I would nix the mirror. Change the window to treatments kids cannot reach (roller shades/valances worked wonderfully) Remove the closet door put a piece of wood across the bottom. Perfect toy box..no lid to fuss with/danger of banging, easy clean up. A bi-fold might work better for that space and you can then close it. Two rods since the clothes are so short would give you twice the hanging room. I agree shelves for knick knack or your use UP HIGH. Changing table to the right of the bathroom door. With two little ones in the same room maybe you don't rock for late night wake ups? If you would a glider would fit in the corner to the right of the window. A dimmer on the light switch works instead of dangerous lamps. I am not sure how much other space you have. When my three were little play space was our living room/dining room..not so much in bedrooms. I liked to keep an eye on them. So even though the room is filling up maybe you don't NEED floor space if they play elsewhere? Be sure any wall decor you hand is up high enough kids cannot reach them. I made a stuffed wall sculpture (Noah's Ark) that I attached with velcro. I could hand an animal to the baby while I changed diaper and then quick put it back on the wall when done. If you put a dresser in be sure the hardware cannot become a lift for climbing. You are living the best time of your life!!!

First and foremost, you would never want to eliminate a downspout. Not giving water an awesome way to escape from your roof edge wouldn't be helpful. If anything, it would be better to have a downspout that was not needed, or was being underused, as this causes no harm. Water spilling over the edge of an overused gutter (because it cannot escape through downspouts quickly enough) could potentially cause some "major" problems. "... the lot wasn't adequately graded to keep the water away from the sides of the house ..." In that case, the solution is to fix the inadequate grading. I doubt it was horribly inadequate so I doubt we are talking about that much. Given that your side yard is only a few feet in width, probably not more than a couple of inches difference in elevation would be necessary from the foundation to the lot line. (This is for the side yard only.) The other issue is getting water that falls at the back of the house to run from it and around to the sides, where it is carried forward by the proper side yard grading. Whether this is happening is very difficult for you to convey to me through pictures and words, especially when there are plants and things in the way in any photograph. You must just understand the concept and then be able to ascertain whether or not the proper thing is happening in real life, when you inspect the grounds first hand. Conceptually, the grade must fall away from the house in ALL DIRECTIONS, without exception. This may be nearly imperceptible to the eye, but it can be measured with a level placed perpendicular to the foundation walls. Water that runs away from the house must have a clear way to escape without being forced (by wrong grade) to return to the house. Likely, creating a path for water to escape from the house is going to be no problem at the front or both sides, since it requires little change or already exists with the natural grade. Where it could be a problem is at the back of the house, since there is a hill in the back yard running toward the house. There is an obvious potential conflict. In effect, you must create a "valley" (I'm using words that exaggerate what this would look like) between the house and the back yard hill. Water in that "valley" would run necessarily neither left nor right unless it were given some pitch in those directions. Typically, the "valley" would be highest near the center of the back of the house and lowest near the back corners of the house. This leads the water to run toward the corners. Once it arrives at the corners it is carried toward the front yard by the "valley" that exists between your yard and the neighbor's (his grade is pitched away from his house the same as your grade is from your house), and which corresponds with the side lot line. How much your yard's drainage correlates with this typical scheme is not possible for me to tell. But if you understand it, you can inspect parts of your yard and say "If rain falls at this spot, where will it run? Where is downhill from here?" The aggregate of how water would flow in all the individual spots will add up to if your yard has adequate drainage. If the concrete "trough" has an outlet -- a pipe at the bottom -- it is being used as a catch basin (drain). If it has no pipe, but just dirt in the bottom, it is being used as a retention pond (allows water to seep into the ground.) The latter would not be desirable in that location. If it is the former, the drawback is the structure itself ... its being in the way of beauty and use of the yard. If it is the latter, the drawback is that a lot of water is being slowly pumped into the soil next to your foundation. Either way, I would not want this thing in my yard. I'd want to figure out good surface drainage and then comply with it ... since doing that is not a big, bad, ugly, hugely expensive thing. (I'm speculating here, but it's based on what you've said so far.) If it's the case that your downspouts ARE emptying through underground pipe all the way to the city sidewalk, the drawback is that that's a lot of underground pipe, subject to potentially being blocked and failing right in the middle of any future storm. Yikes! What drain outlets you're seeing near the sidewalk at the face of everyone's retaining wall might just be drainage for the wall itself. All of the possibilities is not something I can ever know from afar. Someone must do sleuthing on site and make determinations about what is actually happening.

The frames are too small and too close together. If you want to fill that space with family photos then I would pick three special pictures, get three large black frames, use a large section of white matting around them, and hang them in a row on that wall. I just think the days of the gallery walls of mismatched frames is long over.

I also love the look of a daybed and had always planned on one. But then I just found a different bed I liked. Right now it is pushed against a wall on one side. And I will say Between a footboard and the wall it is a pain to change the sheets. I’m kind of thinking of moving it out from the wall a foot or so just to get back there easier. Plus toys and books fall back there and what a pain and crying fit that can be sometimes haha. Soooo, I don’t really have any advice lol. Our bed does have space for a trundle underneath and there’s a matching one I could buy if I decide to. I guess changing a daybed can’t be that much worse than changing a crib sheet, which also sucks. Mine me growing up was just a metal bed frame and a trundle frame that had springs and lifted up to regular height.