Riley was working so hard! Lol!
He actually did help but he's also a regular 10 year old boy who "requires" frequent breaks to play games on his cell phone. That is something we need to work on!
Loading the storage building took much longer than we expected. Plus we had some stuff in Apache Junction and some stuff at the house in Maricopa where we'd been staying with our roommate. So, this venture took ALL day long. And I had planned for it to take like 4 hours, haha! So we dropped Riley off at his friends house for a sleepover and headed to the farm. We unloaded in the dark, got everything IN the house or the storage items in the shop and passed out!
Then, Riley and I spent the weekend placing furniture, starting the unpacking process, etc. This is my old record player inside the front door.
This flag goes with me everywhere. It is old and tattered so it is only for indoors.
This damn giant bean bag that apparently we have to take with us everywhere. Once we got TO the farm I realized for sure that there was nowhere this would fit in the house. Riley briefly said he'd use it in his room instead of a bed but I didn't sign off on that! So it stayed on the front porch where it (sadly!) still sits today. I have recently concluded I'm going to sell it or give it away.
I'm a very organized mover/packer/unpacker. So when we brought everything in off the moving truck all furniture went, at least, IN the room where it belonged. Then all the other boxes that either didn't state what room they went in or we were too exhausted to care, went into an organized pile of rows here in the dining room. This was my "working pile" to start with the day after moving in. Each of these had been in storage 1 to 5 years so EACH had to be gone through. As well all dishes and glassware had to be washed. It was a tedious process. I had hoped to get it done in about 3 days (as I had work stuff to get back to) but it took me about 2 weeks!
The third "bedroom" in this house is super tiny. And by super tiny I mean, SUPER...TINY! This picture is of my executive style desk and it has about 6-12 inches of clearance on each side before it touches a wall!!! On the other side of this that entire wall is floor to ceiling closets or cabinets so that's great for storage. But I knew from the beginning this room would either be my office or a small guest room with a daybed. I used it for my office for the first few months and now I'm leaning towards getting a daybed for it and making it a cute room for visitors.
Tiny house storage tips! The hall bath that Riley and the visitors use is small BUT efficient! The only storage in the bathroom is under the sink and that's it. So while sorting through all my organizing treasures that had been in storage I came across this contraption I once upon a time used in my pantry. I hung it over the back of the bathroom door and put rolled up towels in it. Then I found this other little guy that I had used in the pantry to put spices in so I hooked that to it and what goes in there is Riley's items you would normally find in a medicine cabinet (b/c that bathroom doesn't have one) like his deodorant, body spray, tooth paste, etc. This way the counters are kept clutter free, there is room under the cabinet for excess towels and actual storage.
We did have a Scentsy in there but that has since been moved. I always keep a small basket on the back of the toilet for extra TP because I don't like those TP holders that sit on the ground...because they're on the ground. And after this photo I hung a cute picture up behind the toilet that reminds Riley of his morning and evening routines so he doesn't forget to brush his teeth! In the future I'd like to paint this cabinet white because the wood is super dated and worn out but for now it is totally doable.
The living room barely put together. We had this giant sectional that we had gotten when it was myself, Riley, my ex and his 4 kids and it worked perfect for a large family. It seats 8 comfortably with a chase on one end, breaks into 3 pieces and has an ottoman. When I first brought it into our small living room we left the ottoman on the porch knowing it just wouldn't fit. After this photo was taken I actually removed the chase as well so now it is just L-shaped and seats 5-6 which is still more than we need. This is an odd shaped couch for me to attempt recovering it myself so in the near future I'll be replacing it with a sofa and either a love seat or an arm chair. We don't need a ton of permanent seating and we do need floor space so the furniture itself doesn't make the room feel tiny since it's where we spend a majority of our time. I have long had a vision of a dream living room having hard wood floors, white baseboards, white window trim, painted pale walls with white furniture and white distressed wood furniture. Then the color would be infused in the room with rugs, curtains, pillows, paintings, etc. So...the sage green sofa just won't do for long. Since my home decor redo is a slow process...(still not done to date) it will be replaced when the time is right.
Some before and during pictures of the unpacking process. I'm a visual person so I often take photos of projects midway through to compare to the before's to remind me of how far I've come, thus motivating me to cross that finish line. I've done that A LOT here at the farm!
Making progress! Dining room table put together, half way through the boxes!
This was once I got ALL the boxes unpacked, the buffet in place and just had a few tubs left to sort through. I hadn't found any curtains yet and midday in June in Arizona the sun was beating through those windows like crazy. So I found sheets and blankets and threw those up over the windows for the first few weeks. It looked super corny but being IN the house and not sweating...it did the job for the time being!
Ahhhh! A complete before and after of the dining room unpacking process! Wow! I think it was 10-14 days about.
Riley man...has enjoyed exploring the property. Due to the size of the 8 acres and how so many different types of people have lived here, some with horses, some without, some with goats...oh and the fact that we don't have city or county trash out here at all so you have to burn your trash, Riley keeps finding interesting items all over the grounds. That day he had found a wood pole and wrapped a chain around it like some gladiator or something and ran around the yard swinging it at things, lol! I was just glad he was reminding me of when I was a kid growing up in the country how we'd just go outside and FIND something to do, explore, wander around. I will be glad when that is what he eventually spends the majority of his free time doing, once video games are more a thing of the past. However, since it is 2015 and I have no desire for my son to hate me or hate living in the country I am planning a slow, gradual progression for him to adjust and learn to love the country life!
After we got everything out of storage and put the items that I knew were "storage items" in the shop, this is what we had in there. Much more went in there after the unpacking was done inside because we have a lot of camping, sports and holiday decorations which all found a semi-permanent home in the shop.
This is all for now! Many more posts and photos to come as I moved from unpacking to working on the house and ever continued work on the grounds!
XoXo,
Elizabeth
