By Rochelle Lloyd

988 square feet.
That’s all we had.

We had moved into our little home with two young boys and a strong assurance that God had led us there. It wasn’t meant to be forever—we figured five years, max. We knew our growing family would eventually outgrow the three-bedroom, one-bath layout.

But for that season, it was ours. And we loved it.

The backyard was big enough for our boys to explore freely, without me needing to worry about their safety or the unpredictability of public places. They could just be boys—and I could be their mom. We had fruit trees, space for a garden, and a quiet corner of the world where we could grow—mentally, physically, and spiritually—in gratitude for the blessings we had been given.

Fast forward thirteen years.

We were still in that same little house.

What started as two little boys had grown into five energetic children—four boys, and one girl right in the middle. To say we were bursting at the seams would be an understatement. Privacy was limited to the bathroom, and even that was constantly in demand. Personal space? A luxury we didn’t have. Storage, toys, clothes—everything became a challenge. (Thank heaven for that big backyard.)

And now our daughter was getting older. As the only girl, it was time for her to stop sharing a room with her younger brothers.

To make it work, my husband and I moved into one of the smaller bedrooms, freeing up the larger room for our four boys. We fit two sets of bunk beds in there—it was tight, but doable. Our daughter finally had her own room, but the personal space issue didn’t magically disappear. Neither did the bathroom dilemma. And storage was still a daily puzzle.

There wasn’t even space to shove junk under the beds—we needed that area for our seasonal canning. We got really good at scaling back, only storing what was necessary for the future. And although we had little bursts of inspiration here and there, I often found myself at my wits’ end, drowning in the daily chaos.

Something had to change.

I looked at every angle:
Should we build a second story?
Convert the single-car garage?
Move? But where?
Build out the side? Raise the house and add a basement?

We even joked we could build a lodge with the size of our yard. I kept circling back to converting the garage. It was mostly a catch-all for storage—stuff we didn’t want to deal with. But every time I tried to make a plan, nothing came together. I’d shelve the idea, pull it back out, only to shelve it again. Meanwhile, the chaos inside the house wasn’t going anywhere.

Then one day, my mother-in-law came to visit.
Now, for some, that might be a cue to panic—but I adore her. She’s thoughtful, insightful, and had raised seven kids on her own. She knew a thing or two about tight spaces and tight budgets.

I was venting—again—about our situation, unsure what to do next.

She said, “Well, let’s sit down and consider the garage.”

I sighed, “I’ve already looked at that about a dozen times. Nothing seems to work.”

She smiled and said, “Well, let’s try again.”

So—maybe a little reluctantly—we sat down and started to look at it again. Same garage. Same dimensions. Same needs.

But this time… the ideas flowed. In a short amount of time, we had a workable design that would solve multiple problems for our family.

So what changed?
I had.

That day, I made space—not just in my schedule, but in my spirit—to receive new ideas. I stopped white-knuckling the problem and tuned into a higher frequency. I aligned myself with Him. And when I did, the inspiration was already there, waiting.

He had been sending it all along—I just hadn’t been in a place to hear it.

So what happened next?
We scheduled a work weekend with extended family. In just a few days, that garage became a new bedroom for two of our boys—and a pantry/storage space for the family.

Yes, I still lived in a little house.
But I now had the pantry every woman dreams of.

Life was still full and sometimes chaotic. But it was manageable. Peace had replaced panic. And it wasn’t until much later that I realized:

I had followed one of God’s laws for success.

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