KatieD's Profile

The empty shelves, in the kitchen particularly, are disconcerting. At least the living room shelves are beautiful and look like they are intentionally mostly empty, but the kitchen ones built in next to the fridge but holding nothing make it feel like "not moved in yet" or "short term furnished rental." I don't think it would take much to make it great though.

As a matter of fact, I have a 1970s era little person sitting right next to me. My parents kept all of ours from childhood, and my kids LOVE playing with them, despite being ages 5 and 9. The "new" ones they played with from ages 1-3, mostly as teething objects, and then were totally bored with. The parking garage and the airplane are the best, with the cars and the gas pumps on the garage and the little luggage cart. Oh, and the ferris wheel. I love that none of it needs any batteries, just wind the ferris wheel to make it go around and play music.

After owning for many years, we now rent. We're deciding on an area, and seeing what shakes out with kids' schooling locations. I'm quite happy having someone else worry about the washing machine breaking or new appliances or what have you, frankly. For now at least, it's far less stressful!

This is really lovely! It feels lived in and warm and inviting and ideal for teenagers, but at the same time design-y enough for parent tastes as well.

I like white versus stainless because they blend into the white cabinets better. I think stainless looks trendy and annoying. It has looked that way to me for at least 7-8 years. Looks like it's for people who never actually cook but think they're being cool. Real cooks and chefs I know never seem to have stainless in their own home kitchens.

Our 8 and 4 year old have shared since the second was born, although we coslept for the second half of the night for the first 2 years or so. It worked out fine for us, but only one was ever napping at a time. First the baby napped 2 naps a day, morning and mid-afternoon, and the preschooler napped once in the earlier afternoon. They would both go to bed at the same time and have the same bedtime routine. At midnight-ish, the younger would wake to nurse and I'd just bring him in our bed, so he didn't tend to wake the older. Just recently, the 4 year old told me what he misses most about his sister being at sleep away camp is whispering "I love you!" to each other in the middle of the night. I think it can work, at least for some kids!

I found that it was easier to keep cloth diapers ready to go than it was to remember to pick up disposables. Sounds ridiculous, but it was true. (We lived in a not-cloth-diaper-friendly, but secluded cottage for about 2 months with each kid; so we got to see what 100% disposable-life was like too).

Notice disposables were low, bundle up kid and trek out to get diapers. Or more often, forget until morning, suddenly realize we are on our last disposable diaper. With cloth, it was: Notice diapers are low, take whatever's in the diaper bag and throw it in the machine (ours washes and dries both). Problem solved.

I would put books along the ledge, personally. Or install a railing along the ledge and use the narrow space in between for some tall, narrow display. My grandparents house had a skinny area along the side of the stairs and then a small open area at the back of them, all with a big metal railing. As kids, we all thought it was a fabulous place for a fort/reading nook. I think they had more room to work with though.

We used a retractable gate for a similarly narrow top of a staircase at our apartment. Like this: http://www.amazon.com/Dreambaby-L820-Retractable-Gate-White/dp/B002R2BFVM It worked very well for us. At the bottom, I gated off the hallway instead of the bottom of the staircase, which had the advantage of keeping the small one from messing with the heavy outside door and the staircase both. Depending on what's on that floor, you could gate off a section of the hall rather than just the staircase.

I would love to have a room of my own, though I don't think I need a whole house! But a space to decorate and furnish independently and use as I wish would be nice. I'm not sure I'd need a bedroom to myself, as my partner doesn't snore or steal sheets or anything, but a room to be messy with craft projects, books, and papers.

Yes, Genevieve is married and has a preschool-age daughter.