Personal Space

In our home, where 9 occupants reside, it's not usually easy to find. The Deutschlets LOVE sharing rooms. In fact, we have 3 bedrooms available for kids, but only 2 are occupied - 1 for the boys, 1 for the girls (leaving one open for highly anticipated future blessed ♥ additions.)

Below are the boys' beds. Cool, aren't they? The talented handyman of the house built them. Onyx sleeps on the top bunk, Tyden and Flint's beds are each in the middle, and Stryder's is on the bottom. Right across from the beds there is a bookshelf and a dresser. 1 dresser. Then, there is a closet. 1 closet. At this stage, the kids still assert that sleeping alone qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment executed by only the harshest parents alive. I'm sure one day that will change and the handyman will have to build an 8 bedroom house, right after he wins the handyman lottery. ☺Until that celebratory moment in time, when confetti falls from the sky and a giant check is signed over to the handyman himself prompting long lost relatives to come crawling out of the woodwork begging for money, everyone is happy this way.
Except for the fact that there WAS no where for the pint sized people to place their junk precious prized possessions.....

Until now.

Children tend to gather stuff, right? You know, the items they lay claim to that are uniquely and solely THEIR OWN personal effects, to be guarded fiercely with strong threats of scratching an unsuspecting siblings eyeballs out if they dare to TOUCH the stuff belonging to THEM ALONE.
When 4 small, grabby roommates share the same space containing only 1 dresser and one closet, it can prove very difficult to find safe spots for that kind of treasure.


I saw the idea somewhere, on someone's blog, which I'm having trouble remembering, (if it was you, thank you!) to use rain gutters as shelves for books. This way books can be placed facing forward, making them more appealing for little hands and eyes, which will surely prompt hours of spontaneous reading, resulting in a house full of young Einsteins. What a great concept! Since we don't care enough about reading to use them for that I thought they would make nice shelves to place on the walls near the munchkin's beds to store all of their coveted booty.

Handyman and I went to Home Depot on a date night because we are wild and crazy like that, and we bought gutters and 14 end caps. Then, the handyman cut them into 2 foot sections, glued the ends on with some fancy, industrious, gutter glue or something....and wala! Adorable little shelves for each child in our home, allowing 24 precious inches of personal space. Don't they look remarkably nice for plastic gutters?

Since they are curved, they actually hold quite a lot and the goodies don't just fall to the floor, becoming lost. Because everyone knows lost stuff is material for brotherly blame and subsequent eye scratching. (((He tooooook myyyyyyy stuuuuuuff!)))  Here is Tyden's stocked shelf:
I can only imagine the specialness contained inside the pages of that green and white notebook.

Oddly enough, these shelves fill my heart with pure giddiness.
You just never know where happiness will be hiding -
it could be right along with your kids' priceless treasures.