the kid room

Well I lost my dinning room. Yep it's gone. GONE GONE GONE. And believe it or not I am OK with that.You see when we found out I was prego with baby Helen, I had a panic attack. I mean I thought I was GOING to have a panic attack for sure. I just couldn't wrap my head around 5 kids in our current house. It has 3 bedrooms, an office we made into a 4th bedroom, a tiny family room, and I could go on and on about why we needed a bigger house with 5 kids, but the reality is our home is perfect for us. Yes it tight with 7 people, but we love our neighborhood, we love our house, and it gives me an excuse to purge like crazy! And sometimes on the journey through life we learn the most when we are forced to be happy with what we have. The "when this happens" game robs us of joy today in the moment. I decided I wasn't going to play that game. It was time to choose change, and that change meant learning to be content TODAY.So out with the dinning room furniture and in with my grandmother's couch (it was free! but not my style so I threw some dark gray king blankets over it for a quick slipcover) and in with our kid craft table and all the markers and crayons, and of course a green plant or too :)This space is used as a craft room for my super crafty artsy kids, a place to home school, and a place to chill and watch a movie. Everything in this room we already had in the house so it was a FREE redo! Woohoo! I have plans to update it, but for now it works perfectly.Once we decided we would stay put when Helen arrived, it was freeing in a way, and it became a game....fitting the family in the house without it looking stuffed and crowded. I wanted to give the big girls their own space to "tween," the boys a space to be crazy (hence the reason we don't have a coffee table in the living room as it would hinder wrestling matches), and over all more space for us to hang out as a family.Our family just works better when we spend time together. We don't have to be at Disney or whitewater rafting to bond. Honestly our best moments happen organically...at home....when we have nothing planned whatsoever.By changing the dinning room to a "kid room" or really just another hang out space kid or not, it gave our family more space to be together.My dinning room hutch once filled with china now houses, stickers, puzzles, video games, school supplies, and whatever else my munchkins need to be creative.I guess what I really want to share with you in this post is this....don't be afraid to go against the grain. If something in your home or your life for that matter isn't working for you, CHANGE IT! Just do it! You will feel so good! I promise :)So thanks for stopping by friend. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment...what fun and daring thing have you done recently to go against the grain?Marianne