Little House on the Pavement Praire

My husband and I in an effort to live within our means have moved our family into a 2 bedroom apartment. Now most of my friends know this and are supportive. I won't go into all the details of the why, when and how. But we do have four children and my husband is in construction. So we have a home office as well and that also explains the lack of funds. We basically went from 2200 square feet to 900 square feet. I will be doing a series of blogs on how you make such a small space not only functional, but organized and lovely.


I will be staring with one end of the apartment and working my way to the other end.



First we will start with the masterbath/masterbedroom. In this room I have a king size sleigh bed, two night stands and a small walk in closet. The bathroom is your typical vanity, raised, toilet and shower/tub combo. The most important motto to have in a small space is to understand is "up and under." As in wall space and underneath. We have over the door hooks on almost all doors and hooks that are screwed into the wall on a stud. Now I highly recommend over the door hooks especially with the cheaper doors because if you drill holes in them or tape things too them they are very hard to repair. Another motto to remember is to "Got to get my deposit back!"



We have mesh bags in both bathrooms for the dirty laundry. This keeps the laundry off the floor and eliminates the needs for cumbersome hampers and baskets. I do however have 2 small weaved baskets. I also installed in the bathroom one of those metal 3 rack systems people usually put in a pantry on a door or in a cabinet door for foil and wraps. I used in the bathroom for my bottles and hair care products I used to keep out on our much bigger countertop. I also have only 2 towels per member of our family and we all hang them up after our use. (We also know whose towels are whose.) You will hear me mention bins and baskets a lot. I love them. The ones I have I have had for years. They are great. I store my hairdryer and curling irons in one and store it under the cabinet. When I want to use it I pull it out when I'm done it all shoves back down neatly.



In the bedroom I have hooks, underbed clear totes and drawers. Because I love my bedroom and bed I really wanted to keep things inviting and comfortable. So thanks to the kindness of girlfriends I was able to get a new duvet cover, curtains/swags and an original painting to give it height balance and warmth for $0.00.



Now for the master closet. This is where I am truly blessed and severally lucky. We know the owners of our particular building who gave us permission to do the alterations. You will need to do these same things as well or just remember to take it down before you move and make it look exactly as you moved in. My husband, CC, is the uber carpenter. My hubby's blog



He saw all our clothes shoved into that closet with one bar and one shelf across the top and he just sighed. He could not allow that awful affliction to continue to torment he sweet wife. So I came home one day and found all the clothes on the bed and 3 bars with shelves in the closet. He looked at me and said, “Now figure out how to organize it. I need a soda."



So I bet your wandering the cost for all this. Well my cost for supplies was about 11.00 for hooks and the wall bottle storage. The pillow cases were $10.00 and the cost for the material needs for closet was about $50.00. However we were lucky to have left over material from other jobs. So overall for me the amount was $22.00. For the closet I think it too he about an hour so with material and labor I'm thinking a contractor could do it for about $100.00.




Before photos of the bathroom and bedroom and closet

The After of my master closet, bedroom and bath.