mergirl's Profile

Also--cardboard containers from six-packs of beer. Fit one delicate ornament in each compartment.

1150sf. Me, husband, two kids, cat and a dog (chihuahua). The living space is okay when it's just us, but we could use more built-ins and storage solutions. Hard to entertain due to small rooms, but we love the neighborhood, so it's all worth it.

Beer works! Just one, after you've just pumped or fed.

Hey! I know Carina! Happy Birthday, dear! Hi Yvette!

-reeve nick

I recently moved into an 1150 sf house with my husband-to-be, toddler, two cats and chihuahua and I love it. It's in a walkable part of our small New England city, just blocks from the park, a beach, restaurants, two delis and a coffee shop. We did a major renovation upon move-in, moved some walls, insulated the entire house and bought energy-efficient appliances. Our electric bill last month was about $35 (and we have 3 computers and a major stereo system) and our gas bill (for hot water, stove, and heat) was about $80. In our last apartment, our electric bill alone was $250/month.

The house is small, but it's functional. I read almost all of Sarah Susanka's books before remodeling. My family, most of whom grew up and now live in bigger, suburban houses, doesn't understand how we "do it." We have another baby on the way but we have no thought of moving because we love our house. The one thing I do miss is having a dedicated guest room, as we did in our apartment, but we are working on fixing up a sleep loft in our old attic space. The other thing we don't have is a yard, but that's offset somewhat by living 2 blocks from a huge park that overlooks the water. But someday when the neighbors move (and word on the street is that they plan to in a few years), we hope to buy their house, turn it into rental property, and use the yard as our own. You can see what we've done at 2cats.wordpress.com.

@sasharenee: We still have some of the wallpaper scraps but haven't gotten around to framing them yet. We took the walls down to the studs so that we could add spray foam insulation, so we weren't able to keep anything original up on the walls.

@FengShuiByFishgirl: Yeah! would love to do a link exchange. You mean post your link on my blogroll, right?

We used "Citrus Twist" by Mythic Paint Co. for our daughter's nursery. It was cheerful but subtle, minty but not too fresh. Everybody who walked in the door loved it.

This is a great idea--I tend to bag stuff up in whatever is available, but a dedicated bag might help with remembering to drop it off.

On a similar note, my sister-in-law has an LL Bean tote like the one pictured, monogrammed with the word "Library," for--you guessed it--all her kids' library books. Seems like a great system.

We haven't had cable now for 3 years or so and we don't own a TV. We realized that we didn't watch enough TV to justify the monthly bill. Instead, I watch shows I like (Project Runway, Lost) on the network websites or on Hulu.com. You have to wait a week sometimes, but we don't mind. My 20-month old has a few Sesame Street and Dr. Seuss DVDs that she watches on our computer, and we watch some Sesame Street videos on their website.

Every now and then I get the urge to hunker down on the couch and veg in front of the TV, but when I occasionally do this at my mom's house, I find that I can't stand the commercials and that there really isn't anything on anyway--I just end up channel surfing. I prefer the selective programming we can get online. We spend most nights blogging or working on projects around the house.

I also have a polypropylene rug. I got it when my daughter was an infant and it was soft enough for her to crawl on, and as divellent says, it's very easy to clean. But, I only spent $40 on it; it was a 5x7 from Ikea. I think $500 for this type of rug is way too much, personally. I'd rather spend that on a wool rug.