Shipshape!

“ship·shape

adjective \ˌship-ˈshāp, ˈship-ˌ\

: clean, neat, and tidy : organized and in good condition”

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shipshape

When you live in a smaller home you must think like those who live aboard a ship sort of; that is never bring anything aboard or into your home unless you know where it will be going and when something goes in something has to go out.

After downsizing so many years ago we have adjusted to that way of thinking, although, at times life’s changes makes you reevaluate when your shipshape has become a bit too much of saving things again.

We have owned homes from five and four bedroom homes with nearly four thousand square feet space to this our tiniest home, hovering at about one thousand square feet and that includes our renovations, it was under 800 square feet when we bought it sixteen years ago.

When we moved from our largest home we had given our sons nearly everything from that home’s rooms…down to even the pool table and piano, fifteen foot sectional, den furniture, dinning room and kitchen, their bedrooms of course as well as whatever they wanted etc.

Well, now our eldest is moving and he is re-bestowing some of what we had given to him back to us, and so Hubby and I are in relocate and purge modes; for me my closet, and for Hubby the sheds.

A pine high boy that I love was in his room, an ice box style end table in oak, an oak china closet that worked in one home as part of a wall unit then later on due to the glass half front as a china closet in our dinning room, as well as a small birch dresser from our guestroom that has a matching mirror that he already had brought down and has been adorning our living room for the last few weeks.

He is our Number One Son who has sold his home and at his older age of forty something has decided to buy a live-aboard sail boat and try marina life. He does have a girlfriend but they are not married and they do go on a whole bunch of cruises so I suspect this might be one of the reasons why he felt now was the right time to try a slightly more adventurous lifestyle. PS she has her home still, where he will be sharing till he finds the right one…sail boat that is. He closes on the sale of his home in only about two weeks!

PS we have been boaters longer than he has been alive, so he knows what to expect, somewhat, anyway Hubby has his captain’s license and is a retired marine patrol officer to help him prepare for his own testing which Hubby gave him all the books already.

So today Hubby and I have been prepping for those items for indoors, that’s my job, but Hubby has moved things around for tools and stuff in our sheds and garage that Number One wants to keep, as well as a whole bunch of bins with this and that’s.

Meanwhile, I will be taking that small dresser to reorganize my closet and that is what I was doing making room for it. The beautiful pine high boy by will fit nicely as an additional storage in our guestroom and a space for their clothes when visiting. The glass front oak china closet will do fine in our sunroom, just displacing a tall natural wicker and glass shelved étagère that is in its future corner! The icebox end table will be going where one portion of my three stackable tables was standing at the one side of the sofa with a basket of magazines, now it will go back to its cluster with the other two, and a proper end table will reside in its space.

There you have it, making room for things before they arrive; thankfully we were given their dimensions beforehand.

So even though we were home today we were busy.

Hope your home is as shipshape as you want it to be.

So on that note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!