Some of the Sahr family members are pictured here in their new entryway and mudroom. Left to right are Kebeh, Jasmin, Fern, Christian, Brandon, Isla and Lucy, Missing are Ariel and Sawyer.

For a couple who had once been told they were unable to have children, Brandon and Jasmin Sahr, of rural Frost, eventually found themselves with six children and a seventh one on the way, exactly one year ago.

“There was some protest over bedrooms,” Brandon says. “The girls were all in one room and the boys in another, and two more were going to be needing room.”

With now seven kids, there just was not enough proper space for everyone, despite living in a pretty good-sized home in rural Faribault County.

With a wrap-around porch on two sides of the house, attached garage on another side and a septic tank on the back side, Brandon says an area for building an addition onto the house was extremely limited.

Then, Brandon and Jasmin came up with a solution. That was to turn the attached two car garage into two more bedrooms – and more.

And then, while they were at it, add a large three-car garage onto what was the current garage – soon to be a remodeled into a house addition.

“We talked to Jarod Bruellman about doing the work,” Brandon says. “He really liked our ideas and was great with planning it all out.”

Construction started around April 1 of last year, 2025. Now with April 1, 2026 approaching soon, just about everything is complete.

“April 1 is a date we remember,” Brandon adds. “It was April 1, 2017, that we bought this house and moved in.”

They had looked at the house when the Schonborn family was selling it, but another couple purchased it. That owner got a job transfer to Kansas City shortly after, so the Sahrs tried to buy it again, and eventually they were successful.

They had three children at that time, Ariel, Sawyer and Lucy. But, they had decided to adopt another child, from Liberia.

It took five years to get that accomplished, but they adopted not just Christian, but his older sister, Kebeh, as well.

At the same time Jasmin was pregnant with another child, Isla, and now recently they also added another baby, Fern to the clan as well.

Now, Ariel is 17, Sawyer is 16, Lucy is 13, Kebeh is 10, Christian is seven, Isla is three and Fern is eight months old.

The oldest, Ariel and Sawyer, are the ones who got the brand new bedrooms.

Jasmin says one of the best things about the new addition, besides the extra space, is the large wooden cabinet that she calls the lockers. It is in the new “mud room” and is the main entrance to the house.

“Each child has their own locker,” Jasmin explains. “When they come home from school the first thing they do is hang up their coats and and book bags and put it all, with their shoes in their own locker.”

Before the addition, the main door that was used to come and go into the house (besides the garage door) was into the kitchen.

“That door was sometimes blocked by a huge mound of coats, shoes, book bags and everything else that was dropped there,” Jasmin says. “Now it all is neatly put away. Every day.”

The added spacious garage is also a welcome addition to the family. So are the oversize garage doors so that their large family van can fit inside.

Another addition is a laundry area now on the main floor. With seven kids, laundry is a major operation. The new space has a double decker counter that has a laundry basket for each child – and the adults.

That, too, has been a welcome addition. Especially with a family of seven kids.

Brandon and Jasmin were married in 2006, and it was in 2011 that they moved from the Twin Cities area to Faribault County.

Brandon was from the Bricelyn area and was going to take a position as the youth director at Dell Lutheran.

“That is what brought us here,” Jasmin says. “We have a lot of Brandon’s family within an hour of our home. I was raised in Kankakee and Bourbonnais, Illinois. That is where there was a tornado recently.”

Brandon now works at Thrivent in Blue Earth and Jasmin is the owner of Cabin Coffee in Blue Earth.

“We are really happy with the way the new addition has turned out,” Brandon says. “And it has made a difference in the kids, too.”

He pointed out that they made a plan for the future when they were constructing the new area.

“The wall between the two new bedrooms can be removed in the future, if we need, to, creating one large room,” Brandon explains. “It could become a large family room, when the kids move out in the future.”

But that might be a while, and the rooms may stay bedrooms for quite some time.