Moving things around...

Mommy got a much needed day off to spend Saturday shopping with girlfriends.  We went to this town just outside of Munich called Ingolstadt. The village in Ingolstadt is known for its outlet stores, something we seem to have a plethora of in America.  Outlets are not a dime a dozen here though, so it's a big treat for Germans and tourists alike.  It was a short drive from here, and I had a great time spending the day with some friends and being "girly" in full shopping mode.

 While I was away, Big R was doing some special bonding time with little r.  Something else that tends to happen when I'm away is that Big R finds motivation to straighten or reorganize things.  I always love this about him because often he chooses to clean or tidy things up that I just haven't gotten around to.  You know, those places that are not critical so they just keep getting left behind?

So, on Saturday, Big R tackled our spare bedroom/office.  He decided it needed to be a more useable space so that I could work when I needed to.  It's true, I do tend to be slightly more productive at a desk than I am with a computer on my lap.  This room has quickly become our "place to put things that don't go anywhere else" room.  It is right across the hall from our front door, which means it is a super convenient place to put our bikes, little r's stroller, and all our other fun outdoor gear.  Now it is all organized and I have a great little comfy nook for working.

Big R also spent some time thinking of ways to improve our great room.  I like to call it that because it's a huge space and it's where we spend the majority of our time when we're home.  When we moved into the apartment, we had decided it would be best to divide the room into a reading area and a TV watching area.

It was a great idea in theory, but we were having trouble getting comfy in our TV area.  I think we had hoped we'd spend a lot more time "reading" and entertaining friends, when instead, we tend to gravitate toward the room with the tube, if you will, even if we weren't watching anything on TV.  All we had for seating was my old comfy chair and ottoman (and little r has his powang chair).  We could squish into it and get some cuddling action, but it wasn't always the most comfortable seating arrangement, and I was the one that tended to get pushed out to sit on the floor or bring one of the chairs from the other room.

We were going to buy a new couch, but we were having trouble deciding what we needed or how much we wanted to spend on a new piece of furniture.  Would it be a cheap throw-away that would do us good now? Or did we want to finally get that large sectional we had always wanted?  Big R and I had been going round and round on this for months...

So, here he is on Saturday brainstorming these ideas while little r napped and I was out shopping with the girls.  When I got home, he was all about showing me all his plans, and they were all good ones, but we were still not sure what we wanted to do.  Part of his plan was to rearrange a few things.  Before I knew it we were moving furniture around the room.  I had forgotten how fun this could be.  It's been awhile since I've lived somewhere that allowed the furniture to fit in many different configurations.  During our moving and shifting of things, we realized that it might be time to rethink the room entirely.  And that's exactly what we did...

As much as we liked the idea of dividing the room up in a modern way, we are loving how large and open the room feels now.  Not only that, but we magically have the use of our older leather couch, and suddenly the idea of a new couch or sectional seems unnecessary.  Don't you love it when that happens?

Our next big project will be our dining room.  It's a work in progress, but one that should be finished here soon.  I promise to share pictures when we have it completed...