All those people, and that small space

I'm not the only one going through what I am. In fact, I have a friend whose husband was just assigned to a very interesting command which is located in Miami. This is every single troop's dream assignment, but for someone with a wife and four kids, it's harder to manage due to the cost of living compared to where they're stationed now, North Carolina, where houses are big and cheap, like most places that aren't Miami. This friend has just signed the lease on a 2 BR/2 BA condo. Is this starting to sound a little familiar?

Anyhow, just like me, she's annoyed with people questioning her as to whether 2 BR's will be enough since they have 4 kids (lucky for them, all girls. Since some of them are older, like middle school age, it's easier for room sharing if they are all the same gender.) The thing is, whether it's enough or not, it's what they can afford, just like it's what we can afford since we still have a lot of remnants of our old life, which continue to cost money for now (Two car payments, I'm looking at you). It is enough, because it has to be. It'll work because it has to. Plain and simple.

Everyone wonders HOW it works. I did, too. Trust me, until we spent a week holed up in a 1 BR place in Savannah (with a few nights in regular hotel rooms thrown in there nightmarishly, and yes I know that's not a word) I had no idea how I'd function with less than 3 bedrooms. I have three kids, ranging in age from almost 9 years, to 10 months. Sure, having the boys share a room is a no brainer, but Erin sharing with Orren is not considered universally ok, even though that's exactly what they did in TX, by choice. Then when we moved, and we stayed in the 1 BR corporate apartment in Savannah, we learned how to pack our big family into a small space, and it occurred to me that people all over the world do that exact thing every single day, and think absolutely nothing of it. After that, a 2 BR apartment for 5 people really isn't that tall an order. The stuff we have is a totally different story. My patio is still a complete disaster. We're just talking about the people right now, though, not our lack of a garage. That's a story for another day.

The one thing I have to say is that living in small spaces with a lot of people is diametrically different from the average American lifestyle of our generation. Our culture has created people who like personal space and lots of it. Living like this, that goes away completely, though. There's no slamming the door in your brother's face and locking him out of your room, because your room is his room, too, and it's also the baby's, because his toys are in there, and he plays there a lot, so if you have anything that's a choking hazard (as all 8-year-old girls do... beads, rhinestone stickers, Barbie shoes...) then it needs to stay off the floor. This space isn't just yours, and you have to consider everyone else. Personal space becomes small. A top bunk, some dresser drawers... it'll suffice, though. Surely, there are people who do fine with less.

In this kind of spaces, you have to get creative with furniture, too. We knew we were going to have to have bunk beds in order for the kids' room to work. We ended up getting a set with drawers in the stairs, and were able to eliminate a dresser that way. Do you have any idea how much space it opens up when you only have to fit one dresser and a bunk bed in there? It's like there's only one kid, but really, you've got 3 kids' worth of stuff, and 2 kids who actually sleep in there. Believe it or not, there's a ton of space left over after all this. That's good, because these kids have a lot of toys. Two houses ago, they had a play room in addition to their bedrooms. Let's just say our collection of toys reflects this. We are able to fit them all, neatly, into the kids' bedroom, on shelves and in the closet, due to space conserved through the use of bunk beds and keeping it to only one dresser.

As for our room, it's cramped. We had planned on getting a bigger bed since we always end up with at least one of the boys sleeping with us, many times both of them, and our bed is a Full. We wanted to get at least a Queen, preferably a King, but in our room, with our bed, two nightstands, our large dresser, Chai's crib, and our rocking chair, nothing else would fit. We literally have wall to wall furniture in our bedroom, so we make do with what we have for now. Yes, it means that a lot of times, we wake up with Chai's feet in our eyes, and that Orren literally sleeps ON Thak when he decides to join us. Sometimes it means I sleep at the foot of the bed because Chai likes to sleep starfish style, and he takes up my whole side like that. We make it work, though. We haven't died of exhaustion yet.

Honestly, everyone wonders about the sleeping arrangements, but I find the lack of linen closet and laundry room, and the tiny kitchen, far more challenging. (We do have washer/dryer hook-ups, but they're just in a closet in the hallway, so most of what I usually put in my laundry room had to be relocated.)

Oooooh! Let's talk about that for a minute! After having had a pretty good yield (by which I mean an epic haul) on my wedding gift registry, and then being an NCO wife for seven years and going to all those in-home parties, basket bingos, and charity auctions, I have a ton of kitchen stuff. Tons of it. My kitchen now, though, is as small as the one in my old on-post place at Ft. Stewart, and if you ever saw that, you know, it was ridiculously small, like the kitchen in the apartment I lived in when I was a freshman in college kind of small, ok? So that's what I have now, after years of really nice big kitchens, with separate pantries, and tons of cabinet space, and storage for the appliances I rarely use, but just don't want to get rid of (fondue pot and juicer, I'm looking at you). So here, I've got to shove the proverbial 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound sack. So what did I do? OK, first off, I used this as my final bargaining chip to convince Thak to let me get rid of the microwave. I never use it, and I've been wanting to just get rid of it for years now, because it just takes up a ton of counter space that I could use for something else. He didn't like the idea, but now, seeing how little kitchen space I have, he finally saw it my way, and the microwave is gone. This freed up a ton of counter space. Now, if I can only convince him that we only need one coffee maker. As for all my pots, pans, baking accessories, and obscure gadgets, they've all found homes in drawers, cabinets, and the top shelf of the tiny pantry. I've had to use literally every inch of cabinet space available, and I dread the day that I need to unearth my muffin pan, but after getting rid of some unused appliances, especially one enormous microwave, it's feasible to fit all this stuff, in that tiny space.

Going without a linen closet and laundry room is harder. What I did was take my craft shelves (because hey, I don't have a craft closet anymore either) and set one up in the kids' bathroom for all the kids' linens, and one in our bedroom for all of our linens. Blankets had to be shoved in the tops of closets, even though they hardly fit along with everything else that had to be shoved into the tops of closets, but we made it work (so far. I still have one more box of blankets.) The flats I use for cleaning found a new home in the kitchen. The cats' litter box is in the kids' bathroom, which is good, because that's more incentive for Thak to actually scoop it once in a while. Rooms are packed pretty tight, but as long as it's neat and organized, it'll work fine.

I think that's the key more than anything else. These kids have to learn to keep this place neat and organized, because it'll become a complete disaster in about half a second if one person decides to just make a giant mess and leave it. In a way, that's a good thing, because I've been trying for years to impart that lesson. With so little space, they have to learn it.

Now, to be sure, there's still a disaster on my patio, including an extra refrigerator that needs to get on craigslist, and there's a stack of toughboxes in my dining room that's probably not going anywhere, but it'll work. To be honest, aside from the garage stuff debacle, I'm surprised by how well we have managed to fit our big family into this little apartment, and how not bad it really is most of the time.

So, for my friend about to move to Miami, yes, 2 BR's are enough. You're gonna be fine. Just, try to talk the husband into disappearing as much of the garage stuff as possible BEFORE you move. Everything else is a lot less scary than it seems. I promise.