Managing our 2 Bedroom House with 2 Kids

Let me start by saying that I love our two-bedroom house. It is cute and small and we are lucky to have it. There are many people who are way worse off than we are. However, managing two kids in this house takes some finagling at times! Here’s how we squeeze everything into one place!(Wow, I just spelled finagling right on the first try! 😮 )

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Our House History

We have lived in our house since we’ve been married. We actually started by renting it from my parents. (Now we own it.) They bought it before Cody and I were even engaged and they were fixing it up for other purposes, but when we started planning our wedding, we needed a place to live and they were kind enough to rent to us. Since most of the construction took place after we were engaged (at least the fun part of the construction), we got to pick out different things that we liked. Thanks Mom and Dad!

But any ways. The house used to look like this: 

Now it looks like this: 

Inside, we have an open concept living room and kitchen. The dining room table is somewhere in between the two. The back half of the house has the two bedrooms and the bathroom is between them. The master bedroom does have a walk-in closet, which is A-Mazing! However, I would not want to live in anything any smaller! I say this is as tiny as my house gets! 😀 To all those tiny housers – props to you! I couldn’t do it!

Sharing Sleeping Spaces

First off are the sleeping arrangements. Someone has to share a room! 

We have the master bedroom, Mia has her room that I decorated when I was pregnant with her, and Wyatt has been shuffled between both rooms and the living room! I would LOVE if the kids could share a room, and hopefully they will one day, but not right now!

Wyatt’s stint in Mia’s room only lasted 2 nights. It was NOT conducive to naptime with the kids going down at different times and Mia likes to sleep on her floor for some reason, and I didn’t want to step on her in the middle of the night. Our bedroom works the best for naptime, but at night, I wake up at about any noise he makes and he sleeps part of each night in our bed. But it works!

Picking the Right Furniture

When it comes down to it, we just don’t have room for large furniture! 

Sadly, Wyatt doesn’t get to sleep in the beautiful white crib that Mia had. He slept in a cradle that Cody’s dad made back in the day and it was great until he out grew it. (I even made him a cute crib sheet in my nesting phase.)

Now he sleeps in a pack and play. No one tells you that you don’t HAVE to have a crib for your baby. Maybe one day Wyatt will get to use it, but not now!

The kitchen furniture is also not large. Our kitchen table can seat 6, but it is pushed up against a wall so it holds 4. Wyatt now has residence in the high chair at meal times, so Mia has graduated to a booster seat at the table. Her seat is also a travel chair that folds up. We love bringing it to grandparents’ and on vacation as well. If need be, we could bring it out to eat at a restaurant!

The high chair is a space saver too. We have a JOOVY Nook that we love! It is easy to clean and the best part is that the tray swings open! We don’t have to find a place to put the dirty nasty tray when Wyatt is done eating. We swing it open, take him out, and clean up later. If need be, the high chair folds up really slim and could be packed away when not in use. We just use it all the time… so it stays out! 

Toy Organization

As the kids grow, they collect more and more toys. We have toys in the living room, the kitchen, bedrooms, and even the bathroom! At times it seems like they are taking over the whole house! I finally corralled most of them to Mia’s room, but I definitely have a love-hate relationship with this arrangement. I love that the house can stay clean for more than 5 minutes, but I don’t always like being holed up in Mia’s bedroom during playtime. 

To fit them all, we have some great storage solutions. Shelves galore!

My mother-in-law gave us our 12-Bin Organizer for Christmas and it has been a blessing. It was super easy to put together and fits in the closet really easily. The buckets can be taken out to play with and put back away when done. I can even shut the closet doors if I want Mia’s room to look super clean… but that doesn’t ever happen!

We have also shoved toys behind recliners, under beds, and in closets. Big messy toys only come out every once in a while, and are hidden where they are out of sight and out of mind! Else our house would always look like this: 

Rearrange and Purge!

The final way we are able to stay in our house and not go crazy is to rearrange and purge things regularly. I think sometimes it drives Cody nuts. He will come home and things will be in a different place than they were when he left! But, it helps my peace of mind.

In the process of rearranging, I always find things that can be sold, donated, or trashed. Wyatt’s baby swing? Sold! Clothes? Donated! Baby toys? Donated! The next things I need to go through are the books. 

Of course, some of the items that have more sentimental value get to stay, but if I kept them all, our house would be stuffed full! I like knowing that someone else is probably enjoying them. If we need some of these items back for future kids, we can always purchase them again, many of them second hand so we can save money. 

Thoughts and Tips?!

Well, that’s about it! My house is usually more than a bit cluttered and full of toys, but it is also always filled with love and laughter! What are some of your space saving tips? Or purging tips? I definitely need to get better at those! Leave me a comment below!

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