Stair Cubbies...and other exciting things

I remember that in late May someone asked if summer was our busiest time of the year. I quickly denied it, thinking about all that happens throughout the rest of the year and how CEF is so much more than just a summer ministry. However, now that Labour Day weekend has arrived and I have finally breathed again, I think 9 months of time fades the memory. If someone were to ask the same question today or over the past 3 months, I would have agreed. Yes, summer is our busiest time...well until fall rolls around that is. What a blessing to see all that God did this summer. He is so marvelous! We are so blessed to be able to be apart of what He does. It never seems like enough however. Since we have a newsletter about summer close to being send-able I'll share some house updates.

Entry Way Issues
Since we built our house a little different than we originally planned we've been struggling to figure out the best way to make our entry way work. When your house isn't that big you want to be sure and use every space to max. I had a really cool idea and David worked out the plans for pull-out drawers to the side of the stairs. But, the more I thought about it I realized how much space would have to be available for the drawers to work.So I've been chewing on it for the last while and came up with a different idea.

Here's the "Before" picture, although it's not a true before picture since all the stuff thrown behind the stairs was removed and looking half decent.

 My idea was for stair cubby holes. The last few months I've been storing my shoes under the bottom step to get them out of the way and eventually realized could work for all of the stairs...if the brains and brawn in the family could figure out how to do it. Once again, David came through!!

 After cutting all the boards for the extensions and putting plywood behind it all...it's complete!

 I LOVE IT!!! Our shoes are out of the way and we have 12 more steps worth of storage for guests, mittens, etc.

 Don't they look so cute hiding under there?

 We I ended up deciding that a coat closet beside the stairs seems to be the best place for it. This closet/entry thing has been the hardest decisions for me out of the whole house. It seems a little ridiculous. =] I guess we'll try this and see how it works. It's hard to tell right now as we aren't wearing coats yet. Yay! But alas I know the day is coming very, very soon.

The Basement
 The closet isn't the only thing that has been framed-in in the basement. David's finished framing in everything now!!!

 This is his workshop (slightly bigger than our upstairs living room). He claims he needs space for all these projects he's working on. =]

 There's a hallway now! The workshop is to the left, stairs are the the right, laundry straight ahead.

 Here's the laundry room.

 The bathroom-to-be.

 The basement bedroom-to-be. Storage stash for now.

In front of the workshop will be a living area/music area/playroom for foster kids.

 Moving back by the front door/stairs is our office-to-be off to the right. The room that has to be finished before we can have foster kids. (Since our office is in the spare bedroom upstairs and therefore we have no bedroom.)

 Another long awaited project was the hanging and framing of our bathroom mirror. Yahoo!! The frame still needs to be sanded and painted again...but it's up!!!!