Embracing toddlerhood |

One of our favorite home improvement projects that we’ve undertaking here at 2BB was the addition of our hallway built-in bookshelves a few years ago (read more about it in this post). Not only did they add valuable and much-needed book storage to our tiny abode, I think they look super classy!

However, anyone who has a kid will know that these babies + a real baby = bad news. For those without children, let me explain: everything is at kid level, meaning any mobile child can easily go to the bookshelf and remove all the items in about 10 seconds, which, incidentally is about how long it takes a sleepy parent to get up while yelling slow-motion-style “Noooooooooooooooooo!” Not that this has ever happened here at 2BB…

Our solution had been to put up the baby gate and block off that whole area, and it worked for a while. But it also was very annoying for us to have to scale a baby gate any time we needed anything from the kitchen, dining room, or front hall closet (you can imagine the pile-up of coats that ensued due to us being unable to easily access our closet!). So we recently decided that hey, as long as we’re moving to the new house before too long, we may as well just embrace the toddler phase of our lives rather than fight it. So, we packed up all the books, moved them to the new house and instead lined the shelves with Sydney’s toys!

Here’s a close-up from the other side:

So, far all three of us are loving the new arrangement. It has made putting toys away easier for the little bean and honestly, I think it is cute!

Just curious if anyone noticed that looking down the hallway…a certain elephantine cabinet is now GONE. Yes, remember this guy? (if not, read about the frustration here.)

We had the movers move it (along with the books, and lots of other miscellaneous stuff) to the new house which has provided us with some much-needed breathing room–and our dining back!