With the arrival of Spring come the long list of DIY projects to help you get ready for the summer! This year, our list of projects is a bit longer than usual as we get ready for our first borns graduation from high school and our second summer living in the manse! Since we use our home as an extension of our ministry, we have planned for a few projects that will allow us to comfortably welcome friends and family into our home.

Over the next couple of weeks we are hoping to accomplish some necessary spring cleaning and DIY projects as we prepare for the summer ministry season. One of our first projects is to construct a new loft bed for one of our boys.

Our home is small, but we are working to make it as comfortable for our family as possible. Right now, we have all the kids doubled up in the bedrooms we have. Two of our kids sleep in a room in the basement while our youngest two (brother and sister) share a room on the first floor. But lately we've notice that our one son, who has a number of allergies, has been a little sick than usual. We can't pinpoint the exact reason, but knowing that he is allergic to mold, must and mildew, we suspect that sleeping in the lower level might not be super helpful.

In addition, Logan is getting ready to head off to college. That will also allow us to move some of the kids around a bit so that all are more comfortable. Now do that, we need to reconfigure the bedrooms upstairs. And part of the reconfiguration requires that we build a new bed so that two of the boys can share a room. And since we can't really afford to go out and buy a brand new bedroom suit, we're building a loft bed that will fit around the current bedroom furnisher.

​Watch our short DIY vlog as we build our new loft bed.

The bed itself needed to fit over a queen-size bed frame. For flexibility, we wanted to be able to turn the queen bed so that it fit in a "L"-shape as well as "flush" under the bed. We also wanted to be able to add different accessories to the bed such as shelves for books and treasures and eventually, lighting which allow for reading and or illumination.

It didn't take us that long to construct the bed. But we did make sure to take the time to get some measurements and think through the plan. Once we knew what we wanted, the build went quick and smooth.

But not only did we get a new bed out the project, we had some quality time building the bed. Logan and Jay have worked on a number of projects together, so to have Asher helping was fun. But we think the true treasure is in having that time together and watching a project go from paper to finished project. We want to teach our guys that good, hard work leads to positive results.

Later this summer we will be painting the loft bed and adding some of the accessories as we can. All total, it took us about 6 hours to build the bed. Cost wise, we came in around $130 for materials, which we paid for in cash. It's nice to be on a budget where you can put aside some money for project like this.

There will be more DIY projects coming to the blog as we get closer and closer to the warm summer months!

​- the higham family

The first couple of weeks of 2017 have been absolutely crazy busy. Basketball, church activities, work schedules...it's all kept us moving at lightspeed. But we finally made a point to get the camera out and start vlogging again!

We have tried to vlog over the last couple of weekends, taking the camera out and getting some video, but we never finished out a weekend. That left us with two weekends of vlogs that have beginnings without endings. So we were determined to make sure we complete this weekends vlog. In fact, we might have two parts to this weekends vlog.

This weekends vlog is a little longer than usual because we want to get some video of both Nate and Aiden playing basketball. So please take a few minutes to watch this part of the weekend vlog!

Thanks for watching.

As always, we would like to invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel. And don't forget to follow us on social media!

​- the higham family

Life in the Higham House
Christmas Special - Christmas Day 2016

It's been a couple of weeks since Christmas, but I finally finished editing our Christmas vlog! So please enjoy our first, Life in the Higham House, Christmas Day Special.

Watch our Christmas Eve Vlog: https://youtu.be/UtiniBlPhQg

Thanks for watching!
If you liked today's vlog, please give us a thumbs up!
And please Subscribe!

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest!
Just search for TheHighamFamily