I showed pictures of our empty basement last week when I shared plans for the boys’ playroom.  I finally got down there with my camera and took some pictures of how the spaces look now. We’ll start in the main room of the basement – the family room.  (Not to be confused with the living room upstairs.  We decided to keep that room, the one off the kitchen, TV-free and just for human interaction!) The basement family room/TV room is for hanging out, TV watching, games, playing, etc.  At first, it felt odd not having a TV in the room right off the kitchen.  I think we’ve always had that scenario in our homes & apartments.  But, I love it this way.  It’s more peaceful upstairs.  The noise of the TV can be contained and conversations can take place in one area while movies can be playing in the other.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  We had absolutely perfect fall weather here in south central PA and we took advantage of it.  We have needed to get some things done around the house, so we had a Parsons’ family workday.  The four of us worked together to clean the basement workshop, the shed, and the yard.  Jeff got a fire going in the fire pit and we burned all of the scrap wood in the workshop, last year’s Christmas tree that was sitting in the compost heap, and he decided to literally chop the rotting playground into pieces and burn that as well.  We have a pile for Craiglist, a pile for the trash, and a tidy shed and workshop to show for our hard work. Towards the end of the day, as Calvin and I were sweeping up the last of the sawdust, he looked over

Many people have asked about the fate of the leather sofa and for a few more details about why I swapped it out, so I thought I would answer that question in a post, especially for those who are weighing their sofa options for a purchase. The leather sofa is the Brooklyn leather sofa in Toffee from Pottery Barn.  I bought it a few years ago using gift cards, redeemed credit card points, and profits from things I purged from our house.  (If you’re interested, you can read the details on that HERE.) We love that sofa and the recent switch doesn’t have anything to do with not liking it. Earlier this year, I rearrange the furniture in the family room.  All four of us had been sitting on the leather sofa together when we watched movies and, with two growing boys, it was feeling a little tight.  I knew