Downstairs - before

Due to the shelves I spoke of here, we were able to reorganize the main areas of our downstairs this week. Getting all those boxes out of the main living area meant I was able to tidy everything up, vacuum, and now it's suitable for the kids to play in. It has basically doubled the amount of space the kids have to play in and I find they're getting bored less now that they have access to this space and the toys that are in it. Since the weather has been so bad the past few weeks it's great that they can amuse themselves indoors.

Here is a picture from the bottom of the stairs looking ahead and to the left:

Isn't the carpet lovely?? That's on our list to be replaced, as is the ceiling and paneling on the walls. Since that will obviously take a while, I've decided to try and keep the space as livable as possible until we get to this section.

Here's a view from the same spot looking ahead and to the right:

The door at the far end of the picture is to my cold room (which I love!) and if you look closely past the first post you can see into the bedroom. The bedroom has lovely carpet like the family room except it's green :) If I turned right from this picture and went towards the other end of the house I would hit the bathroom (that still looks as it did here).

And here is a picture if I turn left at the bottom of the stairs and look back toward the other side of the house:

At the very far end on the left of this picture you can see a door. That is the door to our laundry room. The piles of things at the end are the rest of the boxes that have to be unpacked from the move, some stuff for the garbage, and some for the salvation army.

Overall the downstairs is laid out pretty well for our uses, it just needs some major updating.

The plan right now is to rip out the rest of the ceiling next. The wiring down here is very bizarre and we want to get a good picture of everything so we can fix it properly. Then we will finish the bathroom and I'm not sure where we're going from there. Probably walls and then floor, but probably not all at once.