Interior Decorating: The Autism Edition

All this week I've been watching Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram fill with photos of my friends doing the January Photo A Day Challenge.


I didn't join in on the photo a day challenge myself so it has been fun to see everyone's submissions thus far.Day 1 was especially nice quite a number of my online pals rarely (if ever) post pictures of themselves and it is always nice to put a face with a name.  Day 3 was filled with many pictures of children, pets, family heirlooms, and other things we adore.  
However on Day 11 I learned something new that surprised me.  I saw bedspreads, throw pillows, decorative dust ruffles, and even chandeliers hanging above the bed.  This gave me a good chuckle because if I had taken a picture of my bed you would have seen a myriad of 15' fishing poles laying across a large gun rack on the wall above our bed.  I'm guessing that would have received some interesting second glances to say the least.
This got me thinking about my house in general and how having children with autism has shaped not just who we are as parents but how we live...as in literally "how" we make living in a house with 2 autistic kids safe and as stress-free as possible.
Currently we live in a third floor condo with approximately 900 square feet of living space which includes a balcony.  We have 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and minimal storage and closet space.  Functionally this means that anything the boys should not touch or play with has to go in our master bedroom.  This leaves our room looking like something out of TLC's reality show, Hoarders.  In our room we have stacks of boxes filled with breakable items, electronics, Mike's ham radio gear, as well as a large bookshelf and 2 dressers holding our clothing as well as the boys' items.
The boys' room itself is rather bare and that is for a very good reason.  Any furniture we put in there becomes a launching pad for Noah who loves to scale anything that sits still for more than sixty seconds and then jump off of it.  
Currently their room looks like this:

We have tried putting a simple bookshelf and toy box and the boys destroy them.  We all remember what Noah did to his bed a couple months back, right?  That was par for the course in the life of almost any item we put in their room.  In fact, they have only a handful of books because Noah loves to shred them into small pieces of confetti and then eat them.  We also found that the boys don't really play with a lot of toys.  So over the years we have dwindled our collection down to the things they will.  For Noah this means dozens and dozens of foam letters because he loves to spell out words on the floor.  For Sam that means apps for his iPad, Wii games, and music CD's.  He really isn't all that interested in playing with toys unless they run on batteries or play music.
To keep the boys safe in their room we have installed the Guardian Angel window bars.  These little beauties mean that in the summer we can open the windows but not worry about the Trouble Brother falling three floors to the ground below.   Unfortunately it also means they want to climb *ON* the top of the bars and so we had to improvise and install thin sheets of plywood between the window and the bars.  This makes their room much less attractive but a helluva lot safer.  That basically describes most homes with an autistic child.  Not very pretty, but safe; and in the end that is what really matters.
The most creative part of the boys room is the graffiti we have collected on the walls.  This is almost 100% Noah's doing and over the years it has changed from simple scribbles, to numbers, to full sentences and designs.

"The Baby Einstein Presents" we're never selling this house without some MAJOR refurbishing!

Musicians make big bucks, right?

Even Picasso had to start somewhere.  
Mike and I like to dream about buying a single family home someday.  Something with a fenced back yard where the boys can jump and play to their heart's content.  A kitchen that is big enough for both of us because we both like to roll up our sleeves and cook side by side but in a tiny kitchen it's more like attempting to waltz while holding scalding water.  We would love nothing more than to have one room as an indoor playground/ therapy room with a swing, climbing bars, and a giant papasan you hang from the ceiling.    But for now this is the stuff of dreams.  
And that is okay.
Our current home may be small, it may be crowded, it may have Crayola graffiti on the walls, and mattresses that have to be carried out into the dining room every morning to prevent jumping but it is ours and it is where all my favorite people live.
And that is enough.