changing rooms

Not quite a house makeover, but we have been looking at the function of some of our rooms, and making some changes.

Our dining room is quite dark. Our dining table is used for meals (we generally eat as a family around the table), as well as homework, craft projects, reading, games, and the list goes on. All of which need light.

Our lounge room is a Spanline extension to the original house. It has skylight strips the width of the room at regular intervals, where the light comes through so brightly it sometimes looks like there are fluorescent lights turned on. It's a long room, and the television and lounges are at the widest end, which left about half the room gathering 'stuff' - it's at the front door, so things would be dumped there on the way in, and dumped there when we intended to move them out. And sometimes they just stayed there.

We cleaned it out and moved the dining table into this area for Christmas lunch with the extended family, and realised what great natural light it provides.

Of course, there's a domino effect: a lounge was moved from the new dining area into the television area, which meant the kids' computers had to be moved. There is no way they're having computers in their rooms at this age - I want them in a public area of the house for supervision - which brings us back to the 'old' dining room. It's not a big room, and contains a bookshelf, a tall triangular corner unit, and an old blue cupboard I picked up years ago at an antique shop, but it's perfect for a couple of kids' computers, and we walk past it all the time so we can keep on eye on what they're doing. It also means the computers are out of direct sight from the (glass) front door.

The husband has moved his electronics desk just around the corner from where the computers will be, and they'll all need power, so he'll install a double-sided powerpoint in the wall between them.

And that's just the beginning of the changes ...