Small Spaces Series Follow up

Here is my blog post from our family blog where we keep everyone posted on what is going on with our daughter and soon enough - our son. It's our re-make or our apartment in order to hold more things and be more organized - similar to Katie's post about making small spaces work with kids.

Hope some of the info is helpful or entertaining or inspiring!!


Damn you Ikea. We had planned out a new set up for our living room only to realize that the color of the bookshelf we were planning the new set up around had been discontinued.
I even took a solo trip to Ikea to do a re-con mission to pick out doors and things for our bookshelves and to choose different options for Dave to go back later to make final selection and purchase.

So, we sat down at the computer and started looking all over again to try to figure out what kind of storage solution we were going to use for the new desk/play area.

Then Dave bravely went out to Ikea alone to make our purchase.

A crap load of money and lots of boxes later, Dave has assembled our new storage units and Poang chair for the living room. (I wasn't allowed to build anything... and if you know me, you know I love building Ikea stuff!!!)







I had been looking for the perfect solution for a desk as I felt my desk was super tiny and my computer is super big - so I wanted to be able to put more distance between myself and the monitor. With the shape and design of our entire apartment, we found out that no corner desks that Ikea made would work - so I was researching online and found someone who rigged a corner desk for their Mac - so I did the same thing and am crazy happy with it! I used a side table that we had next to the couch to put my monitor on and then put my existing desk in front of that. So I have the entire desk for all my stuff... It is currently set up with everything I typically use/do in a day. (including brother baby's home from the hospital Hat that I just finished and my coupon stash from todays' paper) And I can put the keyboard far enough on the desk that Katie can't touch it, which was also important to me.



We got 2 Expedit book cases - a 4*4 and a 2*4. What I really wanted was a 4*5 but of course, Ikea doesn't make one - so we had to split it this way. Dave also picked out these plastic bins for putting stuff in and at first we thought having 2 colors would be nice, but I don't like it... so I think I'm gonna stick with the clear. I also don't like that you can see through them because it looks messy, so I took some scrapping paper and put it in the front of the bins and now they look way better and hold a TON OF STUFF!!










Before and After Pictures of the play space turned office space.
Now, we have tons of organizing still to do but everything fits and I have to go buy some canvas totes to put in it because I think I might like the way that looks better. These things now hold the contents of a large 3 drawer sterilite unit (yarn) a small 3 drawer sterilite unit (katies cars/trucks/trains/play food) An entire 5 shelf bookshelf and some other stuff that we had in various places!! So, this nester is happy for now!




We also added a chair in the living room that I will hopefully be using for nursing once this soccer player in my belly gets here. We didn't have the heart to take Katie's chair out of her room because she likes it so much and we sit in it every night to read to her - so we got a Poang Chair from Ikea to add to the living room




We also cleaned out closets again and got rid of some old kitchen stuff and clothes and plain old crap that we have had in the house forever and have not used. It feels good.
Freecycle is my new best friend - you post the stuff you want to give away versus throw out and someone who needs it picks it up outside your house! We have donated dishes, mugs, and storage units and I'm sure I will find some of Katie's old clothes to give someone too.


Katie's participation for the day was helping to organize the baskets and then she took a break and sat on her Thomas Train and looked up Thomas videos on You tube on "my HI-POD" as she calls it... she's holding it here.

Next weekend we are going to go through our bedroom closets and up in the attic. We also want to take down the HIDEOUS and broken crappy vertical blinds in the bedroom and maybe the living room (cost dependent) and put up curtains. If we end up switching rooms with the kids, it's a MUST for our bedroom so we figure we might as well just do it now as we are leaning towards making the switch once little man comes home and is sleeping at least a little at night - so that we don't torture our friends downstairs with a crying newborn right above their heads. So, we are not finished, but we have done a lot of the heavy lifting so to speak. There is still TONS more money to spend and lots of other stuff to get to get ready - but we love our place now, so it's all worth it:)

Happy Sunday Night!