YAY for our first guest post!
Katie Kessler Santos has been kind enough to share with us her small space living with kids super storage solutions. Here is her blog post complete with some pics of her storage options to help keep everyone organized and clutter free:) If she can make everything fit in their space, it should encourage people with larger spaces to be able to fit their stuff in too!!!
I'll show pictures later of our latest IKEA storage solution as well - we realized JUST how much space we really have and are making it work wonderfully!
We have a small apartment. A VERY small in - law apartment. 900 square feet. Two bedrooms, one bath, two adults, a 2 and a 6 year-old, and all of their toys and various stuff type things. It may sound like I'm complaining, But we LOVE it here and we will not be moving anytime soon. We love our landlord/neighbors; the rent is reasonable, great schools, great yard, and a great town. I shared a room growing up with my two sisters and it made me crazy, but if I survived it: They can too. My kids will be sharing a room until we move. This decision was easy. Everything else after required a lot of thought, observation, and stress on my part.
I avoided it for as long as humanly possible. Peyton stayed in the bassinet until she was 3 months old. I did not want her in there waking up Jack when she inevitably woke up in the middle of the night or had trouble going to sleep as most 3 month olds tend to do. Jack had just started pre-school and we needed to be up at 7:45am everyday. Pete would be leaving for work or would have already left for work when Jack needed to be taken to school so Peyton would need to come with us. So Jack had to go to sleep first at about 7pm because if there's anything I have learned about Jack its that if he doesn't get 12 hours of sleep he is a giant jerk the next day (he gets that from me. I can understand that). Then Peyton would go to sleep at about 9. Jack is a SOUND sleeper, so we were still able to sleep train her (we let her cry it out. She never cried longer than 5 minutes. Jack could go for at least an hour but that's a whole other story). If she were to cry and wake him up, we would let him sleep on the couch. He thought that this was fun so who am I to tell him that it sounds crazy. This worked out well initially.
Little problems cropped up every once in a while and things needed to be adjusted. For example, When Peyton got old enough to play with Jack more, Instead of getting up and leaving his room to sit and watch shows in my bed with me (Half conscious) he would wake her up when he woke up. This is not cool at 6:30am. There's only so much parenting I can actually do at 6:30 and Peyton hadn't had enough sleep at that point. So the new rule was wake up and get out - quietly. When Jack started PM kindergarten this year, we had to have everyone adjust to a new sleeping pattern. This included putting them to bed together or in short increments to each other. We are still having trouble with this one. With him not sound asleep, and Peyton who has always enjoyed talking to herself and her dolls as she falls asleep we had the two of them laughing and playing at 9pm. This is great because they don’t seem to want to play together during the day, but bad because they still need sleep. But when we put them to bed like we used to (her way after him) he is still waking her up when he gets up because now she isn't that heavy of a sleeper (which she got from me as well). So we're trying things until we find something that works. What I have figured out is that there is very little you can control as a parent, so you just have to roll with the punches. Things change and you just have to change with them. Even if that means that there are some nights when I want to pull my hair out. There will always be the next night where I can try again and that’s really all we can do as parents anyway.
Here are some pictures of her storage solutions for her 900 square foot space! Quite inspiring if you ask me!
Cube that I got for $12 on clearance at Target (Usually $40) hold misc smaller toys, cars, dress up and baby doll accessories
Bookshelf space
Look at all the space with just the bunk beds!
The pelican (also an ikea purchase) holds extra blankets
Changing table holds stuffed animals, the bottom shelf has
two bins, one for each kid, with their shoes
The closet has 2 Ikea 5 drawer dressers: one for each kid with a little bit of hanging room on both sides. The blue cube holds the tv games and dvds that the kids like
How I fit ALL of the kids stuff into my tiny house. TV stand with child locks holds games, coloring books and crayons.
Katie Kessler Santos has been kind enough to share with us her small space living with kids super storage solutions. Here is her blog post complete with some pics of her storage options to help keep everyone organized and clutter free:) If she can make everything fit in their space, it should encourage people with larger spaces to be able to fit their stuff in too!!!
