I have this thing about storage; I have a thing about living space and I have a thing about walkways. Well...I have lots of things about things, but specifically, I like to have a reasonable amount of storage for any location in which I live.
When I moved into my first house--a townhouse--I had closets and one of those pull-down attic stairs things. The attic had space that was hardly high enough to crawl into and there was no light, but it provided storage for infrequently used things like childhood memories and seasonal decorations. In the closets and other storage areas I put other things that I didn't want out and visible all the time. That first house had a good amount of storage given that it was a small townhouse and it fit my needs perfectly.
When I bought my next home, It had an attic I could walk up to from the bonus room. Walking into an attic is sheer heaven to me. It's easily-accessible storage space and so I put many more things there that I might have otherwise kept in a closer location. I had office supplies and paperback books and puzzles and many other things that didn't need to be in a temperature-controlled environment. It was great.
The home we live in now also has a set of stairs leading to an attic that is in reasonable proportion to the size of the house. We have room to grow both two children and the stuff they seem to generate as we move through the years. Storage space is important to me.
What I don't understand is people who want to "finish" all the storage space in their home into rooms. Attics can be turned into media rooms and garages can be turned into offices and you can take unfinished storage and make it into a sewing room, but then what do you have left to store all your accumulated junk in?
We have a neighbor who has a very large attic that is proportional to his house. With all the construction going on in our neighborhood, he's been going through the designated trash piles for extra cast-off wood. He has collected lots of wood. It is quite impressive.
He gave me a tour of his house a while back and showed me all the work he was doing personally to finish off the rough areas of the home. Every space in the basement that wasn't filled with a hot water tank or ventilation tubing was designated for this or that general living area space like an extra bedroom, bathroom, game room and media room. Then he took me to his attic. He was converting the vast majority of the space into a suite for him and his wife so that his mother could move into the main master. But...he was building a nice loft above in the top of the attic space. Oh, I thought, that's where he's going to put all his long-term storage. But no, that was going to be a sitting room.
He's not the first person I've spoken to with aspirations to finish off so much of their home's storage. I value my storage space and the ability to access any items in storage too much to want to sacrifice it to some use-specific room.
The Big Boy Update: While we were out at a school function the other night my son wanted to go find us. He looked all over for us and after being gone for some time, Uncle Jonathan went to find him. He was lying under the bumper of the car in the garage, seeing if we were hiding there. Uncle Jonathan told him about how that wasn't a safe place to hide. Scary times!
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: The flight of the balloon. She accidentally let a helium balloon go on the deck yesterday. It was almost flat so it rose very slowly. She wanted it to come back. Then, she wanted to let more balloons go.
Fitness Update: Nine miles today as a half-distance run in preparation for our eighteen mile run on Sunday.
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