Small Space Living- Living Room Closet

I know, a living room closet sounds strange, but if you live in a small space it totally makes sense. Our apartment is so small that basically the office, kitchen, pantry, living room, craft room are all in the same place. With such limited space I've had to get creative with storage and decor.

moving day! august 2011

Last week I showed you my biggest trick when I went through the bedroom closet- purging. Today I went to go drop off my massive box of donations at the Goodwill and of course go look through the lovely aisles of treasures. Don't worry, I actually had a to-get list to keep me from buying back a bunch of stuff to replace what i had just purged.

I'll come back to Goodwill in a minute, but lets go back to over a year ago when we first moved into this apartment. I LOVE this little home. It's so perfect for two newlyweds! It's just not easy on the storage.

Technically the apartment only has one closet-the walkin in the bedroom- but with that all full of clothes and linens we needed somewhere else to store things.

The above pic is from the day we moved in. See the back wall in that picture? There is a small space, about the width of a desk, between the fireplace and the outer wall. The spot was meant for a table and a desk-but I envisioned more storage. At first I just piled things in that corner while we moved in and i contemplated what in the world to do with that spot. Fill it with book shelves? No, I didn't want to SEE all my stuff-gotta make it cute! Install closet doors? no that takes up too much space.

you can see the space on the right of this picture. it's the perfect size for a closet.

Then it hit me. A quick trip to Target, a pretty tension rod and two long curtains later I had a lovely closet.

We hide a midsized fridge in this closet and store all kinds of things. The pile started to look something like this...

Every time I needed something out of the pile I either had to completely take apart the tower or risk death by landslide. So i decided it was time to build or buy a shelf to organize all that stuff.
I was at the Goodwill the other day (surprise surprise) and spotted a shelf that seemed perfect. I went home and grabbed my measuring tape and went back later in the day to see if it would fit. IT DID! and it had just been marked down to $20! (Apparently they mark down furniture Friday mornings to keep inventory moving.) I was so excited I bought it up and (with a little help from my neighbor) muscled it into the closet to surprise the hubby with!

My next project is actually organizing the closet so I know where everything is, maybe add some cute baskets, bu at least I don't risk being buried alive anymore!

Do you need more storage space? Look around. There might be a perfect little nook to curtain off and make into a sweet little closet.

Stay tuned for more Small Space Living Ideas, but until then check out past week's posts.

Purging

I thrift a lot. I'm a sucker for great deals-clearance signs draw me in like a magnet. I also love change, at least changing my decor, and I do it every month if not more often. So I am frequently bringing new things into my home to fit my lastest decorating craze.

The problem is, I have a very small home and things fill up fast. I don't have very many walls to work with so when I want to change one thing everything changes...does that make sense?

For instance, my wall above the dinning table is the biggest wall in the apartment and for the last year it has been a slowly evolving gallery wall (I love that style!)...

 and although I still love how it looked I got bored and wanted more color and texture on the wall- so I added burlap and took most of the frames down. So now I have a BUNCH of frames I'm not using, just storing under the bed. : /

Besides frames and prettys for my shelf and mantle...

See more autumn decoration HERE

...I also love finding good deals on clothes! So the clutter and stuff start piling up everywhere and it's a pain to take care of and a stress to find places to store it. So my Small Space Living tip this week is:

 Purge it!

Yes, that's right, get rid of stuff. Grab a box or a couple of bags and pick a closet. I chose to work on my bedroom closet. It is a small walk-in closet and it stores everything from clothes to cleaning supplies-and it gets cluttered fast what with dirty laundry that missed the hamper, tossed in shoes and thrift store finds. Because it was laundry day (and most of our clothes were heading for the washer) it was the perfect day to clean out and organize this mess...

 ick, I can't believe I'm showing you all this. So embarrassing!

There wasn't really a good place to start, so I just sat down in the middle of it with my "goodwill," "hand-me-down" and "sell" bags handy and went to it.

Tip: if you haven't used it or worn in in the last year, get rid of it! Someone else will love it and use it more! Besides-you live in a small space remember? You don't have room to keep things you don't use!

