Home Sweet Home
December 18, 2013 in All Posts, Parenting, Sponsored Posts
It’s been over 20 years in the making, but it’s finally happened. We just moved into our Forever House over Thanksgiving week.
It couldn’t be more fitting that we moved that week because there is so much to be thankful for. We are right next door to the house I grew up in and the children have their grandparents as next door neighbors.
Before you go thinking it’s all completely rosy (and yes, I am incredibly aware of our good fortune), the house - a cross between a hunter’s lodge and a medieval man cave - came with some “interesting” features.
Like this fabulous duck wallpaper in the kids’ room
these fit for a castle lighting fixtures
and dark, dreary wood paneling throughout (coupled with these odd quilted built-in headboards in the guest room)
A relatively inexpensive paint job saved the house in terms of these quirky features: we chose a light true grey and a refreshing mint color to brighten things up.
But certain things we needed to invest in to make the house habitable and safe for the kids. Things like proper plumbing in the kitchen (we had to get rid of a 1950’s electric stove); grounding outlets; a new water heater (the old one was about to spring a leak); and replacing a 41 year-old furnace that quit during the freezing cold spell that hit right after we moved in - stop laughing MidWesterners and East Coasters: the temperature was actually freezing!
Another thing we’ve also done to make sure our home is safe for the family is to replace all the old fire extinguishers left in the house from the previous owner and replace all the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors with new ones.
Click the photo for a larger version and visit www.worryfreealarm.com for a free downloadable winter home project checklist.
5 Home Safety Tips For Kids
Of course, during the exploration of the new house, both kids practiced how to unlock the doors to the outside themselves and I could hear them squealing with delight - down the street - each time they figured it out. I love that they’ll be okay if there’s a fire and they need to get out by themselves, but I don’t love that they could be out in the street at any time. With my parents living next door, they have an inflated sense of security, so to keep them mindful of how to stay safe, we have some “house rules.”
- Never answer the door yourself. (Even if you think it’s someone you know at the door)
- Don’t leave the house without a grown up. (Two kids don’t equal one grownup).
- Use the light switches to turn off lamps. (Instead of pulling the plugs out of the outlets).
- Memorize our new home address. (We made a rhyme out of ours).
- Don’t cook on your own. (The kids’ enthusiasm for cooking in the kitchen is fantastic, but the risk of blowing us all up is not).
Do you have any funny home safety stories or maybe some lessons we could all learn from? Share in the comments or over on our Facebook Page.
Hope you are enjoying the holidays and keeping warm and safe!
Disclosure: This post is brought to you by Kidde. We are not Kidde affiliates (meaning, we don’t receive any compensation for your Kidde purchases from the Kidde site), but we received compensation for this post, including a 10-year Worry Free Carbon Monoxide Alarm for our family’s use. All opinions are our own. Safety tips in the Home Safety Quiz are from Kidde and we disclaim any liability for Kidde’s advice. Use common sense to keep your family safe!
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Chrissy – who has written 426 posts on The Outlaw Mom® Blog - Creative Living in a Conventional World.
