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Small Spaces: Mini Pantry

When you have a small space, you find a way to fill every nook and cranny. With the quest to find more usable space in the kitchen, we found another little nook that could be utilized. You may remember from our floor plan that there is a door in the kitchen that leads to the stairs to go to the basement. The door opens to a very small landing at the top and at first glance, it seemed too small to be usable for anything. But I was not put off! I knew I could squeeze something in that space!

At first, all we had there was two bowls for our cat. Don’t you just love how she has to make her way into photos?! I guess she’s just wondering what I’m so interested in and has to see for herself :)

After measuring the space, I realized shallow shelves would fit just perfectly there. We had about 10 inches from where the door swung open to the wall and so I bought 7″ x 24″ shelves at Ikea and they were perfect! I was so glad I didn’t have to do any trimming whatsoever!

I could have added one more shelf close to the floor but I had visions of our cat knocking everything off and watching as the items made their way down the flight of stairs. To be on the safe side, I just went with four shelves :)

And then the fun part, I got to fill them up with stuff! I mostly have baking items in here like flour and sugar and, of course, the cat food for our little buddy.

All usable space, is good space :) And the cat made her way into another photo…

The good thing is that I can reach all of the items on the shelves except for the top row. But the top row is mainly small appliances that we don’t use often and then I just get a stool.

Another small space utilized!! Now I’m on the hunt for more…

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Tagged: Club House, DIY, Small Spaces

Small Spaces: Hidden Jewelry

With having a small house now, I find that I am trying to use what storage we have to every last inch. Every closet, shelf, and cupboard are planned to maximize the space and be useful and functional. Cute is a nice factor also :) Not only am I trying to use the storage that is already in place, but I’m also trying to add more storage in creative ways. One thing I’m not trying to do, is cram a 2100 square foot house into an 800 square foot house. That would be completely crazy. When we moved I got rid of over half of our stuff. It was a wonderful thing, no joke. So to keep from getting right back to where we started, I limit what we bring into the house and I try not to buy as much :) But I digress… back to storage. Even though we got rid of stuff, we still have stuff. And that stuff has to go somewhere. My jewelry was one thing I wasn’t sure where I was going to put it. Until I got a brilliant idea :)

I knew that for me to put on jewelry most every day (which is my goal), it had to be accessible and I had to be able to see it all. Previously, I used a jewelry box and a couple of different wall organizers. When we moved, I ditched the jewelry box because I no longer had a place to put it and decided to go in a different direction. I wanted something that could hold all of my jewelry in the same place.

We have this little space in our bedroom that was dead space. It was a tiny space but still, space. In a small house, every space, no matter how big, needs to be put to work. This is the space I’m talking about:

See, I told you this floor plan would come in handy :)

When you open the door to our bedroom, you are faced with a blank half wall that is the end of the closet. A full length mirror was on the list of wants for our bedroom and this blank space was the perfect spot for one. I have always wanted a full length mirror and in all of our 13 years of marriage, never had one. In our last house, I resorted to stand on the toilet to see a full length version of myself in the mirror that was over the sink. In this bathroom, that wouldn’t work since the sink isn’t across from the commode. And so, I found a mirror:

So, what does the full length mirror have to do with my jewelry space? Well, it’s very tricky, I bet you haven’t figured it out yet :)

My mirror is on a hinge! Brilliant, right?!

I got the idea for this and figured we would have to make the mirror ourselves. But then, I was at Ikea, and I found a mirror that already came with hinges so that if you bought 3 of them, it becomes a three way mirror by turning the outside ones. It was perfect for my plan because it was exactly the look I was going for and it had the ability to open. I just added a magnetic catch so it would latch and hung it on the wall. Easy peasy!!

Next, I used a level and tape measure to mark spots on the wall and then drilled pilot holes for the little metal cup hooks. Then I simply screwed the cup hooks into my pilot holes.

Actually, I originally was reluctant to drill that many holes into the wall. So first, I purchased a ton of sticky wall hooks and they worked great… for about a week. And then, they just started to fall off, one by one. And it always seemed to happen in the middle of the night. My necklaces would come crashing down. So I had to give in and drill holes in the wall. But now that it’s done, I’m happier with it. The cup hooks are smaller and I can add more if I want to. It all worked out in the end :)

I actually drilled a bunch of extra holes so that in the future as I add more jewelry, I can just screw another hook into the wall. Really, it resembles a peg board.

My new jewelry space holds all of my jewelry except for a couple of bracelets that are too thick to fit behind the 2″ space behind the mirror. Not too shabby.

So, pretty awesome, right? A full length mirror and a jewelry closet. I love it if you can’t tell :) How’s that for creative storage?!

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Tagged: DIY, Small Spaces