I'll show pictures later of our latest IKEA storage solution as well - we realized JUST how much space we really have and are making it work wonderfully!
We have a small apartment. A VERY small in - law apartment. 900 square feet. Two bedrooms, one bath, two adults, a 2 and a 6 year-old, and all of their toys and various stuff type things. It may sound like I'm complaining, But we LOVE it here and we will not be moving anytime soon. We love our landlord/neighbors; the rent is reasonable, great schools, great yard, and a great town. I shared a room growing up with my two sisters and it made me crazy, but if I survived it: They can too. My kids will be sharing a room until we move. This decision was easy. Everything else after required a lot of thought, observation, and stress on my part.
I avoided it for as long as humanly possible. Peyton stayed in the bassinet until she was 3 months old. I did not want her in there waking up Jack when she inevitably woke up in the middle of the night or had trouble going to sleep as most 3 month olds tend to do. Jack had just started pre-school and we needed to be up at 7:45am everyday. Pete would be leaving for work or would have already left for work when Jack needed to be taken to school so Peyton would need to come with us. So Jack had to go to sleep first at about 7pm because if there's anything I have learned about Jack its that if he doesn't get 12 hours of sleep he is a giant jerk the next day (he gets that from me. I can understand that). Then Peyton would go to sleep at about 9. Jack is a SOUND sleeper, so we were still able to sleep train her (we let her cry it out. She never cried longer than 5 minutes. Jack could go for at least an hour but that's a whole other story). If she were to cry and wake him up, we would let him sleep on the couch. He thought that this was fun so who am I to tell him that it sounds crazy. This worked out well initially.
Little problems cropped up every once in a while and things needed to be adjusted. For example, When Peyton got old enough to play with Jack more, Instead of getting up and leaving his room to sit and watch shows in my bed with me (Half conscious) he would wake her up when he woke up. This is not cool at 6:30am. There's only so much parenting I can actually do at 6:30 and Peyton hadn't had enough sleep at that point. So the new rule was wake up and get out - quietly. When Jack started PM kindergarten this year, we had to have everyone adjust to a new sleeping pattern. This included putting them to bed together or in short increments to each other. We are still having trouble with this one. With him not sound asleep, and Peyton who has always enjoyed talking to herself and her dolls as she falls asleep we had the two of them laughing and playing at 9pm. This is great because they don’t seem to want to play together during the day, but bad because they still need sleep. But when we put them to bed like we used to (her way after him) he is still waking her up when he gets up because now she isn't that heavy of a sleeper (which she got from me as well). So we're trying things until we find something that works. What I have figured out is that there is very little you can control as a parent, so you just have to roll with the punches. Things change and you just have to change with them. Even if that means that there are some nights when I want to pull my hair out. There will always be the next night where I can try again and that’s really all we can do as parents anyway.
Here are some pictures of her storage solutions for her 900 square foot space! Quite inspiring if you ask me!
Cube that I got for $12 on clearance at Target (Usually $40) hold misc smaller toys, cars, dress up and baby doll accessories
Bookshelf space
Look at all the space with just the bunk beds!
The pelican (also an ikea purchase) holds extra blankets
Changing table holds stuffed animals, the bottom shelf has
two bins, one for each kid, with their shoes
Since there is no front closet, the kids coats, back packs and winter items hang behind their door
The closet has 2 Ikea 5 drawer dressers: one for each kid with a little bit of hanging room on both sides. The blue cube holds the tv games and dvds that the kids like
How I fit ALL of the kids stuff into my tiny house. TV stand with child locks holds games, coloring books and crayons.
I love the Pelican thingy - how many blankets can you fit in it??? I might have to go pick one up:)
ReplyDeleteThere are about 5 fluffy receiving type blankets in there. Peyton still insists on sleeping with them instead of the fabulous comforter I got her so they're still out! Thanks for the publish! Haven't written since college! LOL
ReplyDelete