CHANGE IS GOOD

WINTER IS ALMOST OVER. I am so delighted about that. For me, the very best part of winter has always been THE OFFICIAL END OF IT. (Some marriages are like that, too...)

After a few nice days -- and some crocus action -- I open some windows to freshen the house. Then I start to feel an itch... Mom loved to move the furniture around with the seasons. I do, too. AND you know how much I love to change my rugs. AND I love to change the bedding with the seasons.

We have two bedrooms and a bath upstairs and two bedrooms and a bath downstairs. The smallest room in the house, the little downstairs bedroom has been magical changeable space. Over the years, that room has has been whatever we needed it to be.

When we moved into the house, it was the nursery we brought Elliott home to...

When he moved upstairs, it became my sewing room. Then, when I opened my store, I was doing all my sewing there so it became John's Den.

After the boys moved away from home, John moved his den to the much larger upstairs bedroom -- and the little room became my office. My cousin Jackie and I made the black and white tile board so my chair could easily roll from the computer over to the embroidery machine.

When Lillian was born, it went back to being a baby's nursery...I loved doing the starch fabric on the wall...







Lilly is four now. The youth bed has been replaced by a twin bed...

When Mary Mulari comes for her visit -- because Ross is living in her former guest room -- Mary will stay in the little room...and I need to make room for Mary's suitcase.  Then I realized Lillian is not a baby or a toddler. The room needs to be changed for HER.....Again...

And then I started thinking -- The actual value of this little room is the very fact that IT CAN CHANGE. It's not like a kitchen or a bathroom. It is flexible space and I have always been able to change it to serve the CURRENT NEEDS of our family. As small as it is -- the WHOLE HOUSE WORKS BETTER because of it.

But -- Lillian loves her room JUST THE WAY IT IS. She will NOT want that bed moved to the other side of the room...it will annoy her if I move the bookcase... people hate change. Because change is hard.  We love a routine.  We do many things simply because it's what we know...and we are COMFORTABLE doing it.

BUT it is definitely TIME FOR A CHANGE. So I called my once-a-week-house-manager -- Carrie. And scheduled an extra day. There is gonna be some heavy lifting, people...

AND I believe the lesson here is that CHANGE IS GOOD....this is what the room used to look like....


Trust me, Lillian...YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE THE BIG CHANGES....