Re-Purposing!

As we launch back into renovations, we have also done some re-purposing.  I try to be as frugal as I can.  With 4 kids at home, I would rather put money into their experiences than "stuff."  Dance and piano lessons are not cheap. Neither is away camp for Rob etc.  But they are also things that enrich them far beyond any measure of money.

KC needed a head board for his bed.  He did not have one as initially his bed was in my room as I worked on getting him used to sleeping alone.  The bed having no headboard made the walk patterns easier.  When he made the leap into sharing a room with Rob, I just tucked the bed into a corner and figured he did not need a headboard.  Which he really didn't from a practical standpoint. But he looked over at his brother's headboard and suddenly thought that I was going to go buy him one.  Wrong.

However we had a storage system we were no longer using.  Three shelves high, it has 9 cubes built into it for storage.  We let him paint it in the colors of his choice.  My wife made a base for it and stuck it behind the bed. Voila!  He has a headboard with lots of storage.  The bottom 3 cubes are hidden by the mattress but 6 are available to him as well as the top of it of course.  He is thrilled.  I am thrilled.  It all cost the $4.00 for paint!

Miss Lissa needed a way to store the plethora of stuffed animals in her room. She and KC have a very grand time playing with all these little stuffed cats and dogs that my mom got them for Yule a couple years back. But they wind up all over the floor and I don't love that.  If i were to run in her room at night in the dark to help her, I would probably kill myself sliding on a stuffie!

We had another small storage unit that was supplanted by our new front hall closets.  By turning it on its side it became a low 3 bin storage center that fits perfectly under her window.  The top is almost like a window bench for her.  3 baskets tuck into the sections, one for cats, one for dogs, one for their paraphenalia.  She too got to paint it up (in her fave color pepto bismal pink!)  Less paint for this one, $2.00

So while some renovations are costing, some things are not costing anything but creativity and a bit of time.  Also they involve the kids and engage them in looking at ways that work for them so that hopefully cleaning is just a part of life and not a source of strife. (that wasn't meant to be a rhyme, guys!)