Remodelling to make room for the little ones

We've started doing the work necessary to prepare for the kids.  Ok, some of it is for us, I guess the nesting is starting.  Stuff that we tolerated for years we're now finding better solutions for.  Like our pots and pans.  They've been haphazardly stored in a small pantry closet since we moved in, just piled on top of each other however we can toss them in there from the dishwasher.  Hubby finally got around to deciding that he'd prefer to hang them to get them out of the way and make more room for the dishes that no longer have a china cabinet to go into (more on that later).  So we got them hung, and ordered a nice new set to replace some of the slightly damaged hand me downs we've been using for years.

Once we got that hung, I got all fuzzy.  This is what our kids are going to recognize as normal even though it's new to us.  To them, this is just how it's done.

Now that the back room is going have babies in it, we've lost all storage space in the house.  So we got a contractor in to remove a china cabinet, fix a hole in the wall that we've been living with for 5 years, and create a GIANT closet.

 

China cabinet while we were moving in 5 years ago.  Hard to see but it's back there.

After pic taken from approximately the same angle

While he was at it, he also removed the wall returns that created a closet in the babies room which effectively added another 2 or 3 feet of room space.

You can see the gap in the carpet where closet walls used to be.  We're recarpeting next month.  But you can see how much larger the room is now.