apartment

Thanks for all your comments yesterday- it made my day to start out by fooling so many people with one simple post. Some of you were too smart, but I got enough of you for me to call our little joke a success! I know you'll be watching closer next year :)


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When we bought our house, one of the bonus features was that it had an apartment in the basement, which the previous owner had been renting out to a college student. Built-in income! It has a large bathroom, walk through closet, huge bedroom, kitchen with room for a small dining room table, and a small den. In addition to the apartment, we still have one large room open to us for a playroom for the kids, and then the unfinished portion is where the laundry is, and a bunch of open space too (full of stuff right now while we get organized).

So we thought everything through carefully, and decided to invite Jason's grandparents to rent it from us. They have been unable to be completely on their own since his PawPaw had a stroke a few years back, but for the most part they do OK taking care of themselves. The private space is the biggest benefit of our apartment for them over the other places they have lived in the past few years. They have stayed with other family but have not had their own kitchen and bathroom space. I can understand how difficult it would be to have to share these spaces indefinitely, and we are very excited to be able to give them the ability to have their own space again. This is not something we were even looking for in a home- it just happened to come along with the house we loved!

So Jason's parents were here last week from Texas and helped get the apartment ready. MawMaw & PawPaw moved in on Thursday and have settled in nicely. We are all going to have a little adjustment period while we get used to our routine with extra people around, but we are very positive about it. I am so happy that we can help them have as much independence as possible right now, and I am thankful for the opportunity for my kids to have a relationship with them. Seeing us care for our aging family members is a good example for the kids too. They seem to be enjoying their little visits down to the apartment (which often include cartoons and sweets!) and I am sure MawMaw & PawPaw enjoy spending a little time with the kids.

So here are a few pictures of the space, before we moved them in. You can see my old electric stove in the kitchen! I am going to try to take some pictures this week of how it looks now- it is amazing how much difference some furniture and a few lamps and wall hangings can make! It's quite homey.






The computer will be off today (I am posting this before going to bed, even though it is actually Wednesday it is still part of my Tuesday!) and I'll have more photos tomorrow. Happy Wednesday!