You may remember that our home is currently split into two separate apartments. We currently occupy the first floor and the basement; while someday we hope to make it back into one house and utilize all of the space for our family, for now we make it work and I think we do it fairly well.

It takes creativity to have four people live in approximately 700 sq. ft. (plus the basement), and it takes some time to figure out the best way to arrange things. We’ve been here 2.5 years and I’m still always thinking of new/better furniture arrangements. 🙂 Everything must be multi-functional in order to live comfortably.

One of the things we (by we, I mean my dad) did to make the living room (which had been split in half with a wall and a door to create a bedroom) more functional was to put in french doors. In the future, it can just be part of the living room/an office and not a bedroom, but it is currently the boys’ bedroom.

Until last weekend, the living room was also their playroom (which is fine, as we do not believe children should be confined to a separate space – this is their home, too, plus, how?).

We wanted to make better use of our available space so we took down the huge crib (where Caleb had been sleeping) and added another Pack-n-Play (with a good mattress, like Isaiah has been using).

This allowed us to move their play area into their room and make it an even better living situation for us all!

We also have a reading station and a music station in the living room, as well as other bigger toys (currently these tunnels) for them to enjoy.

They carry their toys from room to room and it’s never this clean (I quickly tidied up to be able to take a decent picture!), but that’s okay. We wanted them to feel free to have fun and to play wherever they want, safely. Toddler life is not a tidy life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

While it isn’t always easy to live in a small space, it is possible, and it is worth it. It’s saving us money, helping us become debt-free, and it’s forcing us to be thoughtful about using every inch wisely. And there’s less space to clean 😉