Now my closet is clean, organized and happy. I even vacuumed in there for good measure.

The closet is a great place to hang posters that don't match the decor but you cant get rig of.

Purses neatly hung-I got ride of a few!

things are neatly hung and folded. I added boxes and baskets to my hanging organizer (that use to be overly stuffed with who  knows what!) to hold hats, gloves and laundry supplies

Another tip: hang your clothes in the order you wear them. Mark a hanger with tape and hang the cloths you just wore (and washed) in the on the right side of the hanger, after a year the clothes you haven't worn at all will be on the left. Easy to spot, grab and donate!

 

I ended up with a LARGE box full of donations for the Goodwill-purses, shirts, old Christmas stuff, old decorations, etc. A bag full of goodies (clothes and fancys) for my younger sisters, and a small pile of things to sell at Plato's Closet (a great clothing shop where you can sell your lightly used clothing and buy name-brand-used clothing for cheap!)

Next on the chopping block-our living room closet, under the bed, and the kitchen cabinets.

But to see more of this Small Space Living series, click on the menu bar above or go HERE.

How to make a Sunburst Mirror

I wanted to make a sunburst mirror but I wanted to make it cheap and do something with scrapbook paper (because I love it and I have a lot of paper). This project cost me about $4.

Here's what you need:
- a round mirror. In my case I used a shinny platter I found at a thrift store.
-Scrapbook paper in whatever colors you want, the amount will depend on how big your mirror is. i used 8 pieces.
-hot glue
-blue painters tape
-pop can tab (to hang it with.

Now make enough of those pieces to fit around your mirror.

Here I just laid it out trying to decide on which papers I wanted where.

Another tip, the pieces sorta fit together, you can kinda see how they are tucked inside each other in this pic, this helps make it a bit more sturdy.

Now that you have it like you like it, use your blue tape to secure the pieces together.

Then get out your hot glue and go crazy! I picked up my paper and applied glue directly to the mirror and then laid them down on to the hot glue. After that I went back and added glue to weaker spots.
I glued my papers to the front of the mirror but you could do it on the back-just play around (before you glue) and see what you like.

Remove your blue tape and flip it over- now you need to hang it!

 Pop a pop can tab off a soda can and  place it on the back of your mirror and glue one side of it like this:

Now it's finished and ready to hang!

If you wanted to make a more traditional sunburst mirror look- buy metallic or sparkly scrapbook paper all in the same color- i may have to make one of those too! :)

Make Small Spaces Feel Bigger

One thing I've found about small spaces is that they can easily become cluttered or displays that look nice in larger homes just look messy in my small one.

There are a couple things I think that help the space feel larger and more open:

• Letting in as much natural light as possible. I leave my blinds up as much as possible. Being able to see outside makes the room feel larger. For this reason I also don't have big bulky curtains-even though I love how they look!

this photo is from back in July, the room arrangement has changed! for one thing the papasan chair is now in the bedroom making the living room feel bigger.

• Keep larger pieces of furniture in neutral colors. My couch takes up a full wall (the longest wall) in our living room space, the cream color makes it blend with the wall a little bit and allows the eye to travel further without being weighted down by a large dark object. I also painted my book shelf and dining table chairs white. Keeping larger pieces neutral also allows for more ease in redecorating. It's like having a clean slate to decorate with pillows, pictures and all those things that you really want to focus on- grandma's vase or a favorite figurine.

this picture was taken the week we moved in but you can still see how even though the couch takes up most of the living room, and the picture for that matter, it's color makes it not distracting.

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• Keep your surfaces clean. With small spaces we inevitably have to use a lot of counter space just for appliances but by keeping the unnecessary things stowed away, and dirty dishes out of sight, things feel much more open. Also, try stacking what you can to open up more space- I stack my toaster oven on top of my microwave using a board cut down to the right size. I would like to eventually paint that board white or black to make it blend in better.
• Hide things! I LOVE BASKETS and other such storage containers!You can see some of them in this picture on my shelves. They corral food, movies and other things we use frequently and need in easy to get to places but that we don't want to see. 

This picture was taken in July if you can't tell from the chalkboard. :)

 See more of this series here.