I always felt that the space in our home was sufficient for our needs. Enter a pandemic where you can't leave the house and are stuck inside your playroom 24/7 for a year. No music class, no playdates, no playground trips. Just me, my kids, and the same playroom. EVERY. DAMN. DAY. Honestly, it was fine until the winter. The cold, snow, rain, sleet, hail that prohibited us from getting outside was bad for everyone's mood. We couldn't even get outside for an unbearable 20 minute mood change which was rough. Like many moms I leaned into screen time, messier activities that I wouldn't normally engage in, and our kids were basically hurricanes that moved from our bedroom down the hall to their bedrooms and downstairs to the playroom disrupting every moveable item in their path.
This brings me to part B of this post. We (finally) had the rest of our attic spray foam insulated. Why we didn't just do it all at once is beyond me, but when you're a new homeowner that decides to take on an addition and are hemorrhaging money you have to pick where to cut back and this is where we picked. Three years later, the attic is fully and properly insulated. I got curious and ventured where I've never been before (I don't "do" basements or attics) to check out the finished product. I have an irrational fear of mice but that's a story for another time. The ceiling height up there is pretty legit, probably not quite 8 feet in most spots but definitely decent for what I now think is found square footage. My husband and I talk about it as if we've found a buried treasure. We have a pull down attic and would need to put in a staircase to finish the attic so here we are with a meeting scheduled with an architect to potentially finish our attic into a functional third floor.
As I write this, I realize the rooms that my husband and I discussed adding up there have nothing to do with me but I hope that I will gain back my lost square footage on the main two floors. Our guest room is now a guest room/gym/office/golf simulator room. Our dining room and living room are better known as storage facilities one for some of my sister's furniture from her apartment that can't yet be moved into their house and the other a purgatory of baby gear that we no longer need awaiting its move to storage. All I'm hoping for is my guest room to be back in order.