days before we left for Las Vegas, a crew of three installed our shed bought from DFWShedCo.com, which was humbling to watch considering that at one point I thought that maybe my dad, bro-in-law and I could put up a shed purchased from Home Depot. Now, insert the image of me laughing maniacally on one knee and bracing myself against a wall. The shed was installed by three amigos, only one of them spoke English, and it took them from 7:30am to 3:30pm to completely install it. And they do this every day. Do to our HOA code, it couldn't be one of those cheap metal sheds anyway. It looks like a little house, complete with a window and shingles on the roof. Once I put everything in the garage I wanted in there, I soon realized I had much more space to spare - so down from the attic came the Christmas stuff and into the shed. Still more space to spare! And now space was opening up in the attic. Now thin
gs are happening. Yesterday I cancelled the cable box from the old office room. We have AT&T U-verse and did have their top-tier package for internet and cable. We get every movie channel ever invented, and watch one of those channels maybe once a week. If we want to watch a movie it's normally a fairly new release that we get at a Red Box DVD or something for $1. I wanted to pair down our cable movie channels. And by merely eliminating HBO and Cinemax, combined with a promotion that AT&T extended to me, along with the $7 a month I'll be saving by turning in one cable box (receiver), along with a $60 credit I was given by AT&T for not showing up on time on a service call ... with all the promotional dollars laid out, I'll pay $32 a month over the next three months for what I had been paying $119. Then it goes to $37 for the next 9 months. I did the math and I will save $1,023 off my cable bill over the course of the next 12 months. Unbelievable. Add the $70 from entertainment center/wine rack sales and I'm more than halfway to paying for the shed.
Coming Soon ... Phase III